There’s a new roller coaster at Thorpe Park. How bizarre it feels to finally say that! 12 long, long years after my beloved The Swarm debuted at my most-visited UK park, the skyline has not only changed, it has been rewritten. So, does the new coaster live up to the Hype-ria? I’ve actually waited a little while to make that decision…
It’s been a little while now since Hyperia opened. 24th May 2024 is certainly a day I will not forget. Like almost every roller coaster enthusiast in the country, I made my way to Thorpe Park in the early hours of the sunny Friday morning armed with many snacks and not many hours of sleep. 7am found me joining an impressively long line for the park security before immediately cracking out the real MVP of the day, a collapsing chair. Let me say right now, there’s no way I would have made it through this day without it! We’d wait here in the security line for an hour, waking up, receiving updates from friends already inside – the Shark Cabin Bourgeoise – and generally getting very excited for the day ahead.
As 8am rolled around, the queue began to shuffle its way through security and through to the park itself – via, of course, one of the few toilet opportunities of the day – and the pre-planned Hyperia line. As the line was filtered through to the official lakeside holding area, it was a relief to find ourselves continuing to walk. I think I might have cried if we’d been queueing from the bridge! Past the leftover decorations from the previous night’s media event we filed. I got a stern telling off from security for taking a quick selfie as we passed the step-and-repeat – ‘this is a queue not a photo opportunity!’ – oops! But passed happily past the balloon arch which smelt so strongly – I know all balloons have that smell but lord this was overwhelming – and into the holding pen. We made it about halfway through the cattle pen before stopping again for the next chunk of the wait. We’d wait here for another 90 minutes before the opening ceremony would begin!
I realise as I’m typing this that, frankly, this whole process sounds ridiculous. It sounds horrendous. An hour here, a small walk, another hour, another 90 minutes…. wait, file, wait, walk, wait… and sure. It is. No one likes to wait in horrendously long lines. But opening days are special. There’s an atmosphere that simply can not be explained. Everyone is happy. Everyone is excited. It’s like being at a concert for one of the biggest acts in the world. There are thousands of attendees, and you’re all obsessed with the headliner. Not only that, but being part of the community, the crowd is filled with friends. As the queue snakes and twists, the people on the other side of the fence change, and very often, they would be people I knew!
Whilst we weren’t even close to being able to view the opening ceremony from the lakeside pen, we’d have certainly had to be many miles away to miss the grand finale: a stunning fly-by! Planes flew across the site of the coaster, streaming yellow and white smoke, as the first train of the day crested the lift-hill. (Much to the alarm of people not in-the-know, given the park’s proximity to Heathrow Airport!) Three hours in, the coaster was open, and the real wait had begun!
What would follow would be a further 3 hours and 20 minutes of queueing, through the remainder of the holding pen, down the line past Saw: The Ride, into the overflow line, and finally into the official queue. Having arrived at the park at 7am, we’d enter the ‘real’ queue at 11am – an hour after the ride opened for the day. During our wait, the ride only went down twice, and briefly. Both times, it was up and running again within ten minutes! This seemed like a good omen for the ride’s reliability… alas!
The atmosphere was electric! As each and every train passed, the riders waved enthusiastically to the queue, and everyone in the queue waved back. Cheering was abundant, and there was always the chance of spotting a friend on each train! This energy made the whole morning feel as though it had lasted minutes. What was the longest queue of my life felt like nothing. Shorter, in fact, than waiting in any hour-long line at Walt Disney World as a sea of Genie + guests streams ahead. It’s all in the vibes!
Talking of vibes, the organisation of the entire opening day queueing experience was quite simply second to none. Not once were we pushed, shoved, rushed, queue jumped… anything. It was slick, friendly, and safe. Everything you could want from an opening day! The only complaint I would make was regarding the toilet situation. The video launched in preparation for opening day said that the staff in gold jackets would be ‘assisting with toilet breaks’ which really made it sound like you could go to the toilet at any point in the holding pen! This was very much not the case with just one toilet stop available at the point between the pen and the main entrance, as clarified by Thorpe in their re-opening video. A shame, but understandable.
I know it’s begun to cause controversy, but the 236 shop was also an absolute godsend on opening day. I truly believe that single tropical Solero fulfilled my entire hierarchy of needs. For what it’s worth, no, I don’t think you should be able to bypass people at the shop. Let people stay hydrated without losing their spot in line! It’ll calm down as soon as the queues aren’t so crazy. None of the other queue shops cause an issue!
