How Busy Is It Going To Be?

[Mark9]

Right, so instead of endless topics asking us how busy the park is going to be, instead here is a rough guide to the kind of business the park/s should be expecting this season. It's not set in stone and remember business can be effected by weather, ride reliability, mount of trains/cars on the rollercoasters, amount of staff working on things, fastrack etc etc etc!10am - 5pm Weekday. Likely to be very empty, particularly in term time. Queue time should be minimal (Unless your name is Stealth and you have a stupid system where you can only load 4 in the first, 8 in the second and then you end up rolling back anyway etc etc) 10am-5pm Weekend. Will be emptyish, however likely to be long queues for Saw, Colossus, Stealth and Nemesis Inferno.10am-6pm. Busy but not so bad. Queues for the coasters could reach 45/60 minutes, whilst the rest of the flat rides should be a max of 30 minutes. June and July are when schools start rolling in, so between 11-3 the park will be very busy.9.30am-6pm. Should be busy. Queues for the coasters could reach 60/90 minutes and the rest of the rides queues will be between 20/40 minutes. Fastrack will be in operation.9.30-7pm. Expected to be busy. Queues should be similar to 9.30-6.00 close except the last hour should be quite empty.9.30-8.00 Again should be busy. At least you have a long day to get on quite a few rides. 10.00am-10.00pm Will be busy. Last year wasn't as bad as previously however if it ever hits peak capacity, queues will be up to 2 hours for the rollercoasters and between 45/90 minutes for the flat rides.Remember guys, read this guide to help if you beat the queues without wasting money on Fastrack. Also use the park well. Head to Stealth and Inferno instead of Saw and Colossus. Do rides whilst they look empty instead of following the majority of the crowds.

[Whatever]

Bank holiday Monday is bound to be a nightmare but probably Sunday less so (because of religious stuff) though still busy. 

[Marley1727]

On 3/31/2018 at 6:02 PM, Whatever said:

Bank holiday Monday is bound to be a nightmare but probably Sunday less so (because of religious stuff) though still busy. 

Honestly, Sunday was Empty - the biggest queue was like 15mins.

[StevenX]

I'm looking to do a UK theme park tour with a friend who's visiting from Europe soon, but it's probably going to have to be August. I was wondering whether that's a good idea or not, given crowd levels over the summer holidays - it's been forever since I've been to any of the parks at that time of year.

 

The current plan is Alton Towers on Friday, 10th August and Thorpe Park on Monday 13th August, probably with Blackpool Pleasure Beach on the Saturday in the middle. I'm not too worried about Blackpool as from experience it seems to soak up any crowds fairly well, but what are the lines likely to be like on Monday, 13th August for Thorpe? It has shorter opening hours (10:00 - 18:00) than the Friday, which suggests it'd be best to do it this way round. Any advice appreciated!

[Marc]

If it was me I’d try swap Towers and Thorpe, towers open hours are likely to be 10-6 on both days where as if you can do thorpe on the Friday you’ll get 10:00 till 22:00.

 

That said on a 10 till 6 day you should be fine to get all done, aim to get there for opening!

[pluk]

Anyone know when the worst of the school trips hits?

 

People at work are planning to go on 21st of this month and I'm gearing the worst...

[JoshC.]

29 minutes ago, pluk said:

Anyone know when the worst of the school trips hits?

 

People at work are planning to go on 21st of this month and I'm gearing the worst...

Worst of school trips is in July.

 

Late June is usually manageable; wouldn't expect queues to peak at longer than 30-45mins at worst. And if you're sensible and don't do Swarm first, don't do DBGT when it opens, etc, you'll be fine.