2024 was a rollercoaster of a year for Alton Towers, with some clear highlights, amidst a year that the park’s best laid plans to offer guests the best season ever too often faltered to a degree that no one was expecting.
To celebrate the new year, let’s take a look back at 2024, before taking a peek at the new year and what we can look forward to in Alton Towers in 2025.
In with the new…
Without a doubt, the highlight of the year was provided by the park’s new and returning attractions. The season started strong with the triumphant return of Nemesis Reborn, a reimagining and retracking of the park’s most famous coaster. The retrack retained the familiar, thrilling experience that made the world-class ride so popular, whilst extending the ride’s lifespan well into the future.
As part of the reimagining, Forbidden Valley received a significant refresh to support the ride’s new backstory, with plenty of new and updated catering, retail and facilities throughout the area. But the most major changes came to the ride’s pit, where the Nemesis monster got a makeover, including an impressive new digital eye that watches riders as they fly by. The whole ride area has gained new kineticism, thanks to new theming elements, such as the crashed helicopter, and boosted by the return of some of the ride’s waterfalls in time for Scarefest.
Also returning for Scarefest, Hex’s vault was unsealed for the first time in almost two seasons, much to the delight of fans of the park’s signature dark ride. The ride originally closed to receive a major overhaul of the mechanism that powers the Vault, but whilst it has been closed, it has also received an overhaul of much of the attraction’s AV systems. Some of these upgrades have been better received than others, but hopefully some further tweaks will take place over the closed season to further enhance the experience. Either way, it was a highlight of the late season to see one of the park’s most popular dark rides back up and running.
And for the park’s youngest guests, they were treated to the arrival of Bluey and her family in CBeebies Land. The phenomenally popular blue healer starred in her own show in Big Fun Showtime, with an associated meet and greet. CBeebies Land Hotel also received a set of Bluey rooms and suites, and it is almost certain we will be seeing much more of the popular character at the resort in the coming years.
… and out with the old
Unfortunately, where there are new arrivals, there are also departures, and shortly after the end of the 2024 season, the park announced the closure of three rides that will not return for 2025.
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 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 ‘pop-up’ attraction 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 in future.
There have been no announcement of any plans to replace any of these attractions yet, but there is still time for the park to surprise us with additional news in the new year. Notably, all of these rides (and several other empty sites around the park) are located within the park’s GDO areas, which means the park can add rides without additional planning permission so long as they fall within certain pre-agreed constraints.
2024 featured a full roster of events, from old favourites such as the ever-popular Oktoberfest to new additions like CBeebies Land 10 Years Celebration. The year was rounded out by one of the best Fireworks events at Alton Towers in recent memory, celebrating the arrival of Nemesis Reborn with a show themed around the Phalanx Expo. This came close on the heels of Scarefest, featuring COMPOUND, an intense and much lauded new scare maze that offered a spiritual successor to the old-school favourite, Sub Species.
New for 2025
The big new addition for 2025 comes in the form of Project Ocean, which will see a Top Spin return to Forbidden Valley, as a permanent replacement for Ripsaw, which left the resort in 2015. Whilst both rides are variations of a Top Spin, the new version is a floorless model that will sit atop a building that straddles the current path to Galactica, swinging over the heads of spectators below.
The ride’s structure was fully installed before Christmas, so we can no doubt expect to see theming installed and testing begin for the new attraction early in the new year. The new ride’s name is also yet to be announced, but last year Merlin filed a Trademark for ‘Toxicator‘, which might indicate the name they would like to use for Project Ocean. But there is a question mark, on whether they will be able to use the name, as there is potential opposition to the Toxicator trademark, so the name could still change between now and opening.
2025 should also see the return of an old favourite. In her final update of the year, 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 recent 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.
The park have not yet given a specific date for reopening, so if you require The Skyride to enjoy your day, it’s best not to plan your trip until Alton Towers have given an official re-opening date.
New Year’s Resolutions
It’s the time of year when tradition states we should
Ride reliability has been a major issue for Alton Towers in 2024, with many attractions having significant bouts of downtime over the course of the season – some planned, others less expected. Visiting the park last year became something of a game of roulette, where it was still possible to have an excellent day out, but far too often operational issues got in the way of the fun, with stories of guests lurching from closed ride to closed ride becoming all too frequent. Occasionally these situations were caused by temperamental weather, but all too frequently it seems that issues were caused by variables that should have been more within the park’s control
If nothing else, in 2025, the park needs to focus on offering a more consistent ride operation, with more rides open more of the time. Staggered opening and early ride closures do not make for a pleasant guests experience, especially during a season where it was not unusual to have several major rides closed at the same time due to technical issues.
