Something extraordinary (Alton Towers (Staffordshire))

Member Name: Cat19

Product:	Alton Towers (Staffordshire)
Date:	23/06/06 (2227 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: loads to do, clean, beautiful gardens,

Disadvantages: just the possibility of queues

I have been to Alton Towers about half a dozen times in my life. I am quite surprised to realise that most of these trips were well over 20 years ago because I used to think only very old people said things like that. This week after returning from honeymoon and still feeling in a holiday mood, we decided it was time for a repeat trip. We went on Tuesday before we had even time to unpack.

Booking, prices and opening times
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We made our booking on-line through www.holidayextras.co.uk and it was very easy as they have a theme park break option on their homepage. We specified that we would like two days theme park entrance and one night in a hotel and promptly got back a list of options that included the two Alton Towers hotels plus a few places to stay outside the park. For convenience, we were keen to stay in the park, which was the more expensive option at £208 versus about £175 for a hotel outside the park (both including 2 days theme park for 2 adults). We had no problems either checking into the hotel or obtaining our 2-day passes at the theme park entrance using the internet confirmation numbers.

Initially I had tried to book using the www.altontowers.com website but I found that there was no possibility to book two days park entrance with only one night in the hotel. Further I found the booking system to be slightly temperamental in that there are two hotels to chose from but in between booking steps it kept swapping my hotel choice to the other one so I would have to start again. Even when I got past this little bug it still failed to complete the transaction and after many, many attempts I gave up. This could just have been due to Sunday night maintenance of the site or something I suppose.

Whether staying overnight or not, I would still recommend booking on-line as it is much cheaper. Internet prices for park entrance only are £23 Adult and £16 Child whereas if you pay at the gate on the day this will be £29.50 and £19 respectively. If you decide you did not get enough time there the day you go then you can purchase a “bounceback ticket” which allows entry for £12.50 the next day.

The park opens at 9.30 every day and when we visited it closed at 5pm but June is off-peak and through the summer it will stay open another hour or two but exact times vary throughout the year.

Park Attractions
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I think Alton Towers was my favourite day trip as a youngster and I always came home buzzing after spending the day there enjoying the log flume, the pirate ship and the biggest attraction of the day, the corkscrew. These are still around but it would be fair to say things have moved on considerably and I found far more to chose from on this visit than ever before. The park is divided into different areas “Forbidden Valley”, Katanga Canyon” and Ug Land for example, which somehow made it much easier to plan the day and the colourful map provided at the entrance is also very useful. And so of the attractions:

Nemisis (Forbidden valley)

This was one of my favourite rides and I managed to get six turns over the two days. The rollercoaster never goes particularly high but it is fast, twists, loops the loop and with legs dangling loose it made for a different experience for me. Don’t forget to take your shoes off if they are loose fitting, there is a small stream a long way below and I noticed that one unfortunate rider had lost his trainer in there which I doubt he will recover.

Air (Forbidden valley)

I thought this was the scariest ride, I only managed three goes and they were under some duress. The seat initially seems like the Nemisis seat (i.e. rows of four and legs dangling), however then the harness comes down and you notice it is far more substantial and calves / ankles also get strapped into place. For good reason as at this point the seat swings back 90 degrees so that you are face down and your torso is parallel to the floor. I would have felt quite silly if I were not more concerned with what was coming next. You are in this position fo rmuch of the duration of the ride, apart from when it flips you over and you get carried along on your back. The worst bit was the first climb and the feeling of being dangled helplessly over the huge drop below.

Rita (Ug land)

This ride lasts a mere 30 seconds but was well worth the wait and we managed four turns on this one. The thrill of this ride is in the speed especially the initial acceleration, 0 – 100 in 2.5 seconds it boasts. I guess this is km not miles although they don’t say but trust me it is fast, it took my breath away. The photo is taken immediately, my shoulder length hair was loose and it is completely and literally streaming out horizontally behind me such was the speed.

Ug Swinger (Ug Land)

Not a white knuckle but I quite liked this one. You are on a swing but on a merry-go-round and as it gains speed the seats are raised off the ground and go flying pretty high, taller than the trees and I was sure I was going to hit the Rita ride more than once.

Oblivion (X-sector)

This one made me dizzy and my stomach churn and that was just watching it. After a slow climb up to a great height, you come round a bend and are then tilted forwards 45 degrees and held for a few agonizing seconds over a vertical drop into a hole in the ground. Then you are tilted forward some more and plummet face first. I declined a go on this one.

Charlie and the Chocolate factory (Cred Street)

This is the newest ride at Alton Towers and opened with much fanfare. We went in here just before closing time on the first afternoon and got straight in without queuing. The next day I felt very sorry for the many all-adult parties I saw in very long queues, as they are bound to be disappointed. The ride is in two parts, first you take a very gentle and quite short boat ride through the chocolate factory hearing snippets of the story. After this it is into the glass elevator where you experience a simulated ride and a little bit of shaking about. I think young children would like it but adults without children might want to stay away.

