The extended downtime is about to end for one of 2024's new roller coasters.
Britain's Thorpe Park announced this morning that Hyperia will reopen to park guests, starting tomorrow. The Mack Rides Hypercoaster had been down since the day after its official opening last month.
In a social media post, Thorpe Park said, "Once again we want to thank everyone for their understanding and patience. Now it's time to forge your wings of steel, conquer the seemingly impossible and embrace your inner fearlessness onboard the UK's tallest, fastest and most weightless rollercoaster."
Following Hyperia's announced return, coaster fans in the United States are still awaiting the reopening of Top Thrill 2 at Cedar Point, which also went down soon after its official debut.
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I think it's interesting to see how the two park chains are handling these hiccups, and coaster fans are noticing. Cedar Point came out and explicitly named Zamperla in their announcement regarding TT2, and has not provided any update on the situation despite looky-loos posting updates on social media of technicians working on the trains and observing various degrees of testing. The coaster nerds knew all along that this was a Zamperla issue (it's been pretty clear for weeks that the issue is with the trains), but I don't think Cedar Point needed to specifically call the manufacturer out (and kinda throw them under the bus for the downtime). You would think Cedar Point would want to control the narrative, especially since we're into their peak summer season so guests are not disappointed- unless they explicitly want the social media buzz of testing to drive people to visit the park even if there's no chance the coaster is going to open - pretty diabolical IMHO.
Thorpe Park has been up front from the start, and never identified Mack (even though it sounds like the issue was a manufacturing defect at the top of the lift hill), and constantly provided updates, including anticipated dates Hyperia would be back open. The level of transparency across the pond has been night and day compared with we've seen from Cedar Point. In the end it shows a very different approach to customer service between the US and UK, particularly when it comes to entertainment. The UK has tons of red tape and rules, but the level of transparency is appreciated - I mean they even have to post alerts when there's any sort of public transit disruption.
I also find it interesting that Thorpe Park replaced the entire top section of the tallest lift hill in the UK (including the chain, gears, and counterweights) in the span of a few weeks, while Cedar Point has taken longer to to deal with a train issue that requires no cranes, steelworkers, or mass assembly and all the work can be done at ground level.
Cedar Fair (and Six Flags) seem to be, uh, not on the "A" games at the moment, leading me (and a whole lotta other people) to wonder what effect the impending merger is having upon executive decision-making. It really seems like everyone is trying to spend as little as possible to boost their jurisdiction's bottom line as much as possible before the merger happens and higher-ups decide who stays in their jobs and who goes. And if not, how much is merger-related paperwork, etc. claiming executive time and attention that is not going to overseeing operations and/or pushing contractors to deliver?
Whether these observations are in any way related to what is happening with TT2 at CP, I leave for the reader to decide.
I don't think Cedar Fair went with Zamperla as a money saving endeavor I think they did because they have been burned by Intamin over and over and over and want nothing to do with them.
2002: Wicked Twister. Major design flaws, had to add supports. Expensive to operate for such a low capacity ride.
2003: TTD. Dick Kinzel said it was the worst investment he ever made as CEO. Extremely unreliable for its entire existence. Ended with accident and major lawsuit.
2007: Maverick. Major design flaws. Part of the ride had to be removed and redesigned before it opened. Been unreliable its entire existence.
2010: Shoot the Rapids. Again major design flaws. Unreliable. Ended by rolling back, crashing, flipping over, and almost killing several people.
Zamperla's Lightning trains were made to address one of TTD's biggest flaws: the fatigue on the train and components by the extreme forces/speed. Combined with wanting to stay away from Intamin, I think this is why CP went with them. Reality of the situation is they were taking a major risk no matter who they went with and it sucks but I can't blame them for this issue they are having now. They started testing the ride in early December when it was freezing cold out so they really cared about it being fully tested and reliable for opening day.
That being said the locker thing is a whole different set of BS lol. Hopefully they use this SBNO opportunity to fix that mess.
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Not surprised. I have a lot more confidence in Mack Rides than I do in Zamperla.