Alton Towers Trip Reports

[Theme Park bloke]

I'm a culture vulture, and culture is what Alton Towers has. There's not many parks like this in the world which have a historic building within the park. And what makes it stand out from the other parks is that it's so spread out. Some people complain that Alton's too spread out, well without the Sky Ride, it can seem a long walk from one area to another (like Hex to Nemesis). But then the fact it's spread out so much makes the park the place it is. When I was there recently, the Sky Ride obviously was shut, I could've walked from Hex to Forbidden Valley through the gardens, but for the first year, I didn't. I walked through Katanga.Another reason I like the park so much is because you can't see or hear the road, unlike the other 2 parks down south. Thorpe may hold some record breakers, but just remember, Alton does too: The Corkscrew, Rita was the first rocket coaster within Tussauds' park back in '05, Oblivion and the world's first drop, Air the flying coaster, Nemesis the world's most intense rollercoaster back in 1994.BTW, is Nemesis still regarded as the world's most intense rollercoaster today?As I've said before, I have returned from Alton Towers (from my recent trip) with the view that it's the cleanest, well kept, most politely-mannered park out of Alton, Chessie and Thorpe. I even saw some several Merlin staff being shown around by some AT staff, probably their first visit!

[treeis]

I think theres a schwartskopf ride called "mindbender" or something that holds the title as most intense. But I'm very certain that it wont be as awesome as Nemesis.

[James6]

Right... Well!I got to the park about half 2 and left , annoyingly at 8.15, but we can forget about that,Walked down a very nice looking Towers Street, to much lower than expected queue's. I had heard Nottingham and around there were on half term last week so I'm guessing that's why. When entering I saw Air: 35Nemesis: 25Oblivion: 0Rita: 35So first ride was of course the unbelievable Nemesis, and then on the more believable Air.The park, apart from Towers Street had barely anything added really. A couple of smoke machines here and there, the Nemesis Bus getting a spruce up, Skeleton's on Oblivion's hole and I think that's it really.The park really does look stunning in the dark though, with the Towers illuminated in green and then Towers Street reflecting on the water, it is a great place to be when it's dark.Duel:Live was , as last year brilliant, more actors this year, a couple just to say hello, others which physically made my hair stand on end. :)Ok so lets get to what I all wanted to tell you, Nemesis queue was advertised the whole day at about 20/25 mins but actually if you queued for it, it was about 10/15. After half 6 it was walk on-5 mins.I of course took the opportunity to use the single rider queue so I wouldn't have to walk around the queue lots of times. Your not going to believe it, but I did single rider 5 times , and 4 times I was at the front... It was incredible.So, sorry Vampire but not even your incredible tunnel is enough to hold your place against Nemesis, in the dark, at the front, 4 times :DOh and possibly the highlight, Runaway Mine Train was running the fastest it's been since the crash which is fantastic!Ride CountNemesis x6Air x 2Oblivion x 2Spinball Whizzer x 2Rita x 1Runaway Mine Train x 1Duel: Live x 1Bit disappointed by that but company limited number of rides. Sill I've never had 4 rides at the front of Nemesis :PChessington is definately my preffered park, Alton just feels a bit "empty" if you know what I mean.Pictures!Is that enough Nemesis ?I think that's pretty much it! Thanks for reading!

[Dummiguy]