6 hours, 20 minutes, two toilet stops, and one Solero later, I’d walk into Hyperia’s station. This station is actually one of the reasons I waited so long to discuss the ride, as after opening day, I did not remember one single thing about it. So overwhelmed was I, so focussed on the event at hand, on my friends nearby, on cheering the arriving train, that I did not notice anything. An anvil? Projection mapping? The baggage storage system? No idea mate. I just got on the ride. Row 4. Left-hand side. For my first ride on the UK’s tallest and fastest roller coaster.
I’d been concerned that row 4 wouldn’t deliver. Surely, this wasn’t going to offer the best-possible impression of one of my most highly anticipated roller coasters ever? I needn’t have worried. What followed was nothing short of euphoria. Rolling out of the station and through the overbanked first bend, I did my part to continue to the tradition of the day, frantically waving at everyone in the queue – and spotted several friends whilst I did so – before beginning the ascent up the lift hill. I have to be honest here. I’ve never noticed the lift-hill audio. I’m not sure if it’s because I spend hours listening to it before riding, so it just blends into the background. Or maybe because I’m always chatting to the person next to me, but I only truly heard it for the first time on the Attraction Source POV! With or without audio, the lift hill is a beast. It’s still early doors when the train passes Saw, then Hyperia’s own inversions, with seemingly still a lifetime left to go. It feels like it lasts forever. Plenty long enough, thankfully, for me to check that my lap bar was as far down as it could go. There would be a time for maximum airtime later, but not before I knew what this thing was about to do to me. Lap bar down, hands up, we begun to crest the drop and damnnnnnnnnn, I couldn’t keep my hands up! For a moment, the world collapsed, and all I knew was that I needed to hold on tight! What a drop. What an insane, insane drop. All throughout the construction of the coaster, we’d all been joking about being yeeted to Staines by the outerbank element but it was this drop – on row four – that made me feel like I was being flung into oblivion. I often find that twists take some of the life out of a drop for me, but not here. Here, it just made everything feel even more unhinged. A feeling that very much continued as the train whipped back up and around the non-inverting immelmann and into the outerbanked turn, or as it should evermore be known, the Kremer Roll. This was my most anticipated part of the ride, being undoubtedly the most insane element, and was also the most surprising! I’d expected violent airtime after watching the water fly from the water dummies used for testing in the proceeding days. What I got instead was very prolonged floater airtime. Incredible, yes. But not at all what I expected! It was then time for my very favourite element type, one I’m absolutely ecstatic to finally have in the UK, a stall! It’s pretty hard for a stall to fail to impress me, and of course this one delivered! As with any good stall, it really does feel like you’re upside down forever! As with almost every element on this layout, however, this one is a little different to usual, with the stall ending in a dive loop and not the traditional twist out! This makes it feel even longer – bliss! At the exit of the dive loop, the splash down awaits. I.e. a nice way of dressing up some really noticeable trims before heading into the final overbank and bunny hill. This part, on all of my rides, in fact, has been a little bit of a blur. It’s certainly fun, there’s not a moment on this coaster that isn’t, but I always find myself recovering from the glorious insanity of the beginning of the layout, to a degree that I don’t really register what’s going on for these final few airtime moments. I really love the noise the splash down makes, though! The whole experience was a joyous, glossy smooth (I’ve still not had a rough ride) blur. One packed with the sorts of feelings I’m just not used to feeling in the UK. I walked away feeling a sort of giddiness that I hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. Hyperia had lived up to the hype. In fact, it was even better.
Towards the end of opening day, we’d return to Hyperia. This time, waiting a round 2 hours for our second twilight ride. The ops team were glorious and allowed us to have an entire train for our 19-person group, resulting in one of the most joyful coaster experiences of my life. Only enhanced further by being in the back row! Whilst I adored the first drop on row 4, the back row was something else entirely. It was one of the greatest drops I have ever experienced. Period. The rest of the ride didn’t feel overly different, with perhaps less airtime on the Kremer Roll. But I’ll never forget that first drop. Blimey.
