Alton Towers to Switch from On Site Parking to Park and Ride

[Ladyofthelake]

From this summer Alton Towers Resort will no longer allow guests to park on site at the resort. Instead, they will operate a park and ride system from a number of sites between Stoke-On-Trent and Uttoxeter, charging a fare per person instead of per car. Hotel guests will still be able to park on site, but will have to pre-book parking with their hotel stay at a cost of £10 per car.

It'll be promoted as a way of easing congestion and something that is good for the environment, but ultimately will mean that little bit of an extra journey at the end of the day for everyone.

The TowersTimes news story is here: http://www.towerstimes.co.uk/blog/2014/ ... mmer-2014/

What it does mean is that there will be a significant amount of land now sat empty. Will be interesting to see what they do with this.

What are people's thoughts?

[Chaz]

My thoughts:

Happy April 1st everyone.

[Dan]

Close but not quite close enough Lakey :P

[Georgie]

This is great news for future developments. With the Smiler being built where it was, they were clearly running out of room for SWs and since the park's not built on a lake they can't just build islands like Thorpe do. Maybe those rumours of a 5D coaster will finally come into fruition.

[TomL]

I think this means
- Goodbye Monorail
- Goodbye new entrance
- hello acres of new land
- hello ridiculously high express parking fees

[Dan]

I think this means
- Goodbye Monorail
- Goodbye new entrance
- hello acres of new land
- hello ridiculously high express parking fees

It's an April Fool Tom

[Luviico]

Yup, this is an absolutely ridiculous idea which wouldn't work at all so it's obvious it is an april fool :lol. Doing this would make a lot of people including myself refuse to visit the park altogether due to the massive inconvenience, people wouldn't go out of their way to go to a certain place just to get to AT, especially if they already have a long journey to get there. Think about it people :P

[Tom]

Personally I think this is an absolutely terrible move by Alton Towers. Shame on your Merlin Entertainments.

[Georgie]

Who is that Merlin guy anyway? Some kinda wizzard?

[Katherine]

And with that, happy april fools day.

[Ladyofthelake]

Time to own up now midday has come and gone.

This story is in fact an April Fools! Rest assured that there are no plans from the Alton Towers Resort to change the parking system.

Well done to those who guessed it was a joke

[dmmosh1]

I believed this grrr, every year I belive these

[TomL]

I think this means
- Goodbye Monorail
- Goodbye new entrance
- hello acres of new land
- hello ridiculously high express parking fees

It's an April Fool Tom

Hehe I know

[Burniel]

*Reads this topic hours after the original release and laughs his head off*

[lf2001]

I'm used to it now! Quite a few theme park fan sites have April Fools jokes every year, so I never believe them

[memgrubb]

Haha good one. Only just seen this.

Who'd want to travel on a smelly bus anyway.