I've been at Alton Towers the past two days for the half term event I can safetly say it's not the best trip to the towers I've been on as queues were very long and some rides featured alot of down time, but Sonic Spinball was defiantly improved from its' previous theme I was in need of a re-paint and also the single rider queue moved quickly for it. Well we started Monday morning waking up later than wanted and then got stuck in traffic on the way to the towers and eventually got out the car at the drop off point five hours after setting off. We started the visit by heading off to Spinball Sonic to see if the new theme had changed the experiance in any way but it hadn't but it was good to try it and you always come off laughing. We then headed off to Twirling Toadstall and then tried to get just any view of Th13teen but very little track was exposed. It then came to the time we had to move towards Forbiddan Valley we went to queue for Nemesis but only seconds after joining the queue we were told the queue was in excess of 45 mins which was far too long to queue for the time we went next to Air and got on front row within 20mins after joining the queue. After being. closed since the time we got to the park we were told Oblivion was open again so we got on it after waiting for 10mins then it broke down again so we couldn't go on it any more. We finished the day with a walk to Sonic Spinball as it was on the way to the exit. After spending the night at a nearby Travelodge we head back to the park for another day, we started the day by doing the one thing I was annoyed about not doing the previous day; Nemesis. We got two quick walk ons before going over to X-Sector to queue for Oblivion we got after 5mins in the SRQ but it would've been a walk on but for it braking down. We then had a go on Spinball Sonic before meeting with Sam; smartguy on here once meeting with him we all had another go on Sonic Spinball. We then walked across to Forbidden Valley we tried to go on Nemesis and Air before deciding the queues were too long to we went on Blade. While walking to lunch we went on Duel where Sam got 46,000 and was first out of the four of us I came second with 21,000. We then went for lunch at the Pizza and Pasta Buffet. After having a filling lunch we went just opisite to the Runaway Mine Train where we got first and second rows. We then went across to Sonic Spinball once again before going to Cloud Cuckoo Land to go on Twirling Toadstall and give Sam a chance to see Th13teen, we then had a go on Hex which is always confusing. We then had to have a quick go on Squirrel Nutty before heading home an hour before the park shut so we could get home.RidecountSonic Spinball x5Oblivion x2Nemesis x2Air x1Runaway Mine Train x1Twirling Toadstall x2Hex x1Blade x1Squirrel Nutty x1Duel x1-------------------------TOTAL - 17-------------------------

[James6]

Gosh sounds pretty dissapointing to be honest. Hope you still had a good time though :)I must say this February Half Term opening sounds more like one that would be at Thorpe, and strangely enough, last year there really was barely a break down during the same event.

[Paul]

I'm really not a fan of early openings with limited rides at any theme park. Parks should be open when ready, when all attractions are available.

[Dummiguy]

Yeah I agree Paul, as Oblivion just had too much down time; the lift hill's got a problem as on all test runs it either stalled or got stuck on the lift.

[James6]

I agree, but Alton, in the past, have been fine and the rides open have actually been in operating condition, which doesn't sound the case for a good few rides this year- Nemesis, 1 train- Oblivion, constantly breaking down- Hex, few effects working- Duel, Same as Hex- Runaway Mine Train, Running extremely slowly etc etcI do hope things improve for Friday

[Paul]

I agree, but Alton, in the past, have been fine and the rides open have actually been in operating condition, which doesn't sound the case for a good few rides this year- Nemesis, 1 train- Oblivion, constantly breaking down- Hex, few effects working- Duel, Same as Hex- Runaway Mine Train, Running extremely slowly etc etcI do hope things improve for Friday

Hopefully :PMy first theme park visit this year will be Thorpe Park at the end of March,; hopefully everything will be running smoothly. Although I'm not a fan of half-term openings at all, it does give you something to do during half-term, especially the AP holders. But for people who pay ticket prices on the day, it can be and often is a waste of money.

[James6]

If it wasn't reduced prices, I'd agree, but I'm taking a friend with me on Friday and he can get in for £15, and with the majority of the "main" rides open, even with the some of the rides not being completely ready, it's still definitely worth it and will provide a great day out :PIf you look forward to it as if its going to be a "normal" day, you'll be disappointed, but if you look at it like a quick top up on the ol' adrenaline, it'll still be a great day. I also find it quite interesting to look at the park now, and then when the park opens in March, see the usual vast improvements and touch-ups around the park.

[Dummiguy]

There's no problems with Duel or Hex anymore.

[Mark9]

I agree, but Alton, in the past, have been fine and the rides open have actually been in operating condition, which doesn't sound the case for a good few rides this year- Nemesis, 1 train- Oblivion, constantly breaking down- Hex, few effects working- Duel, Same as Hex- Runaway Mine Train, Running extremely slowly etc etcI do hope things improve for Friday

Just to comment on a few of those... Nemesis wasn't originally supposed to be open at all so the fact they rush opened their best ride for a single week of opening is a huge plus for the park. Oblivion seems odd but then again, it's not unexpected especially in the cold conditions for the ride to play up.Duel and Hex have effects off all through the season so that can't really be blamed on the park not being ready.Runaway Mine Train thing is very interesting..., unless the operators are putting it on half speed (or lower then max) for some reason then it should't be running any slower then last year.

