Attraction Source Forum

Got to ride Ghost Train this weekend, and was pleasantly surprised by the changes, with actors present again. Some spoilers, as things have changed inside again.

Spoiler

Actors now fill the same route between trains that was used last year, with infected and station staff trying to guide you through them to get to another train. It feels like a decent quality, albeit very short, Fright Night maze section now. The shadow effect scene remains for some reason, which unless you're within the first 10 people, you will miss.

There were some slight additions to the effects used within the ride since the last time I rode it. Although, given the ride's reliably in previous years, I'm unable to say precisely when these effects were added.

Spoiler

Fans now work far better on the train, matching things going on far better. Their use when a window is broken and again when the train moves with the broken window, subtle but good.

Reliability seemed far better than last weekend. I didn't see it closed at all during 12-3:30, when I left the park. A bit sad that we've had to class this as an achievement for this ride, but there we are.

For me, yesterday was my best run through of the ride, although I am aware at least one person on my train had a VR issue. Staff were fantastic and really in character throughout. The pre-train batching member of staff certainly creeped out a fair few people with his performance, plus watch for him occasionally coming out and staring at the queue.

I hope that they have finally got to a point where they can reliably run this ride and give a good experience consistently.

I rode Derren Brown's ghost train for the first time yesterday after being spited by it in the past and I can say... That was disappointing! Yeah it was good but a few things spoiled it for me, such as screaming kids pushing and shoving in the underground station section which ruined the atmosphere, and the first VR scene my headset would occasionally stop moving and i'd just see a movie without the 360 degree movement which obviously made it far less immersive. Second VR section was brilliant and so was the "shop". 

Ghost Train was running with a 30-60 minute queue yesterday, more often than not closer to 30 minutes. A little lower than I would have expected, given rollercoaster queues were 50-60 minutes throughout the park. So I decided to ride it again this weekend.

On the positive, this is the first time on DBGT and I believe within any Thorpe Park scare attraction, that they actually managed to make me jump.

On the negative, things felt less well oiled than last weekend. It appeared there were fewer actors and unlike last weekend I felt a less overall creepy vibe from staff as a whole. On the technical side, my VR tracking was breaking ever so slightly as the ride progressed, with it dumping me out into the Vive default screen for a couple of short periods.

It's still certainly better than last year though.

At this point, anything is better than last year (which proved rightly so at the TTSP event last year). I have a lot of love for this ride, I hope the ride receives the work it needs to just make it stable. It's a great ride when it works, but when it doesn't and you've waited ages in the queue for it, it certainly feels like a punch to the gut.

It has lost its charm for me. I can easily miss it out now when I visit, but I will give it a go on my first visit this season. Hopefully, it will be tweaked as they settle in!

Unsure whether to do this or not. I mean, it will probably be my only visit to Thorpe for two or three years, but at the same time, I’m not a fan of being scared and I’d much rather ride some coasters.

It is worth doing if you've not been on it before, but if you have then I'd say focus on the coasters!

Had a ride yesterday and it was probably the worst I've had on it!

Reliability with the entire system was what was missing. The attraction opened about an hour later than scheduled, and that showed inside.
First little issue was the lack of fog in the preshow- there was a teeny little trickle, but it would be un-noticable if you weren't looking/waiting for it.
Holding room came and it's a shame to see the actor (or really enthusiastic host) wasn't there, but the real issue was how long we were in there. We waited over 5mins with no communication to say there was a hold up- so much that someone in our group used the time to do their Duolingo lesson!
First VR had a few small niggles with the film cutting out, but at least they solved the issue with the actors audio (which is ironic, but more on that later).
Live action section has had a little change with two actors wandering about Fright Nights style- but the redesign really hasn't been designed for that as we saw one of them resetting. 
Second VR is where we encountered the biggest issues. Almost everyone had an issue with the audio repeatedly cutting out from anywhere between 1-20 seconds, and sometimes when it came on it wasn't synched up.

Spoiler

And the final scene had a bit of an issue as well, with the show not starting for a few minutes- but the issue here, like with the holding room earlier on, was that there was no communication to guests during the hold-up! Just a simple "we're having a few techincal issues" would suffice, just so that guests don't feel forgotten about.

It's such a shame to see that the ride still has these issues (likely because of how much tech there is, and that if one thing goes wrong everything suffers), but what's sadder is that these issues aren't going to go away. 

I too rode DBGT at the weekend, and I was far from impressed with it.

To begin with, once the group in was in was batches into one of the two holding areas, we must have waited at least 20 minutes before moving through to the pre show room. That passed largely without incident (although the smoke effect at the end was laughable) but then the issues really started.

Unlike Morgan, my group did have a member of staff to greet us at the top of the stairs, but instead of being dressed in the usual DBGT uniform, he was just in the standard blue Thorpe uniform. In fairness to him, he did deliver the script (swaying hand motion included) but he did so with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

Once on the train, my journey began well enough but I soon encountered severe audio issues, with the sound glitching and, at times, going completely silent. It also went out of sync, which meant once the train stopped at the end of the first VR section, my audio track was still playing.

