Alton Towers Review

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Alton Towers
★★★★☆
3.6
73.0% of users recommend this

Murphypig's review of Alton Towers

“I bought some vouchers for Alton Towers with my Tesco...”

★★★★☆

written by Murphypig on 30/03/2008

Good Points
fun, exiting

Bad Points
long waiting times, could be cold, expensive

General Comments
I bought some vouchers for Alton Towers with my Tesco clubcards points months ago and was waiting for a chance to take a day of and go during the week (to avoid the queues) but as I decided that this will never happen, I went at the weekend and took the risk.

We went by car. Alton Towers is near Stoke on Trent, in Alton. There are signs everywhere, so it's quite easy to find. You pay either £6 or £4 depending which parking place you take. The first one is £6 so keep going to one of the later ones! You can pay the parking in many kiosks or paystations in Alton Towers. Now you have to remember your Letter where you parked! On our way back we met a poor lady who couldn't find her car. The parking is huge and in the morning it looks very different (empty) then in the evening (full). Now you have to go to the Monotrail. Which is sort of a train, that brings you direct to Alton Towers.

It's open at summer 9.30am - 5.30pm. (times might change in winter.) And you can book a hotelroom in the Alton Towers hotel (but this starts at £149) to have a whole weekend there.

If you don't have a ticket you can buy it here. Adults are £29 (from 12 years on)! Which I find ridiculous! Kids are £21 (4-11 years), a family ticket is £78 and kids under 4 get in for free. Disabled and seniors are £14.50, but there are many ways to get vouchers and discounts. Groups get special discounts as well (from 10 people it's £19.80) By booking online you can save some money and Tescopoints for example, like I mentioned before. This way it costs me £7.50 in vouchers. So because I didn't had to pay for the normal ticket we decided to take a "shortcut ticket". That means, you can get in a special queue and get on the ride quicker for which this short cut ticket is valid for. Those tickets cost £5. You get a map with your ticket, which is very usefull.



Our first ride was the "CONGO RIVER RAPIDS". Some of you who are just out for an adrenalin kick will find this boring, but I liked it. You sit in a round rubber boat and get taken down a river. The water is getting quite wild at times, so prepare to get wet!

Next ride was "RUNAWAY MINETRAIN", just next door. I really enjoyed this. Just the right rollercoster to get you started. It's not too scary, just enough to make your heart beat that little bit faster...

One of the best rides is "AIR". It's a rollercoaster, but you don't sit but fly around the track! It's awesome. It's just very short (60 sec. or so). We made the mistake and joined the "single queue". Which means, people that are on there own or don't mind, not sitting next to each other go here to avoid long queues. We had our short cut tickets for this ride and just realized after 30 min. of waiting that it's the wrong queue. We asked the supervisor if we can go through (there were about 8 people in front of us but that can still mean another 30 minutes!), but he wasn't helpful at all and said either we wait here until it's our turn or we have to go back and join the right queue. (Yeah, with 50 people behind you, that's sure an option!). But the ride was great. You are strapped face down, watching the ground. You get taken around the track in quite high speed and you get turned around as well (means facing the sky). Flipflops are not a good idea here.

My boyfriend went on "NEMISIS" next, but I was to scared. It's, again, a rollercoaster, but on this one your legs are completely hanging free. Apparently great, but not for a chicken like me! I was glad to watch from a distance how everyone gets thrown around and turns in themselves.

We both went then on "OBLIVION", which is very, very, very scary. If I'd new before... You're sitting in a carriage which first goes up 20 meters or so and drops then into a hole like lightning. The only reason why I went on it was, because I thought I'll survive this 2 seconds where you fall and the rest looks ok. But it's not! The rest is just as bad. From the hole you get into a tunnel and then it turns you around and stops rapidly. It's very short, but I'm not sure I want to do it again! Which means most of you will probably enjoy it.

"DUEL" was good fun as well, here you get driven through a scary place with lots of monsters and spiders, which you have to shoot with your laser pistol. At the end you see your score in front of you. And I won! (not a roller coaster for a change so your tummy can get a break!)

"RITA" is a new roller coaster and it looked great, but the queue was enormous, so we didn't go on it. (our short cut tickets were not valid on this one) But apparently it's really good fun. It's very, very, very quick!

And "FLUME" looked great as well, but after just been dry from our ride on the congo river rapids, we didn't wanted to get wet again. Apparently you go on some wild water on a boat.

There are so many rides, that I just mention the ones I really enjoyed. Go and check out the rest yourself!

Because I'm wearing glasses, I was scared to loose them on some of the rides (Like Air or Oblivion) so I was holding them in my hand and at the same time tried to hold myself tight to the seat, which wasn't easy. Later I realized, that there are lockers where you can leave stuff while you're on the ride. Great! There are lockers outside as well, and I always kept my handbag in those, but you pay £0.20 for a short term locker.

On most of the rides you'll find cameras and after your ride you can buy your picture, but this is quite expensive. It's fun to have a look though at your screaming face.

If you have enough of the rides you can go to one of the arcades and play with the fruit machines or try to win some soft toys in other games. There are loads of them. Or you can play golf and try to win a car with a hole in one. In the middle of the park is an old castle, that's where the name Alton Towers comes from. There is a nice park around it and gardens, where you can have a picnic if you like or just sit there and watch the ducks and carp.

Smaller Children will be happy there as well, as there are places like the "Cred street" with a Playground, carousels and a theatre or "Old Mac Donald's Farmyard" with some rides and games for the smaller ones like the Squirrel Nutty Ride. You don't have to worry about food, because there is everything you can ask for. KFC, Mc Donalds, Pizza hut, Sandwich places and even a pub. Because there are so many of them you don't have to queue either! And the prices are acceptable as well. One tip though, you can buy at the entrance a coke plastic bottle, for £3.99 which you can refill with coke, fanta or sprite for free for the rest of the day in many "refill stations". Obviously I didn't realized that either untill it was too late.

Right, so what is my verdict?

Aside from my feet hurting a lot after all the walking, it was a fantastic day out, that I can recommend to everyone. Even chickens like me will find rides they can go on! And the queues where really not as bad as I expected. So try it and have fun!

  • Value For Money

  • July 2007

    Date of visit (month/year)

  • All ages

    Ages suited for

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Themaninthevan2001's Response to Murphypig's Review

Written on: 09/04/2008

Sounds like a great family fun place.

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