[Kevin]

I'd expect as Runaway hasn't operated properly for nearly 4 months, they're just easing it back in.Does that happen with Runaway at Chessington Mark? Just I know staff have hour long rides for example on Dodgems at WoA to break all the cars back into proper operation, and to take the rust accumulated off of the track.

[Mark9]

I'd expect as Runaway hasn't operated properly for nearly 4 months, they're just easing it back in.Does that happen with Runaway at Chessington Mark? Just I know staff have hour long rides for example on Dodgems at WoA to break all the cars back into proper operation, and to take the rust accumulated off of the track.

What they do with Runaway at Chessington is put only the very essential parts of the train back on the track then run it in at every speed. It's a mind-numbing process as with 9 speeds and each speed has to do a certain amount of hours round the track. I don't think they can quite do that at Alton as the train has to run at quite a high speed to get back up the hill to the station.

[Dan9]

I'm really not a fan of early openings with limited rides at any theme park. Parks should be open when ready, when all attractions are available.

Completely agree, what's worse is that it seems that the rides which are actually open are clearly not running at their best, whether it means constant break downs or limited capacity. It might not be the parks faults that some of these rides aren't operating properly but they should always take this into account before deciding to have a February opening. If nothing is fully ready then why open the park in the first place?

[Mark9]

It might not be the parks faults that some of these rides aren't operating properly but they should always take this into account before deciding to have a February opening. If nothing is fully ready then why open the park in the first place?

Because most of Alton's rides were running properly. A breakdown can happen at any occasion in the season, I've heard that oblivion had some downtime, Air had some downtime (Air and downtime, no way?!) and Hex was down for a day or so. By your logic, Thorpe shouldn't have opened their doors until about May last year with the amount of downtime and relaibility issues they had. Alton is presumably opening because it has two hotels full of people for half term. Why not sponge a bit more money out of them by opening the park and most of the big rides.

[Dan9]

Because most of Alton's rides were running properly. A breakdown can happen at any occasion in the season, I've heard that oblivion had some downtime, Air had some downtime (Air and downtime, no way?!) and Hex was down for a day or so.

Well James6 posted this list:- Nemesis, 1 train- Oblivion, constantly breaking down- Hex, few effects working- Duel, Same as Hex- Runaway Mine Train, Running extremely slowlyetc etcThis is very near the complete arsenal of major rides which Alton opened for Half Term. For Alton Towers standards it's pretty poor especially considering these are the only main rides which guests can actually use.

Why not sponge a bit more money out of them by opening the park and most of the big rides.

Because they're barely giving them one ride which isn't breaking down continuously or running at full capacity or have all it's effects working, and they're not giving them the full Alton Towers 'experience'. Yes during the main season things aren't going to run 100% all the time but it's puzzling why Alton would open their gates for the first time in 2010 with the park in this state.

By your logic, Thorpe shouldn't have opened their doors until about May last year with the amount of downtime and relaibility issues they had

You're right. Thorpe made a mistake in opening for February and it also meant that maintenence couldn't be carried out properly whilst the park was open during the week. Opening day was a disaster, but I went the next day and bar Saw: The Ride which was having it's new ride symptoms of illness and Stealth which was waiting for it's new part still, everything else was running fine and by the end of the first week every ride was operational. So the only mistake I see Thorpe made was opening for February, because they knew that half the rides wouldn't be ready, which is what gets me. I'm not complaining about rides having occassional problems or a new ride not running as smoothly as it should, but it's when parks know that only half the rides will be 'ready' and can probably predict more breakdowns and problems. Why open if they know that nothing will work properly?

[Fred]

the towers could have easily held of the event for at least a couple more days

Yeah, they could've easily told everyone who booked hotels and tickets and all sorts for the first weekend that its closed. Make sense.I can only imagine that things were set back by the lovely biggest snowfall in 30yrs stuff. Seeing as that was pretty recent, and with the coollddd conditions up north atm, cant be helped.Towers have been amazing for half terms before, its a shame its been affected this time.

