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Thorpe Park | Hyperia | Mack Hyper Coaster | 2024

So when I found out Hyperia was opening today, I changed my booking from Chessington to Thorpe and took the long trek to the park from Alton Towers via the train.

I managed to get about 3 rides in waiting about an hour each time.

The ride is a little on the short side, but the layout packs a pretty decent punch. My favorite elements happen to be the first drop, which catches you off guard, the inverted stall and the outer banked turn. There is a strong shake at the bottom of some of the drops. It doesn't really hurt the ride that much, but it's noticeable. Hopefully the ride ages pretty well. The ride is a bit on the shorter side. It would've benefitted from a few more elements to help tie it together better. Ops at Hyperia were on point.

The rest of the park was pretty busy too. I did notice the park likes to underestimate wait times based on the 30-40 min wait I did for Swarm (ride was posting 25 min). I ended up getting 3 rides on Hyperia, one on Swarm and one on Stealth. I was hoping to get Inferno as well, but the ride was down most of the afternoon. Spotty operations aside, the rest of the park is just as nice as I remember. Unfortunately my previous visit really spoiled me because I went in early May and the rainy weather kept everyone at bay so I walked onto everything.
 
Dan Nguyen said:
So when I found out Hyperia was opening today, I changed my booking from Chessington to Thorpe and took the long trek to the park from Alton Towers via the train.

I managed to get about 3 rides in waiting about an hour each time.

The ride is a little on the short side, but the layout packs a pretty decent punch. My favorite elements happen to be the first drop, which catches you off guard, the inverted stall and the outer banked turn. There is a strong shake at the bottom of some of the drops. It doesn't really hurt the ride that much, but it's noticeable. Hopefully the ride ages pretty well. The ride is a bit on the shorter side. It would've benefitted from a few more elements to help tie it together better. Ops at Hyperia were on point.

The rest of the park was pretty busy too. I did notice the park likes to underestimate wait times based on the 30-40 min wait I did for Swarm (ride was posting 25 min). I ended up getting 3 rides on Hyperia, one on Swarm and one on Stealth. I was hoping to get Inferno as well, but the ride was down most of the afternoon. Spotty operations aside, the rest of the park is just as nice as I remember. Unfortunately my previous visit really spoiled me because I went in early May and the rainy weather kept everyone at bay so I walked onto everything.
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I went on Wednesday. Had it booked for ages so Hyperia re-opening that day was amazing luck. We arrived 35 minutes before the park opened, got into the Hyperia queue, and waited about 90 minutes. I brought a friend to Thorpe for the first time; he is hard to please but he was raving about this ride.

I agree, I can't get over the length of it and I really wish I could. The ride itself is amazing and world class, and we (UK) are so lucky to have it. On one hand, some hypers, like Mako in Sea World Orlando, are absolutely amazing but the final few bits are sort of filler elements designed to get you back to the station and you're sitting there not feeling much for the final 15 seconds. With Hyperia, every element contributes something and so the ride doesn't feel like it's dragging on. On the other hand, you've queued all this time, it is seemingly the new headline attraction, you are going at such a speed when you hit those splashdown brakes, and you are slightly disappointed that it's already over. With that speed before the splashdown, you could probably still have had another hill or two, a helix, to capitalise on that speed and excitement, taking advantage of the space beneath the overbanked inverted turn and over the mini-lake. It's over in such a short time. I figure they were already maxing out their budget.

Thorpe Park team, if you're reading this, love the ride. For the next big coaster investment, can we make sure it's a longer ride please? To balance out the coaster selection.

I got on all the major coasters (without fast track). I had the opposite situation with Swarm; advertised at 50 minutes, got on it in 25! Walking Dead was closed. My friend seemed annoyed by that (his first time at Thorpe and he likes the show) but I assured him he isn't missing out on much (no offence).

Ride Ops were working very efficiently, I noticed. Well oiled machine. I feel so bad for the Colossus ride ops, pushing and pulling those old stiff restraints. Good upper body workout though, I'm sure.

We had a great time. It was my friend's first time at Thorpe, and his first time at Alton 2-3 years ago. He actually said he preferred Thorpe over Alton. Maybe with Hyperia, you'll hear people say that more often. Come on Alton, now Thorpe has delivered Hyperia, it's your turn to return serve! *cough* cross valley woodie perhaps? I know I'm dreaming.
 
spicy said:
Oh dear.

What a disaster this coaster is having.
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It’s turning into a bit of a PR disaster, so many poorly educated members of the public commenting with things like “the coaster isn’t ready, it’s clearly dangerous” yadda yadda yadda… :/

I feel so bad for them, it’s still in ‘fairly normal issues for a new coaster’ territory at the moment, but because of the scale of the thing, the negative publicity from it is in overdrive.
 
Was there today. It opened late (about 10.50), ran a couple of times, had to do a couple more test runs, then ran again. It closed again just after 12, with a train stuck at the top of the lift hill. Was about an hour before they were able to send that train again, with the queue line cleared and the announcement that it is now testing for the rest of the day.

With current testing, they are purposefully sending the trains so that they stop atop of the lift waiting for the block to clear. I've never seen a ride test like that, so it's curious.

I have to say, in-queue communication is lacking a bit. They seem dead against doing live announcements / having staff communicate in person, instead going for a pre-recorded "Hyperia is experiencing a technical delay" message, which plays every 10-15 minutes it seems.

Another thing I've noticed with current operations is they seem dead against batching in any other way that isn't batching row by row. Rows weren't being double batched today, we asked to go for the back row (no one else was in it). Batcher was very insistent we couldn't and sent us to row 6. Second time that's happened for me. No big deal really, but find it confusing why they're so regimented on this, when it doesn't affect the operations.
Also, still unsure why they haven't built a front row queue in the station as of now, and were dead against opening it with one.

