Enchanted Lodges magic onto the scene
Today (16th July) marks a new step forwards in the Alton Towers Enchanted Village. Visitors to the theme park may have noticed that construction work is taking place on the ruins lawns beside the Goalstriker and Hole in One Golf attractions. Work is underway to construct a show-lodge, demonstrating the accommodation which will be arriving at the resort next year, in the form of Alton’s Enchanted Village.
The development will see overnight offerings expanded from the existing Alton Towers and Splash Landings hotels to include a range of magical new lodges, aimed at families looking for a more unique style of stay.
It is expected that once this show-lodge is completed more information will be unveiled regarding the new development, and TowersStreet will be on hand to keep you up to date with all the latest construction and news. You can also read more about the ongoing lodges project in our News section.
Park queue times becoming easier to track
As any visitor to Alton Towers knows, the theme park covers a vast area. For several years now the park has provided digital screens at various points around the park, to inform guests of queue lengths for some of the more major attractions, allowing them to plan their day better, and get the most out of their time in the park.
Unfortunately, as time has passed the old system became archaic, and unreliable, with
some screens failing to work at all. To rectify this, in the beginning of July, the park unveiled their new queue time boards, replacing the original screens. This upgrade has bought with it several changes.
Firstly, there are now more screens located around the park, with two screens now being used at the base of Towers Street, one in CBeebies Land, and another in X-Sector, in addition to new boards in the original locations.
As well as increasing the number of displays available, the resort have also opted to move away from the old LED boards, which were limited in terms of the amount of text on screen, and have selected LCD technology (Found in many flat-screen TVs). This not only allows for a more decorative display, with full colour and graphics, but also more information than ever before. As well as showing more queue times than the old boards, the new ones are also used to promote park events, and provide show times for the growing range of entertainment.
As mentioned earlier, the new system is capable of displaying more queue times than previously, which means that where before guests would only be told about the main rollercoasters and few other attractions, there are now more than twenty different attractions, aimed at different guest demographics. As well as all of the park’s rollercoasters, dark rides such as Duel, Hex, and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, water rides including The Flume and Congo River Rapids, and the entirety of CBeebies Land are displayed.
Many have speculated that this, along with the ridetimes.co.uk website, will go some way to reducing queues, by spreading guests more evenly around the park, as when major attractions such as Rita and The Smiler are busy smaller attractions such as Duel can have virtually no queue whatsoever.
Generally these new additions have been met with positive feedback here on TowersStreet, and mean that it is now easier than ever for guests to find out what’s going on around the park. You can find a range of photos over on our TowersStreet Facebook page.
Resort Hotel maintenance continues
For several months now the Resort have been gradually re-painting the now 11 year old Splash Landings Hotel and Waterpark. Last week the decorating teams set to work giving the Hotel entrance area a lick of paint, continuing the new style of bright, bold colours with animated dressings. In addition, some changes have also been happening in reception, with the ceiling being treated to a new coat of paint and air vents.
Two mysterious new pillars have also appeared just to the right of reception near the lifts. We certainly hope that these are for decorative purposes, as oppose to anything structural!
In addition to the hotel itself receiving a refresh the Waterpark has also reopened its outdoor pool and slides, after being drained for a repaint and tidy up to match the indoor Lagoona Bay pool. Most notably the pool floor and sides have been painted to blue, from their old sandy, brown colour, which some say is making the water look more inviting and refreshing than before.
Over the Sky Walk to the Alton Towers Hotel, and small bits of work are being carried out, with a hole appearing in the floor of the Dragon Bar.
Ruins also receive some T.L.C
Lastly for this roundup we return back to the Theme Park, where the Alton Towers ruins are undergoing some restoration. Owing to their history and significance the preservation of the Towers is a serious matter at the park, and it is not uncommon to see them undergoing work to ensure they will be around for years to come.
Earlier this year one of the archways in the main conservatory was carefully resorted to its former glory, with new plaster and hand-painted details. Following from this the maintenance teams have headed skywards, moving up to the rooftops to perform some re-pointing of the cement on the building’s many chimneys. Once one set are completed the workers will presumably then move onto the next group, as they have done previously.
As ever, TowersStreet will always be close by to keep you up-to-date with all the latest resort news and developments. To hear it first why not check out our Facebook and Twitter pages? Or dive into the discussion over on our TowersStreet Talk forums.