The “live action” scene was ok, with a couple of actors giving some scares to the more nervous people in the group, but for me it still feels empty.

The second VR section was just terrible. My headset wasn’t in focus, and the audio issues that I experienced in the first section were again present, but this time during the whole section. At points, the glitching of the audio was that bad that I considered slightly removing my headset just to give my ears a rest, and once again it went out of sync to the point where once the train stopped, my audio track was about 15 seconds behind.

There wasn’t any form of delay with the “shop”, but during the demon scares, you could clearly see the hands of the person controlling the costume holding the arms, which did ruin the effect somewhat.

All in all, a very disappointing run through. I do feel slightly sorry for Thorpe in that their biggest single investment has turned out to be such a failure, but hopefully lessons have been learned which will prevent Merlin making the same mistake in the future.

It does seem to have gone down hill further since opening. I did two rides last weekend and in the first there were only 2 actors in the entire attraction, maybe 3 on the second. Whilst the second VR section had dual audio running, so as it was coming to the ending countdown I could also faintly hear the "I want to get off!" filler section also playing.

In terms of actors you should expect, they are only stationed in the section between the first and second VR scenes and at the very end. On a good day there should be 5 or 6 of them across these roles. All other staff are attractions staff, some of whom are very good at delivering the pre-train holding area speech and ensuring an overall creepiness to the ride. My guess is that if they're wearing standard Thorpe uniform, then they've been pulled off something else and told to give the speech.

DBGT has proven severely ineffective for Thorpe, backfiring massively on what had been hoped, it surely must be regarded as a failure. I rode it in 2016 & 2017 and from reviews it seems the ride has been filled with issues since. Whilst being innovative, it seems it has been made far too early for its own good.

In 2016 the ride had severe delays causing negative guest feedback, in 2017 money was spent to revamp the ride through operating it as intended. In 2018 a maze was added also which devalued the experience. The ride is always suffering from delays or VR issues and has an awful capacity of roughly 720 people per hour which leads to large queues. This surely can not continue as £30 million has been spent on this. How can it be saved/spared from premature closure due to consistent issues and staffing costs. Could it be turned into a dungeon or another experience?

I don’t think they will have a Dungeon, because the London Dungeon is nearby.

So Ghost Train was an interesting experience today.

After being held at batching for slightly longer than normal, the pre-show was started when only 8 people had entered the room. So people were still entering long after the lights had turned off and the show well underway.

On the first train, for some reason the normal earpiece radios weren't being used by staff, just regular handheld radios, so all I could hear was the staff radios going off for most of this section.

Central scene, just a single - albeit very good - actor. I spotted a fair number of people looking confused as to what that whole section was about.

Second train, the two VR headsets I tried were broken. The first because the headset material had fallen apart and was blocking the lense and unable to be moved out of the way. The second, one lense was just broken. When I left, a large number of the headsets looked in really bad condition, with a lot of the wipe clean material that comes into contact with your face damaged or removed.

Post ride scene, none of the screens were working, one just playing the TV manufacturer "no signal" message the entire time (not the message that appears when this scene starts). The projector was off when I looked, but it may have been I looked after it had finished, but I seem to remember it should stay on until everyone has left. And the saddest part, the monster is no more, just a random coughing and flailing actor, with the monster sound effect playing.

Finally, the shop has had another redesign.



I began the year with such hope for Ghost Train this year, but today was definitely my worst ever experience. To me, it's starting to sadly feel run down.

Reading through that was really disappointing, I have only been on it twice and thoroughly enjoyed it. I skipped it the last time I went because it was closed so I was looking forward to getting back on it. I'm going to Thorpe Park in a bit less than a month so I may end up skipping it again. It's a shame because when it's well maintained and functioning it's a really good experience.

Right so demon still missing in shop had the ole flailing actor instead (to be fair he did do an alright job and everyone seemed quite scared.) I think this ride needs another overlay, how expensive would it be to make new VR sections? change the shop up and the actor speils and the attraction feels a little more fresh again.

KaiPhillips wrote:I think this ride needs another overlay, how expensive would it be to make new VR sections?

Long answer short: Very Expensive.
VR design involves 360 3D sculpting, animation, audio design plus a lot more. Not a simple process and something I highly doubt merlin would invest in again.

Does anyone know why the Demon has disapeared? This is called "Rise of the Demon", not "Return of the Chav". Problem with the costume? 

A shame. To be honest, I never knew it was a costume, I always assumed it was a animatronic. It seems so bizarre that it's gone though. 

I would have to assume that the costume has broken in some way. There were at least 2 costumes, but they took a fair amount of abuse from the actors performances, and the rubbery material is likely not easily repairable.