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Poor Desert Race and Heide Park, both so forgotten about they don't even get considered for a Merlin plague...

Can only have one of Stealth or Rita running at any one time.

Hope this is OK to discuss here on the Stealth thread on the Thorpe Park Mania forum but Stealth is down again from today until Friday for more scheduled maintenance... Please stay with us Sweet Prince xox

Easy winner is Thorpe. Best operated rides, best opening hours and better reliability.

How have the queue times been at Chessington? Perhaps the demand isn't really there this season? (I have no idea) Attendance feels like it's lower in general at Towers and Thorpe this year. Don't know about Lego and Chessington.

I'm assuming that the 5pm closes in October will be changed. Otherwise that's a real cut down. Strange decisions from the higher ups.

It's even weirder given they're currently a whole area down (which you would expect has knock on effects to queue times, so cutting hours would lead to people getting less rides), and that Chessington are getting the most investment out of the Merlin parks currently. You'd expect them to be the crown jewel all round right now. Unless the fact that a third of the park is basically a construction site has reduced visitor numbers drastically, I don't get it.

Chessingtons opening hours for the whole summer holidays (and for the rest of the season) is 5pm. Same with Legoland. Going back, 6pm has always been standard, and for most weekends throughout the season. Infact a few years ago there was even a lot of 7pm closes in the holidays and weekends. Ouch.

The last few years, I'd say Thorpe park by a long way. Best ride availability, best throughputs and best opening hours. Crazy because going back 5+ years or so I would've always said Towers. 1 train ops on off peak days was standard at Thorpe, resulting in long queues even on quiet days.

It's certainly a fair concern. Given that Towers have already outsourced their Ents department, it will be interesting to see how Scarefest goes down this year and what changes are noticeable. Though Scarefest and Fright Nights are obviously very different events, it will at least give us some indication as to what the situation could be. It will be interesting how much creative control the park will retain for the event. They might still be able to design attractions, and just give operational outlines. They might be able to outline briefs and then leave things with the third party. Regardless, I don't just see it being handed over with Thorpe have next-to-no input and not being able to share that knowledge or passion, nor do I expect we'll return to lower quality outdoor mazes (not to say that outdoor mazes should be completely disregarded). I have heard murmurings at the very least that the park are seeing next year's Fright Nights as a 'big' one, due to it being the 25th edition. It's possible that's why there's no new maze this year (and so, less money spent on the event), so that they can go all out a bit more next year. Obviously take it with a pitch of salt, but I think for now, we're okay.

I am looking forward to this years Fright Nights and I think this year is going to be a great event. They have got it to a place where the event is consistent and has a range of indoor mazes and hopefully a few good scare zones and entertainment building on previous years. Smaller queues and more consistent experiences have been the trend over the past 4 years. I am worried however about next year in which RWS are going to take control of the event and experience. How much input does the park have into the event anymore creatively…. Thorpe Park is an outlier in which you can see this event is someone’s/ a group of people’s baby. The themes have been created by the same people which a consistent aim. Now it moves to another company which doesn’t have the same passion or knowledge about the event. I just hope we don’t go back to outdoor lower quality mazes again. It’s worrying as Thorpe doesn’t need an external entertainment provider as they basically only do fright nights.

Got to be Thorpe for me these days - they have had quite the turnaround over the last few years.

Thorpe comes out on top for me. Speaking across the board, availability is decent and throughputs are good. Towers do well with throughputs, but their availability feels a lot worse. Legoland comes next for me. They cope well with what they have. Chessington isn't awful, but they have a lot of low throughput rides and they struggle to operate them well.

