Alton Towers Resort General Discussion

[stevebrown]

Alton Towers have just posted 360 video of Oblivion on their YouTube channel:

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[towerslover]

Good to see the attendance picking up a bit, hopefully this is the start of rising gate figures again and things picking up from last year! When I visited for 2 days (start of June) only one side of the rapids was working then too!

[Sawboss]

Alton Towers have just posted 360 video of Oblivion on their YouTube channel:

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That videos great! It's good being able to watch the people on the ride and see their reactions, much better than a standard pov I reckon.

[Owen]

I have been contemplating writing this post for a little while now, but I think it needs to be said.

Am I the only one who feels like Alton are currently digging themselves into The ground? It seems that a fair few of their decisions recently have been questionable to say the least, and it's not all that great...

The first thing I feel is that Alton have seemed to lack effort recently, whereas Thorpe Park have rocketed past them. Alton seems to have just gotten slightly complacent. Personally, I think this is a terrible thing because the park's standard, at least for me, has dramatically dropped this year in most aspects. It doesn't help that they are missing a few major rides this year either, I even heard the guests around the park saying "Why couldn't they stagger the closures, it just seems they wanted to close them so they don't have to bother with them this year". Painfully I have to agree. Another issue is some of the staff have been quite lack lustre to say the least, for instance a staff member on my first go on Galactica hardly bother with cleaning the headset and wouldn't help me adjust it, and this really ruined the experience for everyone in my row. It's expected due to last year, but not at this level, it's almost as though they aren't even trying.

I'll cut it off there as I could go on but there's something seriously wrong with Alton this year, sadly it's lost it's magic for me and at this rate, I can't see it coming back any time soon.

To clarify, this is in no way me trying to say that the park is a bad place, but it's certainly below AT standard this year for me, and I do hope it improves in 2017.

[Adam.W]

Just regarding what you/others said about 'all of the rides closing at once', it could depend on how you look at it. On one side, they just close a fair few rides for this year, but on the other, the only reason they are closing the rides if for future improvement. In a few year's time, people might be thinking 'these rides are pretty tired' or 'they should replace x with y', so from this perspective, they took immediate action whilst the park is still recovering from an off season, so it can come back in 2018 with SW8.

I'm pretty sure someone mentioning this last year in the Smiler Incident topic, but the park will recover after a downfall of a few years. The people at Merlin would have planned something, which is possibly to do with the delay of SW8 and the renovation/TLC on Hex, etc. So you might as well get it out of the way early on whilst the park is still 'healing' from the incident.

The only 'real' rides that AT haven't got this year are Ripsaw and Hex, but these are most likely going to be improved on/replaced, so it's not as if Merlin have left the park with no future investments, etc.

[Owen]

Yes but you miss the point, what people felt was that the resort should have staggered closing over a number of years, an argument I can't really oppose. The only rides I personally missed were Sub-Terra and Hex, however this is not the main point of my issue. I just feel that there is a real lacking in the resort - in places that really shouldn't be effected by the smiler incident which is a shame as it used to be my favourite park. It's still a lovely place, but it really didn't feel all that special this year for me unfortunately, although I applaud the 13 crew - they are by far the highlight for me!

[Count-Vonduel]

AT is in a dire state at the moment, it honestly feels like that last year at American Adventure or what I assume Camalot felt like, it feels like a park about to go bust

[owenrita121]

I think saying it feels like the park is about to go bust I slightly over dramatic. The park is a strange one this year, many of the staff seem miserable, more so than other years, but that's not saying all the staff are like that. It feels like management this year really don't care about the customer, to have so many rides shut at once, TLC or not and then raise the price is frankly quite ridiculous, it's like a massive kick in the teeth. I feel like the TLC programme is good for the park however the way it's been implemented is strange, many parks across the world are able to finish maintenance in the closed season however Towers can't and still haven't finished it on Rides like Hex, Driving school and Sub-Terra... It becomes a joke, it just doesn't take that long to fix something and change something, Sub-Terra was completely built and opened in a shorter time tan what they are taking to 'fix' it...
The park I love and defend is quickly becoming a place I'm finding hard to be passionate about and it's such a shame.

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[Aidan Lowe]

I did warn someone NOT to go today.. can't wait to say I told you so.

[Altontowersbarlow]

I did warn someone NOT to go today.. can't wait to say I told you so.

So nice to see Alto Towers this busy again though, must be good news for Merlin.

[Adam.W]

Why on earth is it that busy..?

[Jack]

I think it could be to do with the sheer amount of school trips

[Max]

It's the last full week of the school term, so will be packed with trips.

[Nickolai]

It's the last full week of the school term, so will be packed with trips.

Do you think it will also be packed this Tuesday as we are considering getting Fastrack Bronze as it is on 1/2 prices with the code SCHOOLS16? :-k

[Ladyofthelake]

The Resort is expecting a large number of school trips on Tuesday, however it is difficult to predict exactly how busy this will make it as some trips will be there all day, whilst others will only be there for a short period.

Just a quick reminder to everyone - any queries about how busy the park will be can be asked in the 'How Busy Will it Be? topic over in the 'My Visit' board. It''s always worth having a look through this topic as your question may have already been answered. It also means that this topic can be used to discuss all general developments

[lewis97]

Alton Towers have now confirmed their theme park opening times for the summer holidays (up to September 4th), with the park open everyday 10am-6pm, as has been the case in previous years.

[abigsmurf]

If the weather stays like it has done at the moment (and not pouring down with rain like when I went a couple weeks back) it should give the attendances a nice boost.

That said, with 3 notable family rides closed at the same time, that's going to put a lot of pressure on the general queue times at peak summer.

[Kraken]

Interesting comments / observations on the previous page about the lack of rides / state of the Park this year. This forum is very pro-Alton Towers, but if people who are "warmed" to Alton Towers are making these observations, it should be worrying for Merlin.

Earlier I was speaking to a friend who visits Alton Towers once a year & she went yesterday and was far from impressed. She said that the place looked dirty and run-down with obvious cutbacks everywhere (closed rides / food & bev units). Suffice to to say she will be in no hurry to return next year.

In mitigation, I did explain to her that it has been school trips week and with all the will [or litterpickers] in the world, the park will have taken a hammering over the past two weeks. This is no excuse though, as Alton Towers charge a high price & it does seem that the product they are delivering is not up to the standards of previous seasons.

[Burniel]

As someone who also only visits once a year (at most), I can say that my visit in March was far from disappointing.

Naturally, I'm biased, but I think the park doesn't deserve all the negativity it's been receiving. Yes, some rides were closed, but instead of moping around feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't get on The Flume or Hex or Ripsaw, I just went and re-rode some of my favourites. I didn't even have Galactica, but I still found plenty to do with five strong coasters and plenty of family rides (I clocked in about 20 rides in a day)!

The obvious signs of Towers Loving Care were also great to see and gave me great confidence that the rides that will return will do so with excellent improvements.

It's ironic that the first year that Alton Towers start properly dealing with the fact that parts of the park were a bit run down is the year when they receive the most hate for being run down and for "cutting back".

[Macca79]

Hi all
So im comeing up to me yearly visit to the Towers.
Last year because of what happened i qued no longer than 10 mins for any ride most were walk on and most of the smaller food venues were closed .
How do people think its improved if at all this year?
Im hopeing for a bit more atmos and life in the park.