TPJames

A lot of schools are going back tomorrow however some schools are back later on in the week. The hours are till 6pm so don't expect it to be empty however not super packed. If it turns out to be much busier than expected the park may open for an extra half hour or so like they do sometimes. My guess is the Tuesday would be emptier than the Monday however not by much. Expect queues for the coasters to get over an hour and flat rides to be around 30mins. However, a lot of people may have the idea that it will be empty and will turn out busy. I think it is quite am unpredictable day to be honest however I would expect coaster around 60mins.' If you are planning on visiting get there at 9:15-9:30am as they have been opening early at 9:30(9:15 for AP holders) all of this summer.

Went on the same day as Jason(Thursday 28th) just not with the group. Was quite good as all rides in operation except for rumba rapids and several rides broke down during the day. Overall was a good day so not going to go through everything in detail will just post my ridecount below: Total Rides: 22 Saw x1 Nemesis Inferno x2 Stealth x1 Colossus x1 Swarm Forwards x1 X x1 Teacups x1 Rocky road x1 Dodgems x1 Quantum x1 Detonator x1 Samurai x3 Slammer x3 Rush x4 Was a good day and got on a lot of rides due to getting in earlier with our annual passes. We managed Colossus and nemesis walk on at the beginning of the day, followed by stealth and saw with 20minute queues. We managed to do all the flats with 30minutes or less(samurai walk on twice in the morning and slammer walk on all three times). We also managed to do rush 4 times with a 5minute queue at 5pm due to the board saying 45minutes but the actual queue being virtually none existent. We only had to wait 60minutes for swarm and all other rides we waited 0mins for. Overall we did not have to do much queueing except when slammer broke down and people were stuck in the ride; the queue was eventually evacuated. We went back later to slammer, it managed 2 cycles and then broke again. So we probably wasted around an hour waiting twice for a ride which we never got on, however had been on it 3 times earlier in the day and been on most of the rides already. At the end of the day we also managed to do inferno again and X walk on after 6:30.

I think all of thorpe's rides need doing up/removing to be honest. Loggers is breaking down a lot these days, storm turd is well it's storm turd... Rumba rapids tends to be down a fair bit and there's really nothing exciting about it, no good effects or anything. The only good water ride I would say thorpe have is tidal wave(depth charge is also useless as it is so low throughput it gets 60 minute queues in the summer...) Loggers is having too much down time, it is nearly always closed in the mornings and when it does open, it breaks down within a couple of hours, to reopen and break down again. What I would love to see is a high throughput water-coaster in the place of loggers, storm turd removed and rumba rapids refurbed with new theming, effects and just a faster and better rapids ride overall. Would be nice to see a year dedicated to water rides and giving them all a major spruce up.

I usually go on waltzers but samurai was making me dizzy on Thursday after 2 goes in a row I don't think there is a waltzer at the Mela today however the Super Bowl is kind of like a lifting one. I will probably be having a go on the Super Bowl and the Booster and the extreme if it is there. Not sure what other rides are there but I hope to do some videos maybe even onride!

Samurai in the dark would be great. Maybe sneaking in rush to the line up too would be a nice touch as well If the price goes up to £10 for AP holders and £20 for the GP I wouldn't mind so much, when the night is completely empty it is totally worth the price you are paying. Also, if the price was put up I would imagine less people would attend the event making it even better value. However, the switch over at 7pm was a commotion as on some nights some rides still had over 30minute queues during August. I would maybe like to see it from 8-11pm instead of 7-10pm meaning you get some more night riding and the normal guests have been filtered out of the park

Off to the mela tomorrow. Funfair being provided by Bob Wilson. Will probably see the likes of KMG booster, Superbowl, Miami, Jump and smile etc. Hoping to see extreme there aswell. Going in the afternoon/evening so planning to take some videos of the rides and maybe the fireworks if I stay right to the end.

I certainly will be doing the event in July next year. I think it much nicer to experience the nights with no queues at all than having to wait 20mins for the big rides. With 20min queues you can only get on around 10 rides verses the 40 rides I did back in July. If it's predicted busy next year I will probably give it a miss but if it is dead or 5minute queue I will definitely be down to the event next year regardless of whether it is £5/£10.

Well swing A is reaching about 20degrees higher than the other swing... I enjoy rush at the moment on swing A however on swing B I find it really boring, I hope they can fix both swings so they reach the 100degrees(around and abouts) that they used to as I'm sure swing A is getting 90degrees and swing B is getting about 60/70degrees

Is there any proof that there will be extra park wide theming this year? Have thorpe confirmed it?

