Alton Towers Let Down (Alton Towers (Staffordshire))

Member Name: daafyduck

Product:	Alton Towers (Staffordshire)
Date:	11/07/09 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Big rides are awesome, sharkbait reef good.

Disadvantages: Queues, Queues, Queues, Fast track pass for wealthy, car park fee, dirty, tired, broken rides.

We have been to Alton Towers ever since it was a field and a pirate ship (about 30 years ago) and it has always been fantastic. We went this week, before the school holidays started and sorry to say it was awful. The park is dirty and tired looking. There is litter everywhere and the floors are dirty in the restaurants. Parking is £5 per car, then you have to queue up for the monorail both ways and queue to pay to get in. We couldn't get near guest services to get a parent share pass as you guessed it....giant queues! Once inside Rita was broken, Spinball broke down, the Rapids jammed up and Oblivion was off for a while to get an extra carriage on.....on top of these they have introduced a Legoland style rip off whereby you can pay to jump the queues. Therefore if you don't pay you will be queueing for hours and the queue times are wildly inaccurate e.g. Runaway train - every time it ran half of it was filled with fast track guests. The signs might say it's 30 mins but guarantee you can double that. We were so disappointed and unless you can afford the extra cost to jump the queues then I wouldn't bother. Drayton Manor is a much better family experience.

Summary: Disappointing and expensive day out.