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Quick Questions

Is the lawn that's walled off opposite woodcutters and Hex protected? Does it have a special name?
Late to the party, but that's the Dovecote Garden, also (more officially) known as the Birdcage Garden.

It is one of the listed garden features, so it is protected. It was once open to the public, but has been closed off since at least the 80s. Its last major usage was as the Alton Towers Zoo and later the Children's Farm.

On another topic, has anyone heard anything about how the park (and Merlin more generally) plan to handle this heat emergency?
 
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According to the parks response to similar questions on Twitter, not much other than ‘we are open as normal’.

I imagine the Smiler queue line temperature to be somewhere in the region of 6000 degrees on Tuesday.
Shame Hex is closed, as it's nice and cool in there.
 
Is there anywhere to watch Premier League football at Alton Towers? Am taking some teens to the waterpark on a Sunday and wondered if I could watch the football in on of the hotel bars?
 
Is there anywhere to watch Premier League football at Alton Towers? Am taking some teens to the waterpark on a Sunday and wondered if I could watch the football in on of the hotel bars?
On very rare occasions they put big international matches on during the world cup etc, but they don't have any sort of licence for EPL football I'm afraid!
 
How quick do passholder tickets for fireworks sell out?
Its very difficult to say as the number of passholders will have changed substantially since last year after old extended passes expired and the price increases came into effect. I'd be tempted to say you'll be fine until a few weeks before considering, but would try and book as early as possible just in case.
 
Its very difficult to say as the number of passholders will have changed substantially since last year after old extended passes expired and the price increases came into effect. I'd be tempted to say you'll be fine until a few weeks before considering, but would try and book as early as possible just in case.
It's interesting how you can now book a passholder ticket paying £20 from the main Fireworks event page on the website (no issues paying this as the display and atmosphere more that justifies this!), yet you can book normally through the passholder portal and appear to pay nothing!

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I think that’s because the Premium passes are now a legacy product but at the time they didn’t exclude fireworks dates in the T&C’s so they still get entry without the upcharge.
 
Fireworks is classed as a special event for Premium MAP holders, so they were previously charged, as the T+Cs do state that special event entry can be excluded. Indeed, the reason why our fireworks meet was relatively quiet last year was for this very reason - £20 for each day of fireworks meant many of us either didn't bother or ended up staying on resort to avoid the fee.

I'm guessing that either numbers of premium pass holders are now pretty low so they didn't bother to exclude them as they'll have little impact, or (most likely) Towers/Merlin completely forgot about them and didn't bother putting the restriction in on the system/adding the dates to the T+Cs.
 
This may be a slightly stupid question, given that pre-booking far enough in advance means children aged 3+ pay the same price as adults now, but with the £15 bring-a-friend vouchers attached to the ATAP, does it matter how old the people you're bringing are? Only reason I ask is that I'm probably going to Towers in a week or two with my older brother and his family (he has two girls aged 7 and 6). I can't seem to find anything that suggests there's a limit, but I wanted to make sure before anything gets booked.
 
Does anyone know why buy 1 get 1 frees aren’t usable in august when u can still book full price? bit crafty
As August is school holidays it’s one of the most popular times to visit so they don’t need to discount.
Also online price (£42) is only £10 more than the 2for1 price per person (£32.50) so you still don’t need to pay full price.
 
Is smiler really running that bad this year? Seen people come off with bruises and describe it as a shopping trolley!

Shame since it’s one of my favourites
No. No it's not. Some people are just snow flakes. They think smiler is rough then they've never been to blackpool
 
Is smiler really running that bad this year? Seen people come off with bruises and describe it as a shopping trolley!

Shame since it’s one of my favourites
Coming off the Smiler with bruises? Bit of an exaggeration isn't it? Didn't know bruises formed within a couple of minutes of the cause of them. Normally they take a day or so! I've had my fair share of being bashed around on it and I can honestly say I've never had a bruise from it. Headache occasionally though.

Edit: I know some people can bruise very easily due to medical conditions and my comment was aimed at the vast majority of riders who don't suffer with these conditions. And if those coming off with bruises are those who bruise easily then using them is an unfair way of judging the level of roughness of the ride.
 
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