Hi guys. Here in the UK, we have four Merlin parks: Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Chessington and Legoland Windsor. Operations are a contentious topic surrounding the Merlin parks, particularly as of late; people talk a lot about throughputs, ride availability and the like with regard to these properties. However, there’s arguably some variation between the four properties in terms of many of these metrics, so with this in mind, I’d be keen to know; which Merlin park is best operated, in your view? Which one performs best in terms of metrics like throughputs? Personally, I would put Alton Towers at the top of the pile. But if I were to rank them, I would say the following: Alton Towers - The park may not be perfect, but in general, I think it’s the one that seems to have the most consistently strong operations. Throughputs are broadly excellent, on the whole, with lots of trains running and quick dispatches, the staff seem generally good at batching people and encouraging guests to fill seats, and ride availability, while extremely inconsistent at best in 2023 and 2024, generally seems to have been a lot better this season. I would say that Alton Towers is broadly very good operationally. Thorpe Park - I have to say that I think Thorpe Park gets an unfair amount of flack for operations. From my experiences, the park are generally pretty decent at getting good ride throughputs; particularly as of late, there does seem to have been a bit of a throughput push at Thorpe Park. On my visits, rides generally seem to be running at full capacity and dispatching fairly promptly, for the most part. Granted, I don’t think the park is quite as slick as Towers in some regards; for instance, I don’t think they’re quite as proactive as Alton at batching and encouraging guests to fill seats. Nonetheless, I find that Thorpe Park generally do a decent job, and I don’t think ride availability is that bad either. On some rides, I would even argue that Thorpe Park like-for-like does better than Alton Towers; for instance, Stealth consistently seems to get a good peg higher than Rita in terms of throughputs, from my experience. Legoland Windsor - Here’s where I think things dip slightly. It might be down to a greater lack of intrinsically high capacity rides, but I find the queues at Legoland seem to move more slowly than at Thorpe and Towers. In general, I think the coasters seem to do OK, but could go faster. For instance, Dragon was doing a little over 3 minutes per dispatch on my last visit, which seems a little on the slower side for a simple lap bar coaster running multiple trains. Minifigure Speedway was also impeded by the same weird quirk as Mandrill Mayhem, where they won’t let you wait on the platform. Some of the non-coaster rides also seemed a bit short-staffed; for instance, Flight of the Sky Lion had one person running the whole show batching-wise, and it was resulting in a dispatch interval probably no quicker than 10 minutes or so. To be fair, though, availability seemed good on my visit and I don’t really remember anything breaking down. Chessington - Granted, I’ve only been once in the last decade, but Chessington definitely seemed like the Merlin park that struggled the most operationally on my 2023 visit. Most rides seemed very short-staffed; for instance, Vampire had one person who had to handle both batching and restraint checking, resulting in some of the slowest operations I’ve ever witnessed in a Merlin park (around 400pph on 2 trains…). This story continued across multiple rides. Croc Drop had one poor man running the entire ride on his own. Tomb Blaster had one poor man who had to batch, check and send the entire train. Dragon’s Fury was also strangely operated, taking a good 50% longer to send each car on average than Spinball Whizzer and only 3/4 filling most of the cars (?). To be fair, Mandrill Mayhem wasn’t doing badly at all for a 1 train shuttle coaster (around 3 minutes per dispatch), but most things seemed short staffed and quite slowly operated as a result. I went on a Sunday in September that was not obscenely busy, and there were many rides where the advertised queue breached 60 minutes (I saw Dragon’s Fury on 100 at one point!). But I’d be keen to know: which Merlin park do you feel is best operated? Do you agree with my ranking?

The actual operations at Towers are broadly always excellent. It's whether the rides are actually open that is Altons problem.

