The ride itself, theming, audio etc.

Hi, I was just wondering how feasible it is to day trip from London, and without a car. Taxis or Ubers are fine for the most part. This would be probably my only chance to visit this park in quite a few years.

So I went on Wednesday and had a most fantastic day. Ive always felt that the guys and gals who worked at the park were the unsung heroes (compared to the roller coasters) and honestly yesterday was a strong reminder of that.

Now I went with my mum, shes nearly sixty and still loving the park and her favourite ride is Wickerman (used to be Smiler). She was unfortunately having a slow day due to a back issue so I was a single rider and mum enjoyed the atmosphere.

We arrived at 11 and the car park was less than half full - up to the C pylon. So hoped for a quiet day and short queues. There was no line for the monorail but there were guests in every cabin.
Upon arriving on park we decided to grab a cuppa before embarking on my adventure! And this was a first great interaction. At Corner Coffee Merlin Pass holder are not able to use the self serve kiosks and get the discount so we had to go to the till. My mum has a new hobby and that is Pokemon Go. My mum is so proud of her progress she told the woman serving us. Rather than just "oh thats nice" or something similar the lady asked what her favourite pokemon were, how many she had, if she had friends on the game. Mum was buzzing.

We headed to X-Sector first. I did Smiler and Oblivion really quick. Both were advertised at 20 minutes but the Single Rider queue was empty and I was straight on no waiting - great start. Dont Look Down is back on the audio before the drop. I dont know what theyve done but you can barely hear it at ground level so hopefully it remains and no complaints.

Next on to Dark Forest and Thirteen and Rita. This is where my longest waits happened. Thirteen first and here i noticed just how rude and entitled the general public can be (but also organised). Single Rider queue probably had me waiting 20 minutes when mainline was also 20. I noticed in the mainline a very tiny girl coming down the steps with, what i presume were parents, dad was doing a not very good job of hiding her and when it came to being batch he pushed her to his right in an attempt to stop the staff seeing her, he barged past the guy on batching as he stepped forward to measure her, ignored him completely and as he attempted to stop the guy the mother blocked him further as the dad ran for the pen. You could see the staff was put off by this and was clearly in communication with the cabin and other guys and i presume they felt some vindication and probably laughed at the guy - when the train arrived back in with this tiny girl and she was in tears.
On Thirteen I was also placed with another single rider, I didnt get his name but he was spending three days on park and staying at the hotel. He was a fellow fan and i, probably, bored him by prattling on about theme parks.
I did Rita next - and the lad from the single rider queue also followed on - so another 20 minute wait here bemoaning the lack of a Single Rider queue. The guy on batching here asked if i was having a good day and i told him it was fantastic thanks to single rider, he told me which rides still had them and which didnt which was friendly and helpful. I wished my single rider buddy a good rest of day.

I met back up with mum, she had caught seven new Pokemon already and felt the visit was worth it just for that!.

We decided on dinner and would have a loaded spud (baked potato). Personally I think this is best value for food on park. Its filling and £8 after discount is not horrendous. Mum had gone to sit down so I was left to carry two spuds and two cokes which i realised I could not do! Thankfully the young lass behind the counter saw my conundrum and offered to help me carry my food to my seat. Again she was lovely asking after my day what my favourite ride was (Thirteen), what I had done and remarked that I was "brave" for thinking of going on Wickerman straight after eating.

After dinner mum wanted to walk the lakeside walk to Forbidden Valley, she would be slow so i smashed out some more rides.

Wickerman was five minutes, main queue. Staff were so patient as someone was moaning about the lack of signing for the RAP. The person was saying they had to walk the whole queueline because they couldnt see the QR code. They moaned about "needing better signage" and the patient dude there kindly agreed saying "youre not the first to point that out" he must hear it alot but makes the guest feel heard.
Next a run around Sharkbait where I caught the Ray talk completely by accident. Informative with a bit of humour but i couldnt listen to all as i had mum to catch up to in Forbidden Valley

I took a stroll down Haunted Hollow. Whilst I do like this walk it does look tired already/still. I wanted to do Curse but reasoned to myself it was nearly time for me to leave so id rather do the coasters this time. I regret this decision as even riding alone i adore this ride I know not everyone is fond of this but I think it fits in so well and adds so much to the ride lineup and is great to boot. My favourite seen is the mirror hall.

Nemesis was on five minutes so i did this. No staff interaction here as they are all behind the bay line next to the train. I was so quick in the line - although the long hike around on a quiet day seems a bit painful! The ride was so quick i jumped on Nemesis again. The line had grown to ten minutes but I was rewarded with Front Row. Still the best experience on the park is Nemesis front row I cannot think of anything better.

Final stop of the day was Nemesis bunker for some shopping. I forgot to pick up John Wardleys books as I still have not read these. Mum bought a Nemesis t-shirt - shes slowly collecting them from all rides. Dude who served us was chatty and said he had the same t-shirt at home.