Yes because a bit of removable angry birds theming is making the park a whole different experience... Thorpe DO offer a preview night however it is going to be on the most inconvenient day possible by the looks of things, a Thursday. Not only will I not be able to visit, many other people will be at school or work making it very inconvenient. This then subjects you to having to pay the £10 fee to visit a fright nights. On a separate note, I wonder what they will do with the Dodgems and the 4D experience. I imagine the Dodgems may close or get special covers on them with some sort of Halloween theming. As for the 4D, I hope they can put some sort of 3D horror experience on, some sort of short film or something maybe made by LIONSGATE. Would be a very nice touch seeing as the cinema never has a queue and would be nice to see an extra something for fright nights in the 4D cinema as I imagine the angry birds experience will close.

Alton towers do fireworks at the end of the year with no extra charge and later hours. It is NOT a good enough excuse and it is not justified that they have doubled the price for AP holders to make more money. Thorpe already have ridiculously expensive tickets and charge extra for car parking and fastracks, they are making plenty of money and it is totally unnecessary that they have doubled the price of this ticket just because of a couple of extra hours on park(bearing in mind the hours were the same last year and the mazes were free, and they only charge £5). It is bordering on ridiculous how money sucking and desperate they are getting.

Great report! Shame ultimate was on one train, I know it's got quite a long track so I can imagine that queue taking a very long time! How long was the queue? Good report though

Think that's a really good idea Paige however I don't think staff would actually bother to check the wristbands. They were never checked on summer nights so don't see why the staff would bother to check that people have paid the extra perk for the mazes. Would be very good for AP holders and the GP though, ones who just want to do the rides get in at a cheaper rate than those who are doing the mazes(AP holders free who don't want to do the mazes). However, nothing more than around £5 extra would I really be happy with. It will be interesting to see how much the horror pass is, hopefully for annual pass holders it is relatively cheap however seeing as the price has now gone up to £10 per visit I would imagine it is in the range of £30. I might also say how I'm annoyed about the fastracks, I just got 4(per member in group) fastracks thrown in my face by customer services as thousands of other people will be and offering more free fastracks will make the ratios even more dreadful than last year when they were about 3:1.

Ride swing A, the closest to the control box(Green and yellow colours). This gets a decent amount of height, although maybe as not much as it used to however completely beats Swing B by the air gates which doesn't even get to 90degrees anymore. Shame really needs to be fixed.

Certainly I would be very angry if there was a charge for the new maze on top of the £10 they are expecting us to pay to get in.

To be fair at alton you have to pay for some of the mazes... If you go to fright nights for the mazes £5 is reasonable(£10 is not!) however if you just go to fright nights for the rides it is definately not worth it. I rather would have all mazes included in fright nights however think £10 is overpriced and money grabbing especially as you have already paid for a pass.

It's a money sucking scheme like merlin do as usual.. They are just trying to get you to the buy the Horror pass so they can make more money than you visiting once for £5 with an annual pass. By making it £10 it makes the horror pass seem a lot more reasonable. Disagree with this fee though and will be booking before beginning of October.

Does anyone have a rough estimate of the price of the Horror Pass yet?

Thanks, do you know what the number is? Will also email through as their customer service has been dreadful since I asked at least twice where my tickets were and got the classic merlin responses. Will be emailing and calling up as it's a problem which needs to be dealt with.

Hi all, I am looking for a direct email to a higher customer service team or management at alton towers. A more superior one to the normal email if possible(if not please could I have the normal email). This is to discuss a complaint in which I won tickets to a festival and they have not turned up, today being the day of the festival. I would like to speak to a person as high up as possible so please could you provide me with as best as you can Many thanks to all of you, James

The only reason I personally get scared when slammer is down is because it is so unreliable. It is completely different to the likes of stealth which will be in the park for many more years to come. Every breakdown of slammers is just another reason for thorpe to get ride of it

The slammer ride team could not get the people out automatically or manually. The situation could have easily been like the rameses revenge incident if it wasnt for the engineers managing to find a way. Restraint faults are one of the scariest problems on rides, if your restraint unlocks midcycle then you are gone forever. Admittedly the restraint faults were at the end of the cycle however those people could have potentially been stuck in there for hours as it happened 2 or 3 times during the day where people were stuck up to half an hour(I was in the queue twice when it happened).

Sorry to contradict but it nearly was closed for half a day. Was closed 4/5 hours out of the 9 which is half thank you very much. I dont get why you are all against my posting, the ride is unreliable, any breakdown could lead to the end of slammer. I love the ride and a bunch of people against me who dont want me to worry about its breakdowns does not stop my love for it.

Sorry for the excessive posting it just breaks down a lot... Did one cycle then broke again so we are waiting to see if it can be fixed.

It's open now Riding for 4th time today.