I have some throughput timings from my trip to Alton Towers on 26th and 27th July that I’d like to report! Across the two days, I managed to grab the following throughput timings: Galactica (Theoretical: 1,500pph on 3 trains/2 stations): 1,207pph (3 trains/2 stations, average of 4, 26th July 2025) Nemesis Reborn (Theoretical: 1,400pph on 2 trains): 1,163pph (2 trains, average of 5, 26th July 2025), 1,130pph (2 trains, average of 5, 27th July 2025) Oblivion (Theoretical: 1,900pph on 7 shuttles/2 stations): 787pph (5 shuttles/2 stations, average of 3 dual dispatches, 26th July 2025) (Note: This figure was obtained in a brief moment when the ride did not have a batcher, so the platform staff were having to multitask), 939pph (5 shuttles/2 stations, average of 4 dual dispatches, 26th July 2025), 644pph (4 shuttles/1 station, average of 2, 27th July 2025) Spinball Whizzer (Theoretical: 950pph on 8 cars): 631pph (6 cars, average of 2, 26th July 2025 (Note: While I got relatively few readings for Spinball, I had a longer timing that I accidentally messed up by missing one, and the longer timing had a very similar, if not slightly faster, average; ops seemed pretty consistent on here for the whole time I was in the area) The Smiler (Theoretical: 1,200pph on 5 trains): 882pph (4 trains, average of 10, 26th July 2025), 830pph (4 trains, average of 6, 27th July 2025) (Note: This figure was skewed downwards slightly by one instance of a larger guest who didn’t fit needing to be rechecked and evicted; the average of the other 5 readings was higher) Thirteen (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 3 trains): 1,272pph (3 trains, average of 7, 26th July 2025) (Note: This reading was skewed down by 1 or 2 instances of larger guests needing rechecking, as well as 1 instance where guests lingering from the prior train needed ushering off the exit platform prior to dispatch) Toxicator (Theoretical: 1,200pph): 482pph (average of 3, 27th July 2025) Wicker Man (Theoretical: 952pph on 3 trains): 970pph (3 trains, average of 10, 26th July 2025), 1,080pph (3 trains, average of 6, 26th July 2025), 991pph (3 trains, average of 7, 27th July 2025) Overall, I thought operations were broadly excellent across the weekend! In terms of a few specific thoughts that stick out to me: After a bit of a slip in efficiency last year, Nemesis seems to have returned to its pre-retrack form in terms of operations; they were brilliant on there all trip, with little to no stacking, and there were staff members hurrying people along on the platform and at batching! It has been a bit inconsistent on some trips in the past, but I have to say that Galactica was doing brilliantly last weekend! They were killing it on 3 trains and 2 stations; I rode it twice and didn’t stack either time, and whenever I was in the station, it seemed very common for there to be a notable gap between a train leaving my station and the train behind re-entering it. The train was frequently slowing down on the lift hill (because the train in front hasn’t cleared the block yet) too. Brilliant! The key throughput highlight of the weekend was probably Thirteen. Given that my 1,272pph average was skewed down by a couple of larger guests needing rechecking, I think it’s fair to say that the Thirteen staff were doing brilliantly! It was on 3 trains, and they were throwing the trains out; when they were on a roll, they were getting dispatch intervals as fast as 50s, and the vast majority of dispatch intervals were under a minute! There was a dispatch where the staff had checked the train so fast that they had to usher the guests still exiting from the previous train off the exit platform to dispatch. Isn’t that awesome? It was like being in Europa Park or Universal! That ride really is a queue muncher when it runs to its full potential! The one bleaker spot on the otherwise excellent throughput picture was Oblivion. When I encountered the ride on Saturday, it was lacking a batcher at one point; that 787pph figure is probably the worst I’ve ever measured on 2 stations, and it was almost solely due to the platform staff having to duck out from the platform to come and batch people at periodic intervals. They did regain a separate batcher later in the day, but even then, the operations were not exactly staggering, with the average still being above 2 minutes between dual dispatches. It was also only running one station on Sunday, which definitely isn’t ideal in the summer holidays. This is the one ride that notably doesn’t quite hit its potential; I think baggage is the key thing that stymies it, as it takes a long time for people to cross those long rows. If it had a baggage hold or fancy cages like Yukon Striker, I think the throughput on Oblivion would go up two-fold. Wicker Man was doing really well as usual, with frequent cases of a train going up the lift hill before the one in front hitting the brake run, but I do think it might now be time to dispense of the compulsory pre-show. I noticed that they were often having to wait for the pre-show to end before they could fill the airgates (the station queue was running out of people before the doors were opening to let a new batch in), which did seem to slow dispatches down in some cases. Overall, the weekend boasted broadly excellent operations, and no queue was very long at all! It’s weekends like this one that make me disagree with the common consensus that Alton Towers have dreadful operations; I’d argue that figures like these suggest that the park actually do very well on throughputs in general, with most rides running on full capacity and dispatching promptly!

fire, cash, times, money, queues, splash, trees, walking paninaro, paninaro, oooooooooh!

Why was the queue line extended outside of the original ride area? Makes the swcrion of path very narrow.

