Alton Towers: What Ever Happened to...?

[Maelstrom]

generic rubbish during that Russell Barnes era.

Accurate description for everything he did. He'd do well at BPB

He took over mid 2004 with spinball already built and rita already well into planning (with a very limited budget) yes they did build the generic food outlets and CATCF but the park had a very limited budget during 2005-2007 when tussuads still owned the park. Russell Barnes was in charge when merlin took over and was in charge when the following developments took place- mutiny bay, the monorail upgrade, new cars for the Sky ride, the sealife centre and also sw6 was planned and designed while he was in charge.

[Squiggles]

[quote=""nickn5""][quote=""-Aerodynamic-""]
Whatever happened to all the superb Toyland Tours theming, and why didn't they use some of it for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?[/quote]

According to this post some of it is still lurking behind the facade of CATCF, and some in the area between where you leave the boats and where you board them. Don't know about the bulk of it though.

EDIT: Just found another old post by Squiggles where he says that much of the TT theming ended up stored behind the Farmyard in the old barns, before it was shipped off to somewhere.[/quote]

What he said. lol

When it was removed much of the TT scenery was stored in the barn behind the farm and also in the railway tunnel (now part of the Haunted Hollow) before being shipped off to another park (in Asia somewhere I believe).

There probably is still some painted scenery still knocking around behind the scenes... I'd suggest the station area is most likely, as half the Toyland Tours station was walled off when it became CATCF.

There is however some TT scenery still on show in CATCF. As you pass through the inventing room, one of the machines in there was originally used for making playthings in a certain toy factory. Also I believe the mechanism which is used to bounce Violet Beauregarde was originally used for the Bouncy Castles.

[Dormiens-Dave]

Yes i have to agree with maelstrom, i think a lot of the negative about the park in that era was Tussauds doing rather than Barnes, he did the best with the money and little freedom he had. Keep in mind the group was cost cutting ready for a huge sale of its assets (to merlin).

Everything upto and including Thirteen was started under his leadership, from a creative point of view its what happens 2011 onwards that will prove Ian Crabbs tenure.

[nickn5]

[quote=""Squiggles""]There is however some TT scenery still on show in CATCF. As you pass through the inventing room, one of the machines in there was originally used for making playthings in a certain toy factory. [/quote]

This item I believe, used to stuff teddies, now it, erm, well, not sure:

[rollercoaster_crazy]

my bad didn't realise!

[PeteB]

[quote=""Dormiens-Dave""]Yes i have to agree with maelstrom, i think a lot of the negative about the park in that era was Tussauds doing rather than Barnes, he did the best with the money and little freedom he had. Keep in mind the group was cost cutting ready for a huge sale of its assets (to merlin).[/quote]

Well if we're going to accurately point the finger at who's to blame then really it shouldn't be Tussauds but Pearson's who cut funding and then sold off Tussuads to DIC (who dont seem so clever at investing looking at what they've done in the past).

[Cobra_Roll]

One from me this time!

Whatever happened to the old childrens play area that sat above the swimming pool in the Alton Towers Hotel? Is it still there/being reused for anything?

[PeteB]

[quote=""Cobra_Roll""]One from me this time!

Whatever happened to the old childrens play area that sat above the swimming pool in the Alton Towers Hotel? Is it still there/being reused for anything?[/quote]

I guess that's from the era before the Spa came along. I have never seen the old swimming pool, but can just remember a couple of promotional images from the hotel brochure during that time.

Would be nice if anyone had any info on it.

[CoasterCrazyChris]

[quote=""PeteB""][quote=""Cobra_Roll""]One from me this time!

Whatever happened to the old childrens play area that sat above the swimming pool in the Alton Towers Hotel? Is it still there/being reused for anything?[/quote]

I guess that's from the era before the Spa came along. I have never seen the old swimming pool, but can just remember a couple of promotional images from the hotel brochure during that time.

Would be nice if anyone had any info on it.[/quote]

Do you know when the Spa was built by any chance, I just assumed it opened with the ATH in 1996.

[Joe Koopa]

Whatever happened to..

The sealion pool, the paddling pool or the old aqaurium?

[NF2]

The Spa opened around 2003/4, utilising the space around the old hotel pool and leisure complex. Obviously when Cariba came along, they no longer needed the old pool complex so just converted some of the rooms, updated the pool and put it as part of the Spa package.

[jomo1993]

[quote=""Joe Koopa""]Whatever happened to..

The sealion pool, the paddling pool or the old aqaurium?[/quote]


Not sure about the other 2, but the paddling pool is underneath where the goalstriker game is now, next to the hole in one came. The building which houses the goal striker is a perfect square so im guessing either the pool is still intact (just covered up) underneat the goal striker, or it has been filled in which is probrably most likely to be the case

[PeteB]

[quote=""CoasterCrazyChris""][quote=""PeteB""][quote=""Cobra_Roll""]One from me this time!

Whatever happened to the old childrens play area that sat above the swimming pool in the Alton Towers Hotel? Is it still there/being reused for anything?[/quote]

I guess that's from the era before the Spa came along. I have never seen the old swimming pool, but can just remember a couple of promotional images from the hotel brochure during that time.

Would be nice if anyone had any info on it.[/quote]

Do you know when the Spa was built by any chance, I just assumed it opened with the ATH in 1996.

[/quote]


I remember when Splash opened in 2003 and the old pool was closed but the Spa wasn't open either so it must have been 2004.

[Gax]

[quote=""AstroDan""][quote=""Cameron""]What happened to the old style Nemesis sign that was located on the bridge just after the vertical loop[/quote]

This was saved and placed in Area 3 of the Queue Line. We saw it on a very busy day when the queue was well over 1 hour and that's your only chance these days. It sits in amongst some grass harking back to 1994.

[/quote]

Does anybody have any photos of this by any chance?

[AstroDan]

A little behind the posting here, but RE: Toyland Tours Theming - there's a STASH of it still in the Towers Ruins. You can find it by looking through cracks and holes in the walls/doors if you look hard enough!

Also, re: Russell Barnes - he had no say in the Rita matter really. And, whilst the difficult says of 2005-7 were not the greatest - the park was being passed from pillar to post in terms of ownership and it just was not plain sailing. However, Russell set Mutiny Bay, Sharbait Reef/CCL and Th13teen in motion and has built a solid foundation from which Merlin can now develop the park to their own ends.

Finally, re: Nemesis logo in Area Three of queue - I don't have a photo but shall endeavour to get one sometime this season for old times sake!

[James]

Here's a bit of Info on the Swimming Pool in the ATH.

The Swimming pool opened in 1996 along with the hotel. It was open from 7:30am to 12pm and then from 2pm till 10pm(Times might have been different over the years). The Swimming pool was called The Pirate's Lagoon. The Children's play area was mainly used as a part of Pirate Bill's club(Can't remember exactly what year Pirate Bill's Club came to the hotel), I've even got my certificate for taking part in the Pirate Bill treasure hunt

When The Splash Landings and Cariba Creek came in 2003 the pool closed and opened back as a Spa in 2004, the children's area is now used as treatment rooms for the Spa.

The Pool looks almost exactly the same as it did before it was changed into the 'Spa'. They only re-painted the Swimming Pool area and removed the fake palm trees that were in the pool area and got rid of the whole 'Beach' theme from there.

Here's a promotional picture below of the pool(as taken from the Alton Towers Hotel Brochure).


There's a kind of a Ship theme going on in there now, but just imagine the above picture but with all the palm trees removed and all the fake rocks and beach scene on the wall. It looks very bland in there now, just a light blue and white painted walls and a plant here and there.

[Crofty]

Cheers for that James. Really interesting.

[quote=""AstroDan""] Toyland Tours Theming - there's a STASH of it still in the Towers Ruins. You can find it by looking through cracks and holes in the walls/doors if you look hard enough!
[/quote]

Is this the same stuff? This was taken during demolition of Toyland Tours, not even sure I remember the house.



Anyone object to this topic being moved to AT Archive forum? 8-[

[Squiggles]

This is going to be a bit of a mega post, but I have the answers to quite a few of the above questions... and a fair few pictures you might be interested to see.

[quote=""PeteB""][quote=""Cobra_Roll""]One from me this time!

Whatever happened to the old childrens play area that sat above the swimming pool in the Alton Towers Hotel? Is it still there/being reused for anything?[/quote]

I guess that's from the era before the Spa came along. I have never seen the old swimming pool, but can just remember a couple of promotional images from the hotel brochure during that time.

Would be nice if anyone had any info on it.[/quote]

Here are a few images of the old swimming pool, including the games room mentioned above.







Thanks to Altonator for those. I have no idea what happened to the games room, but it's probably not too far fetched to imagine it became the offices/storage for the Spa after the conversion.

[quote=""jomo1993""][quote=""Joe Koopa""]Whatever happened to..

The sealion pool, the paddling pool or the old aqaurium?[/quote]


Not sure about the other 2, but the paddling pool is underneath where the goalstriker game is now, next to the hole in one came. The building which houses the goal striker is a perfect square so im guessing either the pool is still intact (just covered up) underneat the goal striker, or it has been filled in which is probrably most likely to be the case[/quote]

The paddling pool was indeed just filled in. In fact if you're ever stood by the goalstriker game, if you look at the floor you can see where the edges of the paddling pool used to be as there is a large rectangle of slightly different bricks set inside the bricks which used to make up the pavement around the paddling pool.

The Sea Lion pool had much the same fate. When the sealions moved out it was used as a games area for a while (I believe they put some remote control boats in it) and the it was filled in. Sometimes if you're on top of the towers mid summer if you look down to the lawns you can still see the outline of the pool, which sits just below ground level, as the grass on top of its walls goes brown due to lack of nutrients.

And as for the Aquarium, it just wasn't a very popular attraction. Aquariums never are really, and are relatively expensive to keep going. Ironically, it was just two doors down from where Sharkbait Reef now is, as the building still exists today as Pirates Quest Arcade

I have another couple of pictures folk might find interesting relating to Toyland Tours and Nemesis, but I need to dig them out, so will hopefully post them later.

[PeteB]

Wow this thread is turning out to be very educational, and just look at how nice that pirates lagoon was back in the day. I'm sure there used to be a diving board mind, so I'm not sure if the pool has been made smaller when it was turned into the Spa or what.

Would I be right in thinking that some of the treatment rooms upstairs are where the kids play area was?

As mush as I love the look of that old pool I gotta be honest and say its not really missed. Cariba Creek ( :P ) is much better for everyone and the Spa is a fantastic facility. It's actually one of the best Spa's ive been to in this country!

[CoasterCrazyChris]

[quote=""PeteB""]As mush as I love the look of that old pool I gotta be honest and say its not really missed. Cariba Creek ( :P ) is much better for everyone and the Spa is a fantastic facility. It's actually one of the best Spa's ive been to in this country![/quote]

Ah, but I bet the one at Center Parcs is much better