A Thrillseeker's Treat! (Alton Towers (Staffordshire))

Member Name: twisted-gem

Product:	Alton Towers (Staffordshire)
Date:	03/09/03 (193 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The Best Rides, Lots To Do

Disadvantages: Long Queues (unless you're lucky), Quite pricey

Alton Towers has got to be one of the best theme parks in the UK. It's located in Staffordshire in the East Midlands, which makes it pretty convenient from all parts of the UK. It helps that I actually live in the East Midlands, but if you are further away, you can always stay at the Alton Towers Hotel, which is on site. If you prefer a cheaper alternative, there are a few villages nearby, where you may find a B&B (though I'm sure the villagers must get tired of all the traffic passing through).

I went there after quite a while a few weeks ago and it was a great day out. It's an easy route there, and it is sign-posted really well about an hour (maybe less) before you get there. I did get lost on the way back though, but trust me to! Once you leave the A roads and get into the villages, you know you're nearly there, because there will be a queue of cars heading in the same direction. The entrance to park itself it quite long as well, but it's worth the wait. You park the car (£3 per car), and take the monorail into the park itself (unless you want priority parking at £10 a car, which is literally at the park entrance).

The entrance fee can be pretty steep at peak season (£26), which is when I went but at off-peak times it's £19 (or around there). For that you get access to all rides, no need for a wrist-band or tickets or anything. Your fast-track allowance is also included in that. At the moment, fast track can only be used on Air or Nemesis. It basically means you can get a ticket from the stands so you don't end up queuing for something like two hours. But you do have to return to the ride at the allotted time. This can be a nuisance if you?re in another queue at the time, but as long as you remember when you have to get back, it can really help cut down your queuing time.

Talking of queues, they can get pretty long. I went on a lucky day it seems, because the longest I had to queue up for was A

ir (90 minutes). Nemesis was 30-40 minutes, and all the other rides were less than 30 minutes. Not bad going, seeing as the average queuing time on a peak day is usually around the one hour mark. You do get screens around the park giving you an update of the latest queue times, which is quite handy.

Now onto the rides...The best thing about Alton Towers is definitely the fact that there are some great rollercoasters with twists, whereas some parks these days tend to focus more on little kids. It's difficult to pick a favourite, but I guess I was most impressed with Air. In Air, you can feel like Superman (supposedly, but I didn't!). For the amount of time you spend queuing, you only get about 40 seconds on there, but they are worth it. I have to admit, I did not feel like going on it, because just watching it, I just thought it looked so scary. The further down the queue I went the worse it got. It didn't help that as I approached the end of the queue there was some technical difficulty with one of the aircrafts which had to be removed. But once I got strapped in, all the nerves just disappeared and it was great. it's a normal rollercoaster apart from the fact that your body's facing down.

I don't want to go into detail on all the rides (I'm sure you're heard of them all, but they really are only words until you experience them for yourselves), but I'll just briefly go over the big ones. There's Nemesis, of course, where your feet are dangling off the sides. If you're worried about your shoes falling off, you can leave them behind and they are locked behind bars for the duration of the ride (as with Air). Oblivion is another good one. It's basically a vertical drop into a tunnel of steam. It lasts about 4 seconds, but the queue on it was only 15 minutes when I was there. The water rides are pretty good as well. You never know if you'll come off dry or drenched. Unfortunate
ly fo
r me, it was the latter (and I don't just mean drenched, I was soaked throughout!), but it was all part of the fun. On Submission you're hanging upside down for a few seconds. The thing I enjoyed most about that was the look on the faces of all those queuing up, while you're hanging mid-air!

Those are the big rides, but for those that want to take their younger kinds out for the day, it's not a complete loss. There's a kids area as well (Ugland - as Alton Towers is split into four themes segments), where there are the usual carousels and cars. There are plenty of stalls where you can win prizes big and small (I won a little pink spotty Dino on the horse racing!). You get the usual arcades, for the gaming/gambling fanatics. There are also plenty of places to eat. A lot of KFCs and Pizza Huts (great mini meal deal) dotted around the park. You'll also find a couple of restaurants, if you don't prefer the fast food option.

All in all it's a great day out, even if my feet were killing me by mid-afternoon (word of advice - do go for trainers, not boots/heels however comfy they may seem). It's a huge place, so if you go, do try to get there early (about 10pm is recommended). You can either walk round it park by park or if you want to jump straight to the interesting rides, you can take the cable cars from one destination to the next. If you want something to remember your visit by, there are plenty of (over-priced) souvenir shops around. A lot of the large rides have specially dedicated ones as you leave the ride, and most of them even let you purchase a photo for £4.99 (they do deals on multiple photos, and you can even get them e-mailed, at a price).

I will definately make a point of going here on a regular basis from now on!

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