Awful Towers: certainly not the biggest and best day out (Alton Towers (Staffordshire))

Member Name: LizardKing7452

Product:	Alton Towers (Staffordshire)
Date:	17/07/03 (1191 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A few excellent rides

Disadvantages: Badly run, poorly maintained, over-rated

Alton Towers, it's the biggest and best theme park in the UK, or so everyone says.

Well it's true. Or it used to be.

The first thing that greets you at Alton Towers is the car parking charge. The official reason behind this was to discourage people from polluting the enviroment and instead using a more enviromentally freindly way of getting to the park. In reality that is a load of rubbish.

The nearest train station is 20 miles away busses to the park are infrequent and unrealiable, getting to the park for opening by public transport is near enough impossible.

Once you have paid a whopping amount to get into the park you are greeted with the site of bags of rubbish left from the previous day litter and gum everywhere, its horrible, this covers the entire park.

The various buildings dotted around the park Towers Street for example is peeling away the paint faded and cracked. The first view you get of the park should be a fantastic one but its not.

The rides at Alton apart from a few gems are over-rated at best.

The Log Flume has seen better days, a few years ago weeds were growing out the station roof, these have now transformed themselves into trees, its a disgrace.

Algae covers the side of the Oblivion Station. Effects on the dark rides fail to work.

Reming yourself your paying well over £20 each and your having to queue in a decaying litter infested dump.

Ride staff range from abysmal to excellent, it depends on the day though.

On my 3 visits this year the loading on Nemesis was excellent, however on Ai
r it was terrible, the staff were not only slow and miserable but rude as well, we were told we could not join the ride queue (an hour before closing) as the girl on the gate wanted to go home and didn't want to wait round any longer. How this girl managed to get a job there I will never know.

The only thing Alton seem willing
to invest in is more ways of extracting money to line their pockets with.

Over the last few years vending machines have popped up all over the park encouraging you to spend money, every available space has either a vending machine or an arcade game, plonked down measily and untidly.

The park does have a few merits though.

Nemesis, the UK's best steel rollercoaster. This ride is fast and intense, with stunning themeing and landscaping (poorly kept now though). This ride never lets up, non stop action and plenty of surprises. The best ride in the park.

Hex, One of my favourite dark rides. Its not for everyone though, mindless idiots join the line and proceed to spend the entire time screaming and shouting. If you can manage that (you might get lucky and avoid them), what you will find is a delightful ride which was based on a true story. I will leave you to find out about it but do not miss it out.

The Black Hole suffers from long queues thanks to a low throughput but it is a great ride. An enclosed rollercoaster, which is a joy to ride.

Air is Altons newest rollercoaster. Do not ride it expecting it to be a white knuckle thrill fest, its less intense than the Runaway Mine Train! It is however an enjoyable family (even though it certainly doesn't look like it) ride.

Whatever you do, do NOT waste your time queuing up for the front. (If both stations are in operation and the front row line is full the queue for it is longer than an hour!) This train has been designed to give every rider a perfect view, as long as you look down and don't strain y
our neck upwards, you can see the ground rush by you.

Your also facing the ride cameras from a better angle!

The Runaway Mine Train, its not actually a rollercoaster but a powered ride, but its fast fun and furious all the way, well themed (poorly kept). This ride is actually quite intense but it is one of the most
fun in the park.

Now reading the above you will see I have praised these rides, they are all among my favourites, which is the problem, Alton used to be an excellent park until the became obsessed with profit margins, since then the staff have become rude, the rides badly maintained (they have even closed one of the rides for the rest of the year, just so they would have one less ride to run)!
The litter has piled up, attendance has risen, which has resulted in longer queues as there are not enough support rides to disperse the crowds more.

Alton is a park with so much potential which it sadly no longer uses. I used to be a huge fan of the park but now sadly would prefer to spend a day anywhere else.

If Altons sister parks of Chessington and Thorpe can keep the park well maintained with freindly staff, I don't see why Alton cannot.

Avoid if a quality day out is important to you.

Summary: