Alton Towers Resort General Discussion

Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:41 pm

Emporium wrote:Whats up with the flume??

The Flume is now closed for the rest of this season due to cost cutting

Sun Oct 11, 2015 12:20 am

Cost cutting my ass they will make a killing over scarefest.

Sun Oct 11, 2015 12:29 am

Speedy_no1 wrote:Cost cutting my ass they will make a killing over scarefest.

It's not just Alton, but also Thorpe park and Chessington are also affected by cost cutting

http://www.towerstimes.co.uk/blog/2015/ ... ing-hours/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As I've posted elsewhere on here before, it's been a awful year for cost cutting especially at the start of the season with staggered opening times and who knows what else will be cut next year :-k

I got a horrible feeling that the ERT will go next season for the simple reason that this has not been mentioned on the Merlin site as a pass holder perk for the last year, however it is mentioned on the Alton Tower's site somewhere.

Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:07 pm

Enterprise is now on ridetimes (don't think it was on there before)

Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:22 pm

Adam.W wrote:Enterprise is now on ridetimes (don't think it was on there before)

Nah it wasn't there before. Was out on last night at the same time they created the scare section!

Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:33 pm

Is the park busy today? Been trying to view towers nerd live feed but the page keeps crashing.

Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:35 pm

I was on park today (home now in the warmth)!, was a lot busier than ride times suggested. Died down a bit when people started going for mazes but oblivion was right back at the round building on the lower level at one point this afternoon and fast track on Rita had close to 30-40 people with the main queue going right around.

Sat Oct 17, 2015 7:09 pm

Ride times says that Get set Go is open at the moment (in the dark)

Tue Oct 20, 2015 7:21 pm

I don't know if this has always been the case but it seems on the website booking you can only get after 4pm tickets for Fireworks on one date, Friday 6th November.

Sat Oct 31, 2015 7:16 pm

It's a busy day today today at Alton towers! I've heard that extended queues have been opened on many rides including duel, where the part of the queue with the gravestones is open today. Ride times.co.uk thoroughly supports this! Rita reaching a 120 min queue at one point today. Probably busiest day of season so far

Sun Nov 01, 2015 10:09 pm

Alton Towers have just confirmed on Twitter the 2016 season will start on 19th March!
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Credit- Theme Park Fans Facebook

Tue Nov 03, 2015 1:50 pm

Well, if you want to visit Alton Towers and not queue, can I recommend a foggy Monday in early November?

This was the queue line for Nemesis and it was like this from 10am until 4.30pm when the park closed:

As an indication of the quietness, I rode Nemesis -> Air -> Nemesis in 20 minutes all front row seats!

The following rides were walk-on, with possibly a 1-2 car wait for the front row:
Nemesis
Air
Thirteen
Rita (I walked onto the front row here)
Hex
Duel

Only Oblivion ran consistently with full cars, but even then it was mostly walk-on, with an occasional wait for the next car. In fact, the longest wait we had all day was 15 minutes for the bloody Octonauts ride for the kids!

All advertised rides were open apart from Skyride, which apparently doesn't run in thick fog. Smiler was silent all day. No technical issues that I could see, although it was clear from watching Oblivion that safety procedures have been tightened enormously.

As a parting gift, have this moody picture of Nemesis in the mist:

Tue Nov 03, 2015 4:30 pm

According to ride rater today is one of the quietest days on record at Alton towers

Tue Nov 03, 2015 5:00 pm

smileradvocate1 wrote:According to ride rater today is one of the quietest days on record at Alton towers

If it's anything like yesterday, I could quite believe it.

I'm not sure I can ever visit again as I don't remember it ever being like this before and I don't think I could get used to, you know, standing to wait for a ride

I felt a little sad for a couple of people I saw who appeared to have bought fast track tickets - most of the fast track lines were closed!

Tue Nov 03, 2015 6:46 pm

I know what you mean, visited first week of scarefest and walked on to practically every ride. Worried if I go when there's more people I'll get cross having to wait 5 minutes :P

Wed Nov 04, 2015 12:05 am

daern wrote:I felt a little sad for a couple of people I saw who appeared to have bought fast track tickets - most of the fast track lines were closed!

I don't feel sad for them, did they honestly think they would need it? More fool them for buying it on a Monday when kids are back in school, its cold & foggy..

Besides if the fast track lanes are closed you use the exits but seeing as its walk on it wasn't needed anyway.

Wed Nov 04, 2015 6:39 am

Andy Mc wrote:
daern wrote:I felt a little sad for a couple of people I saw who appeared to have bought fast track tickets - most of the fast track lines were closed!
I don't feel sad for them, did they honestly think they would need it? More fool them for buying it on a Monday when kids are back in school, its cold & foggy..

Besides if the fast track lanes are closed you use the exits but seeing as its walk on it wasn't needed anyway.

My wife and I were doing the "ride with kids" thing, where one person queues and has a pass stamped that the other can just use to gain access via the disabled lane.

It was so quiet that the didn't bother to check it and every time she showed up at the disabled line, was shown straight onto the first train. This didn't actually matter as no one was waiting anyway

In the end, the only reason we kept doing it is because it's usually a shorter walk than the main queue line

Wed Nov 04, 2015 1:38 pm

smileradvocate1 wrote:According to ride rater today is one of the quietest days on record at Alton towers

It was indeed a very quiet day, only Mr Blooms Allotment showed a 15m queue according to ridetimes, every other ride was shown as 0 minutes all day.

The only potentially quieter days were the 5th of October and the 15th October, where every single ride showed as 0 minutes all day long, including Mr Blooms.

The 29th of September and 1st of October were similar days to yesterday, with every ride showing as 0 minutes all day, and Mr Blooms showing 10m all day.

In all likelyhood all 5 of these days were completely and equally dead, the staff just seem to be lazy with updating the wait time for Mr Blooms Allotment.

Wed Nov 04, 2015 1:53 pm

I'd say apart from weekends it was a very quiet.

Was there Tuesday 20th Oct was fairly quiet all rides walk on. 5 min queue for thirteen at various points throughout the day but that was all.

And on the Wednesday it was a bit more busy. Weather wasn't great but there were definitley more people around. But still quiet to previous years.

Wed Nov 04, 2015 3:13 pm

Mikkel wrote:I'd say apart from weekends it was a very quiet.

Was there Tuesday 20th Oct was fairly quiet all rides walk on. 5 min queue for thirteen at various points throughout the day but that was all.

And on the Wednesday it was a bit more busy. Weather wasn't great but there were definitely more people around. But still quiet to previous years.

Using the queue time data from ridetimes, I made a graph showing the approximate busyness of each day during Scarefest. Your observations seem to be inline with what I found below.