Corkscrew (Ug Land)

The corkscrew is still going strong, when we were in the queue for Rita which is right beside it, I mentioned that it must be nearly 25 years since I first went on it and the teenagers ahead of me overheard and all looked flabbergasted. I remember it used to be bright canary yellow, I am not sure if it has had a change of image or has just faded since then because now it is pale lemon. Being positioned as it is next t and almost intertwining with Rita, it looks very tame and seems to be just chugging along.

Runaway Mine Train (Katanga Canyon)

We loved this ride. It is certainly not white knuckle and is perceived as something for children but I think everybody would enjoy this one. It gets some speed and some height and there are some angles round the bends that make it jolly good fun.

Tea Cup Ride (Merrie England)

I have no idea why we humans like to sit in giant tea cups and be swung around until we feel dizzy. But we do and it is fun and I did not want to get out of my tea cup.

The queues
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The biggest down side to Alton Towers has to be the queues. I personally would not even contemplate a visit during the peak summer season and would avoid any school holidays as well. Obviously I am in a position to do so but I understand many will be taking their children, in which case I would suggest trying early spring or late autumn because I cannot understand why people would want to spend the day queuing.

There are a couple of queue busting measures in place though being the priority tickets and the single rider queues. I did not think the priority tickets were very well publicised, when I looked on-line I saw no reference to purchasing them even on Alton Tower’s own website but when I asked once inside the park I was told they could be bought at the entrance gate. If I were going at a busier time I would call the Alton Towers number on their website to find out exactly how one gets hold of them, but in June I knew there was no need.

As well as having a priority ticket queue, some of the big rides also have a single rider queue, so if you do not mind who you are sitting with you join this queue and they will use you to fill in any spare seats when there has been an odd numbered group getting onto a ride. We did this a couple of times on Nemisis which takes four people in every row and we got on within a couple of minutes, however we also tried this out for Rita where you sit in twos and it took just as long as the normal queue. We know this for a fact as somebody we saw joining the normal queue at the same time we joined the single rider queue ended up on the same ride as us.

I also noticed that the queues in the afternoons were much shorter than in the morning. On Tuesday we arrived at about 2.30pm and waited no more than a few minutes for any of the rides we tried out. In fact by 5pm we had been on several of the most popular rides and some more than once. It was a different story the next morning when some queues were about 20 - 30 minutes but again they died down in the afternoon. I noticed a couple of signs around mentioning that queues are generally shorter in the afternoon so presumably what I noticed was not a one-off and therefore it might be a good idea to leave the popular rides until later in the day if you are going at a busy time.

Facilities
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There are many food outlets dotted around the park. These are mainly of the fast food variety; KFC, MacDonalds, Pizza Hut as well as hotdog stands, donuts stands and a Mexican burrito stand. We didn’t eat that much whilst in the park but the prices looked to be fairly “normal” to me i.e. the same as the average fast food joint on the outside.

The car parks and indeed the hotels are reached via the monorail which goes back and forth between the main entrance and a single drop off point for all car parks and the hotels. It runs from opening time until one hour after the rides finish. The queue was very long at closing time the first evening and the next morning but it moves very quickly so is not as bad as it looks.

There are plenty of toilet facilities around and all the ones I saw were kept in very good condition.

Hotel
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We stayed overnight in the Alton Towers Splash Landing Hotel. The hotel’s theme is of a Caribbean village so the reception and public areas are colourful and there is a fun and Disney like feel about the place that is fitting and complements a trip to Alton Towers. I think children would love it in particular.

We stayed in a standard room and this had a double bed and bunk beds, although it was not a particularly large room it was perfectly adequate for one night. My one complaint would be that it was far too hot and stuffy and the air conditioning was not on. The room furnishings were in very good condition and continued the Caribbean theme with bright colours and a carpet with a very unusual beach design. The bathroom was also only about average size, but it was spotless with a good shower, toiletries were plentiful and there were four very large fluffy bath towels.

We spent the evening in “Ma Garritas” cocktail bar which was large, had plenty of comfortable seats and had a no smoking policy. It was very busy as it was Tuesday night and they had a large TV showing the England v Sweden game. Unfortunately for this reason they did not serve their usual food but instead had a barbeque outside but they were hopelessly prepared and my husband waited 30 minutes for two cheeseburgers even though he was one of the first up. Had we not wanted to watch the game, then we would have gone to the restaurant downstairs that serves Caribbean inspired dishes. We were in this restaurant the next day for breakfast, which was the usual serve yourself selection of cereals, fruit and yoghurt plus English breakfast buffet.

Summary
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Alton Towers proved to be as good a day out as it ever was and I think excellent value for money. It is unlikely I will leave it another 20 years before I go again after this trip. I doubt that I would ever go in peak season though, some of the queuing areas were vast (but empty on my visit thank goodness).

If you live more than a few hours drive away then I definitely recommend staying at one of the hotels overnight and having two days or one and a half days in the park instead of trying to do it in a day

Summary: A great day out and somewhere you may never tire of.