Revivng this question to tell you all that Fright Nights and halloween in general has essentially become the new summer, queues will be ridiculously high (I waited half an hour on the ride access queue for Hyperia, which probably had a 300 minute normal queue wait last year) and crowds will be absolutely packed. Alton Towers' scarefest also has the same issue and not even Chessington or LEGOLAND are safe from the long queues too, especially at half term. Simply put, if you're going to a major UK theme park this halloween, be prepared for the worst.

The Easter Egg culture for Merlin has become a lot. Realistically, sticking in an Easter Egg takes very little effort. Taking Toxicator as an example, it wouldn't have taken any real energy and time away from the creative team to throw in references to 1997, seeing that "Ripsaw" spelt backwards was "Waspir", and that could be used to spell something that sounded vaguely acidic in "Waspirium", a poster with "Can you cut it?", etc. It's a fun little nod. Designers putting their name on an attraction is also a trend which has been around a long time too. But there's now an innate expectation for Easter Eggs which has come from influencers and enthusiasts seeking them out and really pushing them. It erred too far. My favourite example of how far it went was how Survival Games at Thorpe Park features a prop of a severed penis (behind a fence, in a box, not in an obvious place, I believe), with a tag labelled "JS" on it, which stood for Jack Silkstone, an 'Easter Egg' to how Jack was involved in the marketing for it. Again, not something that takes up time, money or energy to create really, but extremely convoluted, and by bringing it to people's attention and encouraging them to look out for it, actively takes away from the experience. And that's the issue now. People fixate more on Easter Eggs and finding these nods and feeling clever than actually taking in the bigger picture. Going back to Toxicator, whilst all the references make sense and that, does Toxicator really fit and work with Forbidden Valley? Well, it's certainly changed the area more and continued to turn of it into X Sector 2.0.

Its cool to have an Easter Egg or two within a new or reimagined attraction (say for example, Piraten in Batavia having a survivor boat from the fire and a Roland Mack animatronic), but when the majority of the attraction becomes "DO YOU GET IT?" it misses the point somewhat as you feel like they're trying too hard to bash you over the head with references. The other issue is that the park has been so run down that a number of rides have needed a full refurbishment. Sub Terra came back out of necessity more than anything, Duel was in a sorry state since it opened, Nemesis was also refurbished out of necessity or be closed. Don't really think it's anything to do with nostalgia. Just those are the rides they could either redo over a closed season or needed to be done for reasons.

It's a very interesting one that's been touched on before in other topics. Apart from the excellent Wickerman, they've spent vast amounts of money over the last several years replacing the Haunted House, Hex, Sub Terra, Nemesis, Skyride and Ripsaw with... The Haunted House, Hex, Sub Terra, Nemesis, Skyride and Ripsaw... Yes they're all updated and in a couple of cases very different, but they're all essentially the same thing at the end of the day, and it's difficult to argue with that. Someone who last visited Alton Towers in 2014, over a decade ago, would realistically not see a lot of difference in terms of ride offering if they visited again tomorrow. In fact, there are fewer rides on offer. Don't get me wrong - I think its a very good thing that Skyride was saved, I think Curse is a vast improvement on Duel, and Nemesis' renewal and tart-up was a good thing to secure its future, but I agree with what you've said above. Realistically, to most people at least, none of it is truly new. It's neatly all been (granted, expensive) maintenance to existing attractions to keep them running... And the trouble is, they're not finished yet either. Galactica is crying out for a refurbishment and retime... so could that be yet another (all be it badly needed) large investment that needs doing instead of something truly new? It wouldn't surprise me, as it will probably be deemed worth investing in rather than scrapping. I think the truth is that Merlin has run nearly everything in to the ground, with little thought for the future. Although we all rode the wave of Merlin's success a decade ago, with new things coming in fairly regularly, their short-term thinking and obsession with only ever investing in a 'sure moneymaker' to satisfy the shareholders one year at a time has landed Towers here. The money that should have been spent on refurbishments and maintenance over the years was instead given to the top execs and the shareholders, and now everything's timed out at the same time, and is hoovering up all the money that would otherwise be available to invest in to new attractions etc. I'm very sad about the situation Alton Towers has been put in to by such poor leadership in the past. Clearly there is a lot of money being spent at Towers on getting things back on track. The recent renovations have mostly been excellent. But with more expensive fix-ups surely to come, and ongoing problems with reliability and aging rides elsewhere (Rita, Galactica, etc), they're not out of the woods yet. I hope there will be news soon on something truly new and exciting coming to Towers. They just can't keep replacing or re-theming everything for ever - even Disney have accepted that!