Another area in need of attention, the catering situation at Alton Towers under Aramark continues to be temperamental at best. These days, its increasingly difficult to find food or drinks at Alton Towers of a quality you might want from the UK’s number one theme park, at a price you might expect to pay.
Let’s hope 2025 is the year they finally manage to correct the issues they’ve had with catering ever since the operation was outsourced. This is another core service where the resort needs to offer a better quality, more consistently in 2025, rather than bouncing around the bottom end of the spectrum, where either the quality is not there, or the value, or both.
One area that Aramark seem to have had more success is with the Costa Coffee franchises that have popped up of late, such as Expedition Espresso Stop at the Alton Towers Hotel. Maybe further franchising might be a solution, or a return to the years when the park successfully blended in-house catering with popular high-street brands such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and KFC. At this point, almost anything would be better than the status quo.
The catering situation is particularly keenly felt around the hotels, where the quality of the experience is often lacking, but there is little else to do once the park is closed, with several resort activities shuttered in recent years, such as the Spa and Tree Top Quest.
Meanwhile, the ‘second gate’ activities, such as the Water Park, often close so early that hotel-guests lack options of activities to enjoy after the theme park has closed.
Various issues have resulted in the resort areas seeming quite tired in recent years and it would be great to see the resort’s hotels and the associated activities get refreshed over the coming seasons to once again offer a high quality short-break offer, fitting for the UK’s top theme park.
Hopefully, some of the issues we have seen at the park over the past few seasons (and indeed the last decade) will start to be addressed by the refreshing new approach the current management team have taken to running Alton Towers.
There has been a lot of change in the resort management over the past few seasons, but Bianca Sammut and her team seem more than capable to address the areas that have been lacking. If anyone is able to overcome the challenges the park faces, it is the current park management team. But these challenges would clearly be easier to overcome if Merlin also loosened their purse strings a little and start to provide an appropriate budget to allow Alton Towers to once again aspire to operate at the same level as the parks it should be competing with across Europe.
Spades in the Ground
New developments in the park are on the horizon, however, and in an unusual twist, we now have information about new additions that should be coming to the park over the next thee seasons. And 2025 could therefore see construction begin on at least two significant projects in the pipeline.
Could construction of Project Horizon finally be on the horizon? It now seems that all the preconditions have been met for construction to begin on the Project Horizon, which would likely add a new indoor coaster to the park on the old ‘Coaster Corner’ site behind The World of David Walliams. As of the end of 2024, only minor site clearance has occurred, but with a proposed 18-month construction period, if work begins by the end of Summer this would mean the new ride would be ready for the 2027 season.
One project we do know Alton Towers want to get started with in 2025 is their recently announced new rollercoaster for CBeebies Land. The new ride is not certain to go ahead yet, but the park has recently applied for planning permission 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.
From this description, the new coaster will be more substantial than Octonauts Rollercoaster Adventure, and so may be aimed at a slightly older age group than CBeebies Land’s other coaster. We will learn more about the proposed new attraction when the planning documents are uploaded to the council website, but it is currently believed that the new coaster will replace Postman Pat’s Parcel Post
It is possible that Alton Towers could still have a few surprises up their sleeve to announce ahead of the new season. In particular, additions that don’t require planning permission often get announced in the early months of the new year. In recent times, this has included anything from new shows and events, right up to additional rides, as happened with the Retro Squad. And with five flat ride sites that now need filling around the park, we’ve got to hope that the park have a plan to replace these much-needed filler attractions in the coming years.
2025 – an eventful year?
Usually the park’s full event line-up is also announced early in the new year, but we already know that Scarefest and Fireworks will return for 2025, along with the Pirate Takeover at February Half Term, after 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 ride availability issues than occurred during last year’s event.
There is a big question mark over the future of Oktoberfest, with rumblings that the event may not be returning in 2025 after a wunderbar five-year run. And 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.
For a more detailed look at what we can expect in 2025 and beyond at Alton Towers, check out our Future Plans summary, where we look at all the upcoming project in more detail and we will share updates throughout 2025. Alternatively you can also keep up with all the latest on our socials, Facebook, X, TikTok and Instagram.
