Future Plans

Nemesis Reborn

The big news for the 2024 season is Nemesis Reborn. After a year-long absence, which has seen the majority of Nemesis retracked, the iconic coaster returned with a striking new black paint job, complete with vein decals.

In 2022, the park revealed plans to retrack Nemesis to extend the coaster’s life long into the future. They submitted plans to Staffordshire Moorlands to receive a certificate of lawfulness for the work. The certification, which was passed on 23rd March 2021, is an agreement from the council that the work is classed maintenance of the existing structure, rather than a new development, and so will not need full planning permission.

Nemesis closed at the end of the 2022 season on Sunday 6th November and reopened on 16th March 2024, in time for the ride’s 30th birthday. In keeping with the ride’s adopted story, the closure and subsequent work was announced as being by order of the Phalanx, the mysterious militia first introduced in the Nemesis Comic and later featured heavily in the plot of Nemesis:Sub-Terra.

When the ride reopened it became known as Nemesis Reborn, a trademark Merlin registered in February 2023. For more information and images of the retrack, check out our dedicated Nemesis Reborn construction archive, or the detailed timeline on the Towers Street Forum.

Forbidden Valley Refresh

All eyes are on Forbidden Valley in the 2024 season and Nemesis Reborn. And beyond the ride itself, the park have spruced up much of the valley for the new season.

Notable changes occurred in and around the Nemesis pit, with alien tendrils taking over the surround area. The coaster’s theming and support buildings also received fresh paint jobs, including the photo booth and the iconic Mushroom Cloud Tours Bus.

And the changes weren’t restricted to the immediate area around Nemesis Reborn. The entire entrance area of Forbidden Valley has been transformed into a Phalanx Facility, a field camp for the shady militray organisation. The new overlay comes with new theming features for the area, and a new look and name for the area’s various food options, such as Ground Command – Coffee Outpost (the former Coffee Lounge). There is also a new name and menu for the area’s quick service counter, which is now known as Generator – Refuelling Company, serving Wings and Strips.

The park also recieved planning permission for two further projects in Forbidden Valley.

The existing building of The Edge Games was demolished and replaced with a new purpose-built arcade unit, known as R-Cade. The former building was one of the oldest in the park, having been added back when the area was Thunder Valley in the early 90s and whilst it might have looked like a permanent building, it was actually a pair of very well disguised Portakabins. The ‘temporary’  building has therefore done very well to last 30 years, but it is great to see the park investing in new permanent infrastructure. The new building is around twice the height of the current unit, which will allow the park greater diversity in the arcade units that can operate in the building.

The park have also extended the former Refresh@Ripsaw café, which reopened as a new merchandise shop for Forbidden Valley, known as Supply Store – Bunker 94. Whilst the new shop arrived just in time to become home to the new lines of Nemesis Reborn merch, its location suggests it will eventually be a retail location for merch themed to all the rides in Forbidden Valley, which has been missing a permanent shop since the Galactica Store closed during the pandemic.

Similarly to The Edge, the Refresh@Ripsaw unit was actually a temporary structure, made up of four shipping containers. The redevlopment has seen two of those containers removed and replaced by a slightly larger and more impressive structure.

Just outside of the area the Gloomy Wood Kiosk, on the path to Forbidden Valley, has been completely replaced and will become a Coca-Cola Freestyle Refresh & Refill station.

Retro Squad Retire

At the end of the 2023 season, the park announced that the Retro Squad had completed their mission at the park and after three seasons the temporary pop-up attractions would depart the park for good.

We therefore know that the Retro Squad rides have now departed. And we now know there is a plan to replace Funk’n’Fly with a permanent attraction. But the park have yet to confirm their future plans for the other former Retro Squad sites, but it is hoped that there is a plan to reintroduce some more permanent well-themed flat rides into the park’s line-up in future years.

In the meantime the former Retro Squad site in X-Sector has become the tempory home to X-Position Food, a pop-up streetfood market, which operates during peak season.

CBeebies Land

CBeebies Land turns 10 in 2024 and the park is celebrating with a special CBeebies Land 10 Years Celebration event running on the front lawns over May Half Term and the Summer Holidays.

In Big Fun Showtime, Bluey has arrived for 2024 with a new show, which also sees the popular character and her family meeting guests at set times each day.

Bluey has also come to the CBeebies Land Hotel, where guests can have a sleepover with Bluey, Bingo and the rest of their family in either a Bluey Room or a larger Bluey Suite.

The park have also finally added the long promised Sensory Room at the heart of CBeebies Land, taking over the space formerly occupied by Nina’s Science Lab, and also reusing the former attractions theming.

Scarefest Updates

Even before the season began, we started to get hints of something of a shake-up for Scarefest in 2024.

The park have recieved planning permission for two new semi-permanent buildings, both of which will be made up of six shipping containers connected by a tensile domed roof. One of these structures will replace the existing Darkest Depths scare maze setup and the other is being constructed in the backstage area next to The Curse at Alton Manor, along Gloomy Lane (the path to Forbidden Valley).