Hi guys. In recent years, I think it’s fair to say that Alton Towers have had a bit of a nostalgia push, for lack of a better term. In 2023, the park revamped Duel into The Curse at Alton Manor, which harked back to the ride’s roots and brought back something more akin to the Haunted House from 1992 (while Curse is not the Haunted House, it’s a haunted house with enough shared DNA that I think the two could be conflated with one another by a casual visitor). In 2024, the park retracked Nemesis. And in 2025, the park have opened Toxicator, which brings back a ride akin to the late Ripsaw from 1997 (while Toxicator is not the Ripsaw, it’s a Top Spin with enough shared DNA that I think the two could be conflated with one another by a casual visitor). Argaubly more so than ever before, Alton Towers’ recent investments seem to be leaning heavily into nostalgia for the park’s past. This is an interesting change of pace for the park compared to years gone by, so I’d be interested to know; what are your thoughts on the recent nostalgia push at Alton Towers? Do you love that the park is harking back to the glory days of the past? Or do you think that the park is fixating overly on past glories and not bringing enough new things to the table? Personally, I’m in two minds. I think there’s a balance to be struck between nostalgia and new ideas. On the one hand, I don’t think any of the projects that have been done have been unnecessary projects or excessively fixated on nostalgia to their detriment. Curse did not attempt to synthetically “revive” the 1992 Haunted House as some were advocating for and as I feared might happen; it did attempt to put its own spin on the haunted house concept and I think it works really well. Nemesis Reborn was a revival of a ride that was by all accounts revered and a core part of the park’s DNA, and I think the changes were excellent and breathed new life into the concept to bring it into the 21st century. Toxicator, perhaps ironically with it being the only new piece of ride hardware, is perhaps the one that feels like it was most done for nostalgia’s sake; there are a lot of other types of flat ride to pick from, and they still went for the one that the park had in 1997. But even still, Alton Towers lacks flat rides and the Top Spin as a ride type does objectively offer a lot of positive attributes. These projects have good ideas at their core, and one could argue; why should a good idea go unused just because it has been used before? Newness for newness’s sake is not necessarily a good thing; sometimes the old ones are the best, as they say! On the other hand, however, I have a key concern about the park relying on nostalgia for multiple recent investments. That concern is that an excessive focus on nostalgia for multiple investments in a row might contribute to a public perception that the park is stood still, and isn’t moving forward. I’m not saying that projects like the revamps weren’t good, but I think more so than any decade prior, Alton Towers has felt like it’s stood still during the 2020s so far. We as enthusiasts might be interested in projects like Curse and Nemesis Reborn, and the park are undeniably splashing the cash, but for the casual visitor, I have my concerns that it looks like the park is simply living off past glories and rehashing the past. To the casual observer, I can see why Curse is “just the Haunted House in a new colour”, Nemesis Reborn is “just Nemesis in a new colour”, and Toxicator is “just Ripsaw in a new colour”. In isolation, I think all of these projects were fundamentally good and beneficial, and nostalgia in moderate doses is not necessarily a bad thing… but when put together and being the only things done for multiple years in a row, they give off an impression that the park has run out of ideas and hasn’t done anything meaningfully new in years. People might rhapsodise about “the experience” in years gone by, but I feel this sentiment ignores the key thing that gave Alton Towers its popularity and status in the first place. During the 1980s and 1990s, the park was forward-thinking and brought several new and innovative ride installations to the table, and it attracted the public’s attention in a big way. Heck, even during the 2010s, the park was still forward-thinking and bringing new and innovative ride installations to the table in the form of rides like Thirteen, Smiler and Wicker Man. But when Alton Towers has spent the last few years in a row doing nothing but refurbishing and/or “reviving” things from the park’s past, I fear that that forward-thinking and innovating mentality that gave the park its name will be perceived to have gone. Multiple nostalgia-driven projects in a row could feel like the park is rehashing the old hits and living in the past rather than bringing anything new to the table. So personally, my view is that there is a place for nostalgia, and good ideas should not necessarily be abandoned for newness’s sake, but that the park’s reliance on it in recent years could perhaps be excessive, particularly if continued into 2026 and beyond. If we, for instance, see a new enterprise to “revive” Enterprise in 2027 and a new pirate ship to “revive” Blade in 2028, I fear it will just fuel a perception that the park is stood still and living in the past. We need some legitimately new blood interspersed in with nostalgia to make it feel like the park is moving forwards, and I’d argue we’ve reached a juncture where Alton Towers could perhaps do with some new blood rides-wise. But I’d be keen to know; what are your thoughts on Alton Towers’ recent nostalgia push? Do you think it’s a good idea to hark back to the glory days? Or do you think the park could do with bringing some new ideas to the table?

