2025: General Discussion

[MattL27]

I don’t think using AI is a way to criticise Merlin and use it as a stick to beat them with. It doesn’t mean anything, Phantasialand commonly using AI for theming and artwork throughout the park, which is considerably worse!

 

[Blackrock]

Well I’m glad Fridays are back, it was always a day the locals used their tickets as it was quieter. Didn’t fancy doing the Sunday and spending most of the day in queues tbh

 

[Dave]

I'm unsure if Towers have used AI to create that promo image, but it would certainly be a pity if they had. But also not a surprise with how Merlin operate these days.

There have been some good points made on the use of GenAI, but if we can now stick to Alton Towers discussion then that would be great!

Good