Future Plans

Project Ocean sees a Top Spin return to Forbidden Valley, taking over the site of Ripsaw, the park’s classic Top Spin, which left the resort in 2015. Whilst both rides are variations of the same ride type, the new version is a suspended model that will sit atop a building that straddles the current path to Galactica and will include an underpass that will maintain guest access. 

The development has an overall height of 18m (60ft), with theming features situated on either side of the structure and a queue line to the South, on the site where the original ride used to operate.

Since 2021 the site has been home to Funk’n’Fly, one of the temporary Retro Squad rides, which left the park at the end of 2023.

The new flat ride will be welcome news for many park visitors, who had been hoping the park would begin to add more permanent support attractions to replace the many flat rides that have departed over the past decade and help absorb the queues from the park’s big attractions.

Find out more in our Toxicator Development Archive.

Ride Removals

Shortly after the end of the 2024 season, the park announced the closure of three rides that would not return for the 2025 season.

The most notable of these closures was The Blade, which was the oldest ride in the park and has now swung for the final time after 44 years. It is disappointing to learn of yet another flat ride removal, after a decade in which the park’s flat ride line-up has been decimated, with almost every former-flat ride site in the park now being empty and awaiting redevelopment. However, it is equally not a surprise – The Blade has been on borrowed time for the past decade, having originally been ear-marked for removal in 2015, in a decision that was later reversed.

Another flat ride cut for 2025 is Flavio’s Fabulous Fandango, the final of the ‘pop-up’ attractions added in 2021 during the pandemic. It outlasted the Retro-Squad, which departed last year, but now Flavio has Fandango’d his last and the rented attraction will no doubt return to the fair circuit.

The Alton Towers Dungeon will also not return in 2025, in news that was broadly expected after the attraction ‘temporarily’ closed last summer to make way for a new Scarefest attraction. The Alton Towers Dungeon has never been that popular with park guests, and many will be hoping that with the permanent closure, the boat ride could return as a regular park attraction again.

There have been no announcements of any plans to replace any of the attractions yet, but there is still time for the park to surprise us with additional announcements in the new year. Notably, all of these ride (and several other empty sites around the park) are located within the park’s GDO areas, which means the park can add rides without planning permission so long as they fall within certain pre-agreed constraints.

Alternatively, given that Flavio’s Fabulous Fandango and The Alton Towers Dungeon neighbour the Project Horizon site, we could potentially see these sites redeveloped along with the new attraction in 2027.

The Skyride Returns?

In her final update of 2024, Alton Towers’ Divisional Director, Bianca Sammut, gave an update to say that The Skyride refurbishment has entered its final stages, ahead of a 2025 reopening. Following this, eagle-eyed guests have also spotted the system testing during the park’s Christmas event.

When this important transportation attraction returns, it will be a huge benefit to guests, both disabled or otherwise, when trying to get around the park. Alton Towers is a big resort, and getting around the park can be tiring by the end of a long day, so this scenic shortcut will once again offer guests another option for travelling between Towers Street, Forbidden Valley and Dark Forest.

A word of caution, however: the ride was originally intended to reopen in 2024, and was delayed at the last minute by the discovery of further need for refurbishment. The original closure was also not planned, so in recent years the ride’s maintenance has clearly been more challenging than the park had anticipated.

All this to say, if you require The Skyride to enjoy your day, it’s best not to plan any trips until Alton Towers have given an official re-opening date. After all, we had a similar scenario with Hex last year, where the park had originally aimed to reopen the ride at the start of the season, but it was delayed at least twice before the park finally reopened it for Scarefest.

2025 Events

It seems we now know the park’s full event line-up for 2025, with the return of Scarefest and Fireworks as expected, along with the Pirate Takeover at February Half Term,  following the event’s successful reboot over the past couple of seasons. Alton Towers After Dark will also return in March, with additional dates added and hopefully less maintenance issues than experienced during last year’s event.

One event not included in the line up is Oktoberfest, which seems to confirm the rumblings that the event might not be returning in 2025 after a wunderbar five-year run. It also remains to be seen if there will be a replacement for the successful CBeebies Land 10 Years Celebration which ran over May Half Term and the Summer Holidays last year.

Scarefest Updates

The park have yet to announce details for Scarefest 2025, but we already know that changes are afoot.

Last year, the park received planning permission for two new semi-permanent buildings, for Scare Mazes. One of these structures was used last season for COMPOUND on Gloomy Lane. The other has replaced the Darkest Depths scare maze setup by Dark Forest, but was not ready in time and sat ‘empty‘ during Scarefest 2024.

It is currently expected that the second unit will house a new Scare Maze for this year’s event, replacing one of the mazes that currently occupy the Towers’ ruins. The smart money suggests that The Attic has therefore had its final run in the Towers, so there is potential we will see a new maze celebrating the heritage of Alton Towers in a different way.

Project Sunshine – CBeebies Land Coaster

In December 2024, Alton Towers announced their intention to build a new coaster in CBeebies Land ready for the 2026 season. The full planning documents state that:

The proposal is for the removal of an existing attraction and to replace it with a new attraction and ancillary buildings (station and maintenance buildings) within the CBeebies Land area of Alton Towers.

Since then, documents related to ‘Project Sunshine‘ have been uploaded to the Staffordshire Moorlands Planning Portal, confirming that the new coaster is set to be built on the site currently occupied by Postman Pat’s Parcel Post.

For more information on the new coaster as is passes through the planning process, check out our dedicated Project Sunshine Development Archive.

Project Horizon

The other big ride in the pipeline in code named Project Horizon and 2027 is now the earliest this attraction could arrive at the resort. All we know about the attraction so far is that it will be an indoor ride, located in the backstage area next to The Alton Towers Dungeon. For more details about this mystery 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 relatively new, but the 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 departure of Flavio’s Fabulous Fandango and The Alton Towers Dungeon, give the area lots of potential sites to be redeveloped in the coming years, to coincide with the opening of Project Horizon.

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.

In 2024 the site at the bottom of X-Sector was home to the pop-up food & beverage options of X-Position Food, but this is only a temporary usage of the site whilst it awaits redevelopment.

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.

Forbidden Valley

For the briefest of moments Forbidden Valley was ‘full’. With Toxicator under construction, all the current attraction spots in the valley were filled. But alas it was not to be, and at the end of 2024, the park announced that they would be removing The Blade.

The pit at the centre of Forbidden Valley is now empty once again, but it reamins to be seen how long this remains the case.

CBeebies Land

Even with the arrival of the new coaster in 2026, 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 Farm.

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