2007 Concepts Development

Location:
The Towers
Each season the park come up with a variety of ideas for attractions they might add in the following seasons. Here we can see some concepts for additions that were considered for the 2007 season. These concepts were eventually dropped in favour of the Haunted Hollow and The Dung Heap but share some similarities with the attraction we eventually got.

Just Add Water

At this time, the lake by the Courtyard building was home to the Splash Kart Challenge, a temporary, pay-per-play attraction that had replaced the Swan Boats a few years earlier. The Just Add Water concept would have replaced the karts with a purpose built customer water play area.

As the park explained, "the concept for 'Just a water' is to create a fun climbing and exploring attraction suspended over - and under - the water" and would have offered "plenty of opportunities to get (safely) wet - but not if you don't want to." The three icons highlighted in the pictures below are the Water Wheel, Rope Bridge and Water Guns. The area would also have featured spitting frogs and dragonflies, and viewing bubbles would allow young guests to peek out from below the waterline.

This was probably the most exciting of the options considered for 2007, but it was ultimately shelved and the following year the lake would become home to the Battle Galleons instead.

Vistas

Vistas would have seen a series of photo points added within the Grade I Listed Gardens, "framing all the best bits as only Alton Towers could".

"The outside comes in and the inside is out", as home design features would be used to emphasise the best sight lines of the gardens, reminding guests that "this is not just any garden".

The three icons we see in the image below are the Picture Frame, featuring the Choragic Monument, the Window Wall, framing the Cascade and the Portico, which seems to feature the tree-lined driveway that could be found behind Ug Land.

Alton Woods

The idea behind this concept was that "in Alton Woods perceptions are tipped upside down and everything is not what it seems."

Proposed for the woodlands behind Spinball Whizzer and the Hospitality Suite, the attraction would combine a treetop playground combined with a series of illusions to leave young guests with the feeling that "I'm seeing it but I can't believe it."

Some of the features proposed for the Alton Woods were the Bridge to Infinity, a Real of Reflection illusion and a Magic Tap.