So today I got to experience Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise of the Demon and in my opinion it's a great improvement over the original version, however it had a few problems with my ride.
When the experience began with the pre show, the video started early without everyone entering the room so it wasn't dark enough. After that we waited in the room before the train for a good 10 minutes. When we finally got to the train room we waited about 5 minutes for the train to arrive and load people on and off.
The ride started and I thoroughly enjoyed the VR footage and the good scares..... until the screen went dark, sound stopped and the train stopped moving, I was waiting for a jump scare but nothing happened, I took off my headset and saw others had also done the same. Ride hosts were on their radios talking to others, lights came on and they said "Ladies and gentlemen, this isn't part of the ride but unfortunately we have to make an emergency evacuation please wait for the doors to open and follow the ramp to the fire exit." Now at this point I was both annoyed that I wasted time queuing and excited that I'd get a BTS peak at the ride system. After about a minute of waiting and
recording a video (which I was told off for doing) the doors slightly opened and I saw a brightly lit room with lots of metal and wires, the host told us to wait and she talked to someone, after doing a bit of "ok"ing and nodding, the doors closed and we moved into the next show room of the ride and the hosts rushed us off, as if nothing happened and went back to script...
Being confused, I was guided to the live action segment and watched the fun commence. I found it enjoyable, but after the ride I watched POVs and I got the train coming through the tunnel and only one actor chasing us (compared to actors coming through the tunnel).
Being rushed back through to the loading platform, I'm 90% sure I saw the train moving sideways (maybe a transfer track...) as we waited a bit longer to board the train.
Next bit of VR I thought was excellent and offered some good scares, however my headset was a little faulty with it being stuck at an angle and not being able to move occasionally.
However avoiding spoilers was a good idea as the ending did get me.... Well done Thorpe....
Overall Rise of the Demon is a great improvement to the ghost train, it's just a shame I was a bit unlucky with my ride (Maybe because I rode it later on in the day so it was a bit warn out), but I would recommend checking it out!