Early Ride Time; where hotel guests, annual pass holders and pre-booked tickets get an extra hour on selected rides from 9am until 10am, has been a staple of the resorts line-up for many years, and has gone through many changes. Today Alton Towers have announced a new set of changes to the line-up, removing Th13teen and Hex and replacing them with Duel and Blade.
Th13teen has long suffered during ERT due to the fact it requires 18 riders before it can be dispatched, often resulting in long waits to ride using up guests time in the ERT window. The new line-up moves all of the ERT offering to the left side of the park, and it is at this time un-clear whether non-ERT guests will be allowed into this section of the park until 10am. If the area is restricted to ERT guests only, this would alleviate the problem of non-ERT guests being sometimes allowed on the operating rides before 10am, something that has been noted at times in the current system. We believe non-ERT guests will be held at the bottom of Towers Street, like they were in past seasons, but this has not yet been confirmed to us.
Whilst these changes make logistical sense as they keep the ERT rides grouped together, it does mean there is a surprising omission of thrill rides from the ERT line-up. As recently as last season ERT contained Rita, Oblivion and Nemesis and this season had at least two coasters when Oblivion was dropped and Rita was swapped with Th13teen. Now, the line-up will only feature Nemesis for thrillseekers and marks quite a big change in direction for Early Ride Time.
Along with these changes, the Woodland Walk from the hotels to the theme park will be opening from 8:30 every morning. This will encourage guests to use it for ERT as it enters the park in Forbidden Valley. Previously the walk did not open until 10am and thus could not be used for ERT.
The new ERT line-up is as follows and we understand it will begin running sometime in August:
(Note: ERT does not operate during the Scarefest and Fireworks events)
As always stay with TowersStreet to get all of the latest news and information as it happens, follow us on Facebook and Twitter and check out our discussion forums to get involved in the debate
