Hyperia soft opened during a family visit to Thorpe. Here's an overhead view of the layout.
RED: station, lift hill & first drop
ORANGE: non-inverting loop
GREEN: stengel dive
LIGHT BLUE: dive loop
DARK BLUE: outerbanked dive loop
PURPLE: overbanked turn into the quick outerbanked airtime hill into the lake turn
WHITE: brake run
The entire ride was over the lake.
The trains had vest restraints and the whole coaster was gold, but the twisted first drop was just... gone. It wasn't there. Me and my brother were worried and concerned that the coaster would crash and fly off the rails right at the lift disengagement. But we watched a train from the station, and it just went down the drop completely fine as if the track was just invisible. Me and my brother went for the back row, while I told my parents to go for the front row (this involved a longer wait).
The first drop reappeared when I rode. The coaster was pretty insane, with the non-inverting loop, stengel dive & lake turn being the highlights of the ride and the first drop & outerbanked dive loop being notably underwhelming. But when we hit the brakes, my brother felt so sick from the experience that he forcefully exited the vest restraints while they were locked and jumped towards the ground onto a grass hill. I personally enjoyed the coaster, but if my brother was unable to handle the experience, my parents (who had not yet boarded) would NOT be able to handle it. So in desperation I called out to my parents who were waiting for the ride blissfully unaware.
The train progressed further down the brake run after being stopped for a while, until we were at the section of track next to the dive loop, where I was able to escape the restraints and leap into an adjacent modern-ish looking building with huge glass windows, white walls, several floors and a lift. I entered the lift onto the grass hill, then climbed up to the station where I told my parents not to ride who were due to board the next train. My mum accepted that the ride was not of her type, and wanted to watch over my brother anyway, but my dad was insistent on riding. I decided to ride again with him.
