Alton Towers above the rest! (Alton Towers (Staffordshire))

Member Name: B_O_M_B_A_

Product:	Alton Towers (Staffordshire)
Date:	11/09/08 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic rides and great entry prices

Disadvantages: Rides far apart and queues can get very long!

Introduction -

Whenever I fancy a trip to a theme park on name always Springs to mind, Alton Towers. The diverse range of rides and facilities makes it an ideal day out for old and young alike and if you go on the right day you can really get your monies worth.

Alton Towers is a theme park/ resort located in the grounds of a former stately home in Staffordshire, England. In 2007 it attracted 2.4 million visitors which made it the most visited theme park in the UK. The park is located just North of the village of Alton (16 miles east of Stoke-on-Trent), in the grounds of a semi-ruined gothic revival country house of the same name. The park opened in 1980 and was purchased by the Tussaud's Group in 1990; later in 2005 it was purchased by Dubai International Capital for £800 million. Tussaud's was bought by Merlin Entertainments in March 07 for just over £1 billion placing Alton Towers under new supervision. In 2007 the park was sold to Prestbury who now lease the park to Merlin under a 35 year lease.

Rides -

I wont go in to too much detail otherwise this will turn into an essay.

There are a number of good rides available, but for me the big 5 are the best, these being Nemesis, Rita, Spinball Wizza, Air and Oblivion. Nemesis is one of the oldest rides but still pleases the masses; it is probably my second favourite. Your legs are left hanging in the air as you sit in your seat; you reach speeds of around 70mph with maximum G-force of around G-3. Air is designed to make you feel like you are flying, you are face down for the majority of the ride but at points are turned on your back to feel like you are soaring, very exciting and different.

Oblivion is probably the most famous ride with the highlight being a 60m free fall drop after a nervous two second pause at the top where you are looking at the floor. You then plunge into an underground tunnel before popping out the other side breathless. Rita is my favourite, it is designed like a drag race, the lights go green and you are accelerated to 100mph in two seconds, definitely gets the adrenaline going. Finally Spinball Wizza sits you and 3 others in a round seat with your backs to one another. You are then sent around a track that spins, twirls, goes up, and then comes down at high speeds, very good fun despite its childish appearance.

There are other rides available such as Ripsaw which gets you extremely wet, The runaway train which recently came off its tracks...Hex which is one of the less exciting rides but one that gets your mind going and another mentionable one is The Rapids which is a nice smooth ride until the end where you plunge down into a massive pool of water.

Other Facilities and services -

There are numerous food stands and shops located around the park, each larger ride has a shop specifically designed for the ride you have just been on, which you must walk through to get out, a nice opportunity for spontaneous purchasing if I do say so. I personally haven't ever bought anything from them because the prices are usually very high. KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonalds' all have restaurants within the park with prices only slightly above what you would expect to pay on the high street. Whenever I go to Alton Towers I always eat in a fast food place, at the end of the day eating is a waste of your precious time in the park and you want to be in and out as quick as possible.

You can purchase pictures of yourselves on the individual rides if you want or buy a group of five for a reduced price, you can also purchase a DVD of your day which starts from £6.99 for a single ride or £19.99 for all eight rides it works on. For it to work you have a small wristband that you have to wave around as you go around the park to activate the cameras.

My opinions -

The day you choose to go inevitably decides how many rides you get on, going on a weekend or bank holiday is just plain stupid, you will be lucky to get on 5 or 6 rides the entire day, if however you go on a school/ working weekday, when the weather isn't very hot you can expect to get on maybe 15 or 16. We went when it was raining and got on oblivion twice without queuing, I also went once with the school and waited 3 hours to get on oblivion, see what I mean?

I would also suggest to anyone that isn't bothered about sitting together on the ride to use the single person queue, basically if a spare seat is available a member of the queue is added, however when we went they were adding 4 or 5 from the queue for each ride. Considering there were only 20 in the queue it meant we waited about ten minutes, not ninety minutes like everyone was.

The rides are in my opinion spread to far apart, it can take as long as 30 minutes to walk from one ride to the next depending on which rides you want to go on, which takes a large amount of your day time up, therefore if you don't mind looking like a fool do what we did, and run between them. I understand they have tried to keep to the 'Zone' idea, but at the end of the day I don't care about the scenery around the ride, but just about getting on it.

The prices are fairly reasonable at around £35 a go for adults, Tesco however often do BOGOF offers on tickets so it will only cost you around £17.50 each. If you don't eat in the park or buy any souvenirs it could be quite a cheap day and more often than not a very enjoyable one.

I would advise getting to the park as early as possible, ten minutes before the opening time often means you can get straight in without having to queue up for 30 minutes. It also means you get a spot close to the monorail in the car park which saves you time when exiting. I would also suggest leaving half an hour before the park closes, it will save you an hour of waiting in the queue to get out.

The rides are usually quite reliable, although on more than one occasion one of the major rides has broken down, I remember on our last trip we had gone on Rita twice in the morning in quick succession, however when we went back later it was closed and was not expected to open again. Nemesis also closed on that day for three hours which meant we only got to go on it once, I am aware it is for everyone's safety but it can get annoying when you go there for a specific ride and cant get on it.

Verdict -

Overall Alton Towers is a great day out and well worth the money, most of the problems I have highlighted are minimal and breakdowns don't often happen, I think the particular day I mentioned was just bad luck. I would advise anyone to visit Alton Towers, although some of the rides have a height restriction which is around 1.2m, so children smaller than that will not be able to go on the bigger rides.

Summary: Great day out for all ages.