I couldn’t find an exclusive topic for it (apologies if there is one), but I did Toxicator for the first time over the weekend. I shared a few thoughts in my trip report from the Saturday, but I’ll give a few slightly more in-depth thoughts here. Let me start with the theming and presentation… Presentation On the presentation front, I think it overall looks really nice. To give a few more refined thoughts: I was unsure on the platform prior to the ride’s opening, but I have to say that it does make the ride look really dominant and visually striking; that platform absolutely towers above the area! Theming-wise, I think they’ve done an excellent job. There are some really nice little details around the area and queue, as well as in the underpass, and I also really like things like the audio and the toxic waste tanks (?) on either side of the ride. Yes, it might not quite match the grandeur of something like Talocan (from what I’ve seen of that one), but it’s better themed than 95% of flat rides out there, including any of the ones that used to populate Alton Towers in years gone by, so I’d consider the theming we have on Toxicator a big win! As with anything designed by John Burton, there are quite a few Easter eggs, or “nods to the past”. Maybe not as many as on some of his other work, but I did notice a couple of “Can you cut it?” references, as well as a reference to 1997 somewhere. I would say, though, that the platform is a double edged sword. I say this because while I think it makes the ride look really dominant, it does maybe sacrifice some practicality in that when the ride is in operation, it seems to leak water everywhere. I’m not sure if this is intentional or a design flaw arising from the ride’s placement on top of a platform, but there was a bit of the queue that I noticed people not standing in because the ride was raining water into it during operation, and the underpass is difficult to walk under for similar reasons. But on the whole, I would give the park top marks for presentation on this one; the ride looks great thematically! Let me talk about the ride now… The Ride Now prior to Saturday, I had never actually ridden a Huss Top Spin before. I never did Ripsaw when it operated, and I also never did Rameses Revenge either, so this was a new ride type for me! I’m not a great lover of flat rides in general, but I had heard people say that Ripsaw “wasn’t as bad as it looked”, so I wondered if I might like Toxicator. Unfortunately, I’m sorry to say that the ride really wasn’t for me at all. I really hoped I might like it or not dislike it that much, but unfortunately, I would say it was right down there with Air Race at Drayton Manor and Samurai at Thorpe Park as one of the most vile flat rides I’ve ridden, and I would it was my least favourite thing I rode all weekend at Alton Towers. I’m aware this is quite strong criticism, so I feel I should back up my stance with reasons. My reasons for disliking the ride so strongly are two fold: Firstly, it has a fair amount of slow and very sustained upside down hangtime. I can take brief or fast hangtime to a point (e.g. the inversion on Swarm’s dive drop, or Smiler’s indoor inversion), but the really slow and sustained kind of hangtime where it just leaves you hanging upside down for ages and ages is the kind that I absolutely hate. Toxicator seemed to have loads of it, unfortunately, and that turned me off it for sure. Secondly, I found the flipping a bit too violent for my liking. I’m not someone who’s averse to going upside down by any means (I’m absolutely fine with it on coasters), but Toxicator seemed to flip over and over in a ridiculously violent fashion that I just did not find remotely enjoyable. It made me feel a bit queasy, if I’m honest, and I just found the flipping too violent and jerky for my liking. I’m sorry if that’s controversial. I know many, many people love these Huss Top Spins, and rate Toxicator and also the likes of Talocan really highly, but that experience just was not for me at all. In a park like Alton Towers, where there are loads of great rides to pick from, it’s not a ride I see myself rushing back on any time soon. Wetness-wise, I didn’t get as wet as I feared I might. I got a bit of spray on my legs, but nothing overly terrible; it dried quite quickly, even on an overcast morning like Saturday. I can imagine the spray might be nice on a hotter day! I really want to be excited by Toxicator, and I do think the park should be applauded for building a new flat ride, but my experience on it over the weekend