All in I did everything I wanted - except now reflecting i should have done Curse and bought the books but im going again soon. Lots of quick rides, positive interactions with staff and my single rider buddy. Mum loved catching Pokemon (and of course spending time with her son) We were on park a grand total of four hours 11am - 3pm. Yet I am truly worn out too. Fantastic day, great staff and cannot wait till i go again next week!

Just for context daughter is 7 and has Autism. We will be looking to stay at CBeebies Hotel and visit CBeebies land open.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

With Horizon due to start construction this year whats everyone's opinion on it being a brand new RMC Wild Moose

Hear me out:

Alton and Merlin have been hinting at working with RMC for a good number of years now

It's compact as a ride, being able to make it very exciting in a small indoor plot of land

Alton has a history of world first rollercoasters and if built in time this could join that list

Another family thrill ride would help balance their coaster lineup

What's your opinions?

I'm experiencing a new era in my parenting journey where my kids are hitting the height requirements for more intense rides and I'm struggling to know where their limits are and where I should step in and discourage a ride I feel they will dislike. My 7 year old is now 1.2 in height so we started with the runaway mine train which was a big hit, then we tried wickerman which I've not been on before either and now I've traumatised the poor kid into being afraid of rides! How do I fix this? I also tried my 5 year old on a couple of rides he didn't like and he got upset with me and I just ended up feeling guilty. 10 year old tolerated wicker man and now wants to try 13 and I'm worried about upsetting him too 😂 how do you navigate new ride experiences with kids? And how to react when there are tears? I felt so guilty.

Just come back from Towers and I just particularly wanted to comment on how much the ride availability has improved since my last visit in March

Half the rides that were closed when I went in March were open (Oblivion, Mine Train, Monorail) and out of all the operating rides the only time any of them went down was due to weather conditions, aside from that all was running pretty well! Only actual complaint I had ops wise was Nemesis only being on one train yesterday, but besides that all was good!

I just wanted to comment on it because I've noticed this year in particular there's been a lot of comments on poor ride availability at Towers but thankfully things are better now

Planning a trip to Alton Towers next year with a GirlGuiding Unit I run and seeing conflicting things on if the park is cashless? I obviously want to make sure that parents have plenty of time to organise a bank card for their kids if needed.

I keep seeing posts of people saying that the park is cashless whereas the AT website says this: "All other locations on the Theme Park accept both cash and card."

Which is correct?

Also planning on saying to parents to send their kid with £80-90 spending money, it's been a very long time since I've been to the park myself. Would this be a feasible amount it would also need to include their lunches for two days in the park. We are traveling from Scotland overnight by coach, having two full days in the park and staying one night in one of the resort hotels. I would love opinions by more experienced park goers!

Edit :clarification on what kind of group and more specifics of our trip

I'm not prone to motion sickness myself but my girlfriend is and she had a great time last time we went but struggled after a few of the rides with feeling sick due to motion sickness. She had to take a break after Nemesis so we were both trying to find some motion sickness tablets that actually work and where better to ask than a subreddit with (hopefully) people that have had success with this!

Hi everyone! Long shot, my girlfriend and I are planning to take our friends kids to Alton Towers this Sunday and wondering if anyone has a Kelloggs code on a box for us to use?
Long shot I know, I’ve not been for 15+ years so out of touch with these sorts of things.
All the best

Does anyone know how busy it will be in half term? I have been to towers once, and that was Scarefest 25. it wasn't too busy, as we could get on every ride 2+ times in 2 days.

How busy will alton towers be on the 21st of may on a Thursday, the crowd calendar is saying its going to be very quiet but I’m not sure how accurate it is

Dose anyone have any suggestions on what rides are the best to start on? i’m not keen on the stomach drop feeling so maybe one that dosnt have that? i’ve heard galactica is a good one for that but then again your on your front so any advice would be much appreciated:) p.s i wanna go on them so bad i feel so left out i just can’t bring myself to do it 🥹

It says that the upcoming half term is to be as busy as the week before and after it. Surely that can't be correct. Also when does it start getting busy through the week, specifically Thursday/Friday?

We were looking for food around 12pm and were nearby Galactica and noticed the rollercoaster restaurant was closed which was fair enough, operating an entire restaurant for a fairly quiet day would be a bit silly.

Issue is that most of the food places were closed and we had to go all the way to Loaded Spuds outside of Wickerman and I have to say it was the worst food I have ever eaten.

Very overpriced, dry and cold. Zero customer service skills from the two staff on there. We were waiting for about 20 mins to be served so we could use our discount whilst nobody else was around and they just wouldn't serve us. We had to use the screens in the end and miss out on our golden pass holder discount. They didnt give a reason, if their till system was down or something it would have been fine but there was zero communication on their part.

I know food is overpriced at the resort but its usually somewhat decent but this made us all feel ill afterwards too. I work with hot food myself and know that high risk foods need to be kept at a minimum of 65 degrees celsius for no more than 2 hours and judging by the state of the food, it was certainly kept below the 65 degree minimum.

Just very disappointed and concerned that we all felt sick after eating the food, and still do as of writing this on the way home.

As for the ride availability though, it was a fantastic day. I was unaware of any ride closures and the weather held off which was really good! Glad to see the sky ride testing, hopefully its ready soon!