[Mark9]

meh but they must have known some of these problems would happen a couple of weeks earlier

But they aren't problems. As I've already explained, you can run a ride for hours and hours and hours before a park opens and it will never have a problem. All avenues can be covered in terms of reliability weeks before the park opens and it can still go wrong on the open day. Look at Colossus a few years back, it ran fine for days before the first day of thrill chill. Come the day before and it stalls setting back all the testing that had occured.The effects are here and now, they simply are the last things to be thought about. Open ride or closed ride is the parks choice...

[James6]

Had a good day at the Towers to start my 2010 season! :POne thing, has the park lost ITHOTMK? Because I swear I haven't heard it on my past few visits, if so I can e-mail it to them! It is a vital part of the Alton Towers magic!Anyway, during the journey the snow just kept getting heavier and heavier not creating a lot of hope for most of the rides being open. We arrived a bit later than expected but everything was closed apart from Duel and Hex anyway. Rode Hex first, and yes, whilst the projecter slanted across the wall did look unproffesional, it did the job while the other is repaired. The rest of the ride was brilliant, maybe not quite up to the standard usually set, but still great. Theme Park theartre really is done at its best at some moments. The audio in the vault was hearable, although it sounded as if the main speaker had blown or was switched off as the one which was playing was of poor quality.Headed down through the park and decided to take a ride on Duel, and I must say I had some of the best rides I've ever had on Duel today ( apart from Duel: Live of course) Audio was brilliant and loud, most effects were working, I much prefer the speed throughout the house this year ( not that its changed much), overall I had a great ride and got a new highscore for me of 47,000 :PHeaded down into Forbidden Valley now , and to my surprise, Air was operatonal! However the crew really were poor at the getting the trains through and the queue moved extremely slowly taking 45 minutes. It also followed the usual trend of breaking down, which has happened everytime I've ridden Air.Nemesis by now had opened, from the Air queue I could see it testing and it looked terribly slow compared to usual, was barely making it over the loop, and barely back into the break run, by the time I got onto it though it was back to normal, and Nemesis on one train, with a longer queue took less time and moved quicker than Air on 2 and a much shorter queue!By about 12:30 or 1 , everything was open and to compensate, the park extended opening till 4:30Next was Sonic Spinball, and whilst the paintjob looks great, stickers with bubbles under don't. Spinball Whizzer was certainly looking tired last year and something needed to be done, but really, some of the changes made are dreadful. Such as the new logo being stuck 3 times on the ceiling bumpers in the station.Anyway next, moved into X-Sector to ride Oblivion, the 2 shuttles with new restraint's look fantastic and ultra sleek. The area still however looks very run down. Also Oblivion was walk-on even with Air and Nemesis at least 40 minutes each.Had a couple more rides on Duel and Nemesis etc and that about rounded off my day. One breakdown on Air which is to be expected and even that was less than 5 minutes.The park however doesn't look to have had much work whatsoever over the closed season and I look forward to seeing the needed freshening up which will be needed if Alton's 30th year is going to be as good as it could be.

[JoshC.]

Are those posters advertising Thirteen? If so, what do they say - I can't read it; too blurry.

[James6]

Yep, there is alot of them :PThey all say...The Ultimate Coaster...Th13teen... Coming in March 2010

[Rich]

