Get more for your £££ - worth every penny. (Alton Towers (Staffordshire))

Member Name: MissTierney

Product:	Alton Towers (Staffordshire)
Date:	15/07/09 (50 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: early-ride time. fantastic day out. lots of coupons - check out ebay ;)

Disadvantages: some people might have a problem with fastrack system but i didnt find it made much of a difference

I have been to Alton Towers a few times in my childhood, and on average once every few years in my adulthood.
I have visited for three days in the last couple of months, having recently become quite addicted to the rides!

I have no information about the history of Alton Towers - just that its been around for a long long time.
In my review, i will detail admission prices, the new fast-track ticket system, my experiences of the park, and of the hotel.

PRICES;
Adult - online=£29 on the day=£36
Child - online=£22 on the day=£27
Various other bundled prices for different sizes of family. See the website.

BOOKING ONLINE OR ON THE DAY
If you book online you will get to go into the park at 9am (an hour earlier than the on-the-day visitors) along with any residents at the resort hotel. This means you will get to enjoy going on the selected open rides with no queues! (or very small queues)
The rides open from 9am are Rita, the runaway mine train, and the reef.
The negative side of booking online, is that if you have a BOGOF (buy one get one free) coupon, you can't use it. So even though it is cheaper to book online, if you have a coupon, you can only use them if you buy your ticket on the day - you wont be able to go on the rides until 10am - but it'll work out a lot cheaper.

FASTRACK
Fastrack is something i wasn't aware of until i went in June this year, so i presume it is a new thing as it wasn't in place two years ago as far as i recall.
It is basically a queue-jumping ticket you can buy (online or at the park) for the rides of your choice, so that your queuing time is shortened and you get to experience more rides on the day.
There is a separate queue for fastrack ticket holders, which then merges into the very front of the main queue, so saving a lot of time.
I'll list the fastrack options;
SCREAM £8 - once on air, oblivion and nemesis.
RITA £4 - one rita.
ADVENTURER £5 - once on flume, rapids, charlie and the minetrain.
ULTIMATE £35 - once on air, nemesis, rita, ripsaw, duel, rapids, hex, spinball, minetrain, oblivion, flume, enterprise, submission, charlie, battle galleons, heaveho and marauders mayhem.
PLATINUM £75 - All above rides, and as much as you like!
Thes prices are on top of your admission/entry fee to the park. So it could end up VERY expensive!

THE PARK
My first visit this year was at the beginning of June on a Sunday. We had a BOGOF coupon so we paid at the ticket office on the day, therefore it cost us £18 each for entry. We didn't get in till around midday but we still managed to get on 7 big rides & enjoyed the day. They sell plastic drink holders for £5 with two straws which you can top up as much as you like for the day. To stop people from bringing them back another day the staff do need to see a receipt. It was busy, but not as busy as we had expected.

The second visit was at the end of June. We booked on lastminute.com and managed to get 2 full day tickets each and a B&B at alton towers hotel which worked out to just under £115 each.
This was definately a better experience as we got into the park much earlier on the second day. We were at the gates for 9am and managed to get on Rita 5 times in the first hour!! If we hadn't chose to go on the front seats we could easily have gone on a good few more times too.
During the day there was a problem with the rapids and with nemesis but it didn't take long to be fixed so i can't complain - these things are bound to happen and i would much prefer a test ride is sent round the tracks just in case!!
We managed to fit in quite a few rides in the last hour too as a lot of people seemed to have left early (maybe to avoid the car park rush??) so that was a bonus :)
In all, 9am - 6pm we managed 5 rita, 9 nemesis, 1 air, 2 oblivion, and the rapids. Which isn't bad going considering we'd have got a lot more rides in too if we weren't so fussy about going in the front row queues!
I think the fastrack tickets are a good idea for those who dont come for very long in the day but if you are there start to finish - i wouldnt waste my money on them!

THE HOTEL
I remembered vaguely from once visiting in my childhood, just one thing about the alton towers hotel - the musical lift!
I wasn't sure whether it was my imagination or whether it was a true recollection so i was excited to find that the musical lifts in the hotel exist and are still musical! The novelty wore off within a few seconds though.
The rooms are fine, could do with updating but they are clean and who really cares when you know you can walk over to the alton towers themepark first thing in the morning! :)
There is a souvenir and shop by reception (which came in handy for replacing my forgotten toothbrush)
There is a bar and restaurant on the ground floor, with tables outside overlooking a very pretty garden and large pond with water features. Inside on the ground floor there is a big pirate ship which is used as a platform for a childrens entertainer on the evenings.
There is also the 'splash landings' hotel which is situated right next to the main hotel and accessible from inside and outside.
We ate at the restaurant at splash landings which was £16.95 per head and all you can eat.
The food reminded me of school dinners - which isn't altogether a bad thing for me personally as i love stodgy foods but a lot of people would probably have disliked it!
There is enough choice - chips, pizza, indian, chinese, & puddings etc - i won't bore you with the whole menu.
I have to mention though, that the waiter we had was .......astonishing! Never seen anything like it in my life - seriously. I think we may have just got unlucky but the boy was on autopilot the whole time. But i wasn't sure whether he was actually "all-there" so anyway, he didn't get a tip.
Breackfast was included and was the usual breakfast choices - fry up - cereal, tea coffee, juice, etc... good.

All in all it was worth every penny and a great treat.

Summary: a brilliant day out