In more positive news: my ride in pouring rain today was lush (albeit stung like a good'un).
 
On Friday after I finished work, I swung by Thorpe Park, to finally ride Hyperia. I used the Single Rider line, and got massively lucky with a back row ride for my first time. Then yesterday I managed to get one ride this time on row 9 on the second public train of the day.

When on the coaster, for me it didn’t feel short, it felt well paced. The airtime whip on the first drop was mental on both of the rides I’ve had. I really loved the outward banked into the inversion element, that and the drop were pretty neck and neck for my favourite moment on the ride, atleast from the back car.

JoshC. said:
With current testing, they are purposefully sending the trains so that they stop atop of the lift waiting for the block to clear. I've never seen a ride test like that, so it's curious.
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On Friday the reason why it didn’t reopen was due to the train on the breakrun block, not advancing into the station multiple times in three shutdowns sequences, which is making me think that sometimes the station block isn’t clearing after the train clears the station which would then explain why they were wanting to test that yesterday, as that’s probably what also caused the shutdown with them stuck at the top yesterday. an unfortunate side effect of Hyperia only having three blocks, if the train doesn’t advance from the breaks or clears that block it will always stop at the top of the lift. I do think with just how slow the train goes through that breakrun, it should have been split into two block zones to help avoid top of the lift shutdowns.

I was in the station when it shutdown yesterday which happened before they had even loaded the passengers onto the first train, which was also a bit more on the curious side.

Thanks to the extended closure, the teething issues are taking a bit longer to iron out, as testing with dummies isn’t really the human factor, as yesterday would have only been Hyperia’s 6th full public day (if including media day/night), but it’s not really to different to most new coasters in their opening year.
 
www.bbc.co.uk

Thorpe Park: Riders stranded after Hyperia rollercoaster stops

The UK's tallest rollercoaster suffered another breakdown, leaving riders in mid air for an hour.
www.bbc.co.uk

www.mirror.co.uk

Thorpe Park chaos as newest roller coaster breaks with thrill-seekers stuck

Several thrill seekers are trapped on the broken down Hyperia ride at Thorpe Park, as engineers and experts work to help those stuck at the top down to safety
www.mirror.co.uk

www.mylondon.news

New Thorpe Park ride disaster leaves people stuck on rollercoaster

Technicians are working to free the ride-goers
www.mylondon.news

www.dailyrecord.co.uk

UK's 'fastest and tallest' rollercoaster breaks down with revellers stuck at top

The Hyperia rollercoaster at Thorpe Park in Surrey is billed as the "tallest and fastest" in the UK.
www.dailyrecord.co.uk


PR circus continues
 
spicy said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Thorpe Park: Riders stranded after Hyperia rollercoaster stops

The UK's tallest rollercoaster suffered another breakdown, leaving riders in mid air for an hour.
www.bbc.co.uk

www.mirror.co.uk

Thorpe Park chaos as newest roller coaster breaks with thrill-seekers stuck

Several thrill seekers are trapped on the broken down Hyperia ride at Thorpe Park, as engineers and experts work to help those stuck at the top down to safety
www.mirror.co.uk

www.mylondon.news

New Thorpe Park ride disaster leaves people stuck on rollercoaster

Technicians are working to free the ride-goers
www.mylondon.news

www.dailyrecord.co.uk

UK's 'fastest and tallest' rollercoaster breaks down with revellers stuck at top

The Hyperia rollercoaster at Thorpe Park in Surrey is billed as the "tallest and fastest" in the UK.
www.dailyrecord.co.uk


PR circus continue
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"One of the staff making their way up to give them a bit of lunch." --

Regardless of whether this being true or not (seems very made up to me but what do I know), this is a truly outstanding location for serving lunch 🤩 I like it 😉
 
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Any idea on how busy it’s been today? I’ve seen conflicting reports on twitter but hoping it’s not too bad for the week.
 
Berksfan said:
Any idea on how busy it’s been today? I’ve seen conflicting reports on twitter but hoping it’s not too bad for the week.
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Busy.

Queued main line for an hour first thing and I was at the park for 9am (it was late opening too so add that to the hour, then well over an hour via the SRQ. Fastpass was almost straight on later.

And it broke down for a while around 1.
 
davidm said:
Busy.

Queued main line for an hour first thing and I was at the park for 9am (it was late opening too so add that to the hour, then well over an hour via the SRQ. Fastpass was almost straight on later.

And it broke down for a while around 1.
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Wellll ****. So was it emptier later in the day? And was the park busy all round or just hyperia? Sorry for all the questions I haven’t been in about ten years so just want to plan it right!
 
Finally got on Hyperia today, waited around 90 minutes with a 20 minute breakdown with it stopped at the top again.

After reading all the rave reviews I went on with pretty high expectations and oh my it still blew those expectations away.

That is the best first drop in the world and if there are any better than Hyperias please let me know what they are as I need to ride them asap.

Absolutely incredible coaster, I came off stunned at how good it is.
 
At face value it’s an odd comparison as they are very different, but having reflected on it the ride that resonates with me most similarly to Hyperia is Storm Runner at Hersheypark.

Yeah that sounds weird, but each pretty much consists of ‘three big moments’ and two of them (on each) are really standout and wacky - nothing quite like them anywhere else. Both are also short (in duration!) but satisfying.

Somehow, despite the obvious and major differences, the comparison makes sense to me from how I experience them.
 
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