Had an amazing time at Alton with Ricky on Wednesday and Thursday, was fairy busy both days though!Annoyingly the monorail failed to open when we wanted to go on it both days but did open later when the ice had gone off the track.First day started off walking to Oblivion and passed Spinball which was closed/testing, so went to Oblivion which was freeeeezing, but cool! Then went to do Hex for the first time in years which was alright. We then went past Duel which was closed, went down to Air and Nemesis which were very busy so gave them a miss, we then went to have lunch at Pizza Pasta <3 We then went back to Spinball which was heaving so thought bugger that, went back to Oblivion which had a 5 min queue (they were being really slow on Wednesday). The car had hit the brake run and stopped and yet the car in the station was still being loaded and checked. We then went back over to Duel to see if it was open, it wasn't but we Saw Harry and James by the Duel shop so talked for a bit and after a while Duel finally opened, (around 1ish I think). I did fairy well on this despite having eye and hand co-ordination problems with these sort of things, I did beat Ricky this time.... but he was sure to get me back later on! Next it was time for the Runaway Mine Train which made me laugh because the operator wasn't very good at parking it, we had the standard 2 laps it was doing that day, she then slowed it down too late and we crawled along the station for a bit and then picked up speed and had another lap when she realised she left it too late, I was not complaining!! We then did River Bank Eye Spy because we are cool and messed about with the audio buttons. Then we went to Hex again and called it a day there. My god the Water Park water was cold! We couldn't get used to it properly so gave up after a while in there. Had all you can eat dinner in splash landings, the burgers were nice!Next day we started off with a greasy all you can eat breakfast, the sausages were not very nice at all and made us feel a bit sick.So Deja Vu hit us as we walked instead of waiting for the bus service they were using instead of the monorail as the queue was too long. Went straight to Nemesis to start with this time as we hadn't done it on Wednesday. It's an ok ride but I much prefer Inferno. Quite annoying they haven't even built the 2nd train yet and the queues for it got rather long on both days. Went to air next which didn't have too much of a queue and was working ok as far as we could tell. Then went to Duel, I can't remember who won this one. We then went via Haunted Hollow as my leg was really hurting and I couldn't be bothered to go up the hill. We headed for Hex and did it for the last time, was a lot busier in there this time compared to yesterday, The projector really annoyed me being dull and key stoned completely wrong. We then saw that the towers were open so spent 30 or so minutes walking about in there, it's very interesting and I enjoyed it very much, then suddenly I noticed a corridor which seemed awfully familiar! Ricky went down to the bottom to investigate and it was the exit corridor to Terror of the Towers! We then looked at the chicken wire room and I couldn't believe how small it was! We then backtracked and walked as much of it was we could but got to a grey area that we couldn't work out, was very cool though. Also went to the top of the West Wing near Oblivion and got some amazing views of Alton and beyond! After we done all this we then had a go on Oblivion, well 2 as it was walk on and the ride was running much better with a car on the lift hill nearly all the time which certainly speeded things up! Then went to Spinball and it was so busy that we both thought stuff it, it's the same ride and I couldn't be bothered to go on it. Got some pictures of the ride etc, the supports are a much nicer colour now, Just wish the track blue as well or something as it would look nicer. Then went to the "Free Cash Machine" which I get annoyed about because it's a lie! Then headed back to Pizza Pasta <3 By this time it was around 3pm. Went straight back to Duel which I felt I had a good score... Until I saw Rickys.. I am sure he will post the ORP proof as well but he got 64000 and I got 42600. Then went to have a last ride on Nemesis before heading out of the park, the ride had a shutdown but was resolved 10 minutes later. We had the back row :DThat really is it, 15 min queue for the Monorail but I was happy to queue as my leg by this point was hurting so much. The drive home was interesting with heave snow, then nothing, then like light rain then heavy snow again, places we passed down the M1 showed how much snow they got again with the outside line not gritted.Anyway was a good 2 days, busyish but it's about being at the right ride and the right time! Air and Nemesis reached 50 minutes which is what Spinball also hit I believe. The longest queue for Oblivion was 10 or so minutes.Can't wait to go back to try Th13teen, I still don't believe there are that many rides at Alton even if it is main season and all rides are open, I do believe even though Alton Towers is a nice day out, it's over-hyped and I fail to feel any magic.Also had my 2nd ever ride on a coaster in the snow, Oblivion. My first was Cobra a couple of years back. Oblivion was Ricky's first coaster in the snow and it was cool!

[themeparkmad]

Thank you for that detailed report Rich and sorry to hear your leg is back to being a pain in the bum.

[Rich]

Aww it's ok Keith! Also 2 things I forgot to mention, we did Sea Life on the 2nd day for a what the hell, lets go inside for a bit. The second thing is, at the end of the 2nd day it appeared that the RMT was stuck in the tunnel, Ricky will confirm this I'm sure!