On my return visit, I’d ride a further three times. This time in rows 6, 2, and 1. Front-row once again re-wrote the rules for that first drop. Whilst it didn’t offer nearly the same aggression as on the back row, the front made the drop fearful in a whole new way. As you crest the hill, the way the track twists and curves in the opposite direction makes it appear as though it simply stops. As though you’ll reach the end of the track and crash into the dirt below. It’s a bizarre sight to behold, and one that succeeds in making the ride even more thrilling. I’m not sure if it was that the coaster had time to bed in, or maybe it was riding at the end of a hot day, or maybe the seat positions, but in both my row 1 and 2 rides during our Attraction Source ERT, the Kremer Roll delivered a forcefulness I’d never experienced before. The airtime was aggressive! My thighs crushed into that lapbar, just as I’d always dreamed they would. My final row 2 ride also delivered the most positive G forces I’d yet experienced on the ride, with my first grey out at the base of the first drop! Whilst many factors are at play here, one remark made during the evening’s talk with both Stephan Alt and Maurice Kremer (these rides were at the Attraction Source Fearless Frenzy event) has stuck with me. Hyperia has not yet reached its maximum speed. As the ride beds in, it continues to gather pace, and according to the designers themselves, we won’t truly know what she’s capable of until later this summer. An exciting prospect indeed! And one that I found very noticeable between my rides a month apart.
Of course, a ride is not just hardware. In an ideal world, every ride would be presented with a full theming package. At least, in my ideal world. Of course, we aren’t quite there. In fact, I’d argue it’s almost impossible to effectively theme a ride of this scale, but it’s certainly possible to present it. Does Hyperia succeed on this count? Well… yes and no. It’s certainly not a themed experience by any stretch, regardless of there being a story and an anvil in the station. Overall, I actually think the finished product looks better than anticipated. At least the area does. The resin floor looks nice. The whole area looks fresh, and I appreciate the low-level on-theme fencing that forms the majority of the queue. I’m not a fan at all of the station or maintenance buildings and their extremely cuboid appearance, but I can appreciate the impressive dispatch sequence that occurs within the station as each train departs. It’s really, really cool! I look forward to Fright Nights when hopefully I’ll actually be able to see the projection on the wings. It’s always a little washed out for me! Inside the station, my biggest gripe is actually the row numbers. I really can’t stand those dangling numbers on chains, but it’s such a small thing. Who really cares? The anvil is cool, the bag storage is solid, and the dispatch is awesome. The inside gets a solid pass! But, whilst the outside looks pretty tidy, we need to talk about the queue experience. It’s rough, my friends. It is rough. I queued on a sunny summer’s day. There was no heat wave, no extraordinary weather. Just a regular British summer’s day of 22 degrees. And it was unbearable. I was collapsed over the rails, barely able to continue conversation for large parts. Like everyone else, I stopped at the shop for a cold drink and a Calippo just to be able to get through. With no shade and no other way of cooling down, it was a horrid experience. In fact, even just standing in the Hyperia plaza was far more unpleasant than it had been standing in other areas of the park around the same time. Is there something about the resin floor that radiates heat? Is it just the volume of people in the area? I can not explain why, but the whole ride area just felt about 10 degrees hotter than anywhere else in the park. They should have kept the name Icarus!
It feels almost wrong to wrap things up without mentioning the ride’s extended downtime, but at the same time, I don’t have that much to say? Yup, after a fantastic opening day, Hyperia wouldn’t open again for 19 days. But, thankfully, Hyperia has re-opened and, for the last week, has been running pretty reliably! New rides have teething problems, and whilst Hyperia’s were certainly major – and unfortunately timed alongside the school holidays – hopefully the ride will continue to operate reliably from now on!
Hyperia is the best roller coaster in the country. It’s not even close. Finally, after 30 years, we have a new ride that will make international enthusiasts sit up and pay attention to the UK. Finally, we have the fresh elements that make modern coasters so enjoyable. Finally, we have something unique, something bizarre, something quintessentially UK, whilst fighting for its place amongst the world’s best. No, it’s not going to be up there with my top, top roller coasters because I really value a themed experience. I’ve said many times how this blog is mis-named, and I’m really a theme park enthusiast, but I digress. I really bloody love roller coasters, and so, I really bloody love Hyperia. It’s impossible not to. Yes, it’s short. But it really doesn’t feel it. Yes, it’s a weird colour. But you can’t see that as you ride it. Yes, the queue sucks. But you forget about that in an instant, as soon as you crest that hill. Because none of it matters. None of the complaints, of my complaints, matter. We have a new coaster. And it’s fucking amazing.
Speak again soon,
Claire
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coasterclaire.co.uk 