reminded me why I have little to no personal excitement for the idea of new flat rides at Alton Towers. I’m just not a massive fan of them in general, and the types I do really like (namely drop towers and S&S Screamin’ Swings, to name a couple… mainly things that offer notable airtime and don’t really spin!) are types of ride that Alton Towers can’t build due to height restrictions. I get that the park lacks flat rides, but I struggle to muster up an awful lot of personal enthusiasm for any hypothetical flats that Towers might build in the future, and Toxicator has definitely not changed that, I’m afraid. One other thing I would say, which I admit is perhaps slightly picky, is that if the park builds any more flat rides in the coming years, I hope they go for something that the park hasn’t had before. As much as Toxicator is a brilliant visual piece and looks really cool, I get the overriding impression that many people see it as “Ripsaw in a different colour”. While Toxicator is a new ride, the fact that it’s effectively a revival of a ride from 1997 does only add to the impression that Alton Towers isn’t really progressing and hasn’t done much that’s meaningfully new in years. Curse and Nemesis Reborn were brilliantly executed projects, but they were refurbishments and/or revivals of old staples rather than meaningfully new things, and I feel that Toxicator kind of has this feel to the casual visitor as well. I don’t think Toxicator being a Top Spin was necessarily a bad thing per se, as the ride type does offer many really cool aspects, but I do hope that future flat ride additions to Alton Towers offer something the park has never had before rather than simply being similar “revivals” of Enterprise, Submission, Blade et al. My fear is that the casual visitor might lump Toxicator in with the likes of Curse and Nemesis Reborn as being a refurbishment or revival of the old rather than properly new blood, and I feel that Alton Towers is maybe at that point where it could do with some properly new blood ride-wise. I hate to leave negative reviews, so I’ll try and be somewhat balanced and diplomatic with my summary. In summation, I would say that Toxicator is an excellent ride visually, and I will give them top marks for presentation. The ride really does look brilliant! I will also applaud them for trying to fill the flat ride gap in Alton Towers’ lineup. And if you like flat rides more than I do, I’m sure you’ll really enjoy the ride itself! But I’m afraid that the ride experience was not for me at all, and it’s probably a one and done within the sphere of Alton Towers for me; I don’t see myself rushing back on it any time soon. I’m sorry to leave a negative review, but I feel obliged to be 100% honest whenever I review things, and that is how I honestly felt. Here are a couple of photos I took (I didn’t take many, as I didn’t spend very long in the queue): On the plus side, being disappointed by Toxicator was the only real dampener on what was a broadly excellent two-day visit to Alton Towers! Operations were generally excellent; Nemesis was hardly stacking, Galactica was in “slowing down on the lift hill” territory on 3 trains and 2 stations, and Thirteen was throwing out trains at a rate I’ve never seen before! They were getting dispatch intervals as fast as 50 seconds on there, and even with a few larger guests who needed an extra restraint check as well as a dispatch where people weren’t leaving the exit platform quickly enough to dispatch, my average dispatch interval while in Thirteen’s station was 56 seconds, or 1,272pph. That is awesome! Wicker Man and Smiler were also doing well on a full capacity service. Availability was also generally pretty good, and some of the rides were running as excellently as ever! Wicker Man remains my favourite on park, and I got a particularly fantastic row 11 ride this trip, but Oblivion was also running brilliantly and I got my first front row ride on Nemesis following the retrack, which was sublime! The hotel was also really nice overall; it was nice to stay on-site again, and given the drama around Aramark, I thought the breakfast was absolutely fine! Given some of the negativity around Towers at the moment, I feel I should give credit where credit is due and say that this was an excellent trip to Alton Towers overall!

Another couple of very well structured reports along with interesting guidance, especially the single rider queues. I do like Thirteen but still maintain I don't know where I've been when I get off it. Well done and thanks. Fred (planenut)