It is currently expected that both of these structures will be used for Scarefest mazes, though there has not yet been any indication if these will be brand-new mazes or relocations of existing mazes. One thing that can be said for certain though is that Darkest Depths will not return in it previous form.

The building by The Curse at Alton Manor is nearly complete and it seems that construction on the maze inside has begun. Work is also well underway on the site for the new building where the Darkest Depths used to sit.

As well as the new buildings, just before the season started, Alton Towers announced that The Alton Towers Dungeon would close before summer to be reimagined into a new experience for this year’s Scarefest.

In preparation for the new Scarefest attraction, the current version of the Alton Towers Dungeon closed in July,  after operating on a much reduced schedule for the first part of the season, only opening in the afternoons.

It is not yet clear if the former version of The Dungeon will return at a later date, but many guests will be hoping this will be the first step in the upcharge attraction’s departure from the park. The Alton Towers Dungeon has never been that popular with park guests and many will be hoping that the boat ride could return as a regular park attraction again.

Resort Changes

Beyond the arrival of Bluey, the resort has seen some significant changes over the closed season, most notably with the closure of the Spa on the last day of 2023. Several themed rooms have also either been discontinued or are no longer available for stays in 2024, suggesting they will either be mothballed or replaced. In Alton Towers Hotel the Hidden Hideaway, Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny rooms have been removed, with the Ice Age Rooms in Splash Landings also no longer available for stays.

The resort have yet to announce anything specific about what might replace any or all of these shuttered facilities, so it remains to be seen if we will be seeing some new additions to the resort for the 2024 season.

Project Ocean

Construction has now started on the park’s next new addtion, a flat ride on the former Ripsaw site, code named Project Ocean. There’s no indication of when the park intend to open the  new ride, but it is expected it will be open for 2025.

The details of exactly what sort of ride we can expect are currently under wraps, but from the planning application we know that the overall development will be an attraction that sits atop a building that straddles the current path to Galactica will include an an underpass that will maintain guest access.  The development will have an overall height of 18m, with theming features situated on either side of the structure and a queue line wrapping to the South and South-East.”

For the past few seasons, the site has been home to Funk’n’Fly, one of the temporary Retro Squad rides, which left the park at the end of last season. The new flat ride will therefore be welcome news for many park visitors, many of whom had been hoping the park would add more permanent support attractions to help absorb the queues from the park’s big attractions.

Find out more in our Development Archive.

Project Horizon

The other big ride in the pipeline in code named Project Horizon and it is now looking like 2026 is the earliest this could arrive at the resort. All we really know about the attraction so far is that it will be an indoor ride, located in the back stage area next to The Alton Towers Dungeon. For more details about this mystey new addition check out our dedicated Development Archive.

There are several sites around the park that are currently available for redevelopment. Here we take a look at some sites where we can expect to see new attractions built in the coming years.

The World of David Walliams

The World of David Walliams may be new, but the park’s latest area has plenty of room to expand.

Most of the buildings on one side of the area are no longer open to the public, from the shuttered 4D Cinema and Toy Shop at one end through to the old Nickelodeon building at the other. Will the area to expand over the coming years to incorporate these unused spaces? And not forgetting the Driving School, which is likely to be rethemed in the near future.

The arrival of Project Horizon in the area behind the 4D Cinema, means there is also potential for The Alton Towers Dungeon to be redeveloped in the coming years, which could return the popular family boat ride to the regular ride line-up.

X Sector

2021 saw the end of The Submission Memorial Garden to make way for the Retro Squad. However, the former site of Submission is now vacant again, so perhaps it is time for the Ministry of Joy to add a new experiment and bolster the park’s dwindling flat ride line-up.

The Enterprise also departed the park at the end of 2022 and is now also vacant and ready for a new ride to be added in that location.

Dark Forest

The Dark Forest is brimming with potential for future development, most notably on the former site of the Ug Swinger, which was more recently home to Roller Disco.

When the area was Festival Park in the 90s, the area around Th13teen’s entrance played host to several other rides, including The Beastie and Enterprise, so there is potential for more than one attraction in this under-used area. Perhaps the park could re-visit plans for the Robo-Arms that were considered as part of the Dark Forest development.

Equally, the site that currently houses the Dark Forest Lockers was once the site of the Magic Carpet and later The Spider. Whilst the site itself is compact, the queues for these attractions once ran through the neighbouring woodland, with some evidence of the site’s past still visible today.

CBeebies Land

Even with the new attractions added to the land over the past few years, there is still room for new additions in CBeebies Land, which has not yet expanded to use the entire corner of the park that was once home to Old MacDonald’s Fram.

Next door, in Adventure Land, there is also the long abandoned Refresh@Spinall site, which site in an area which could be re-used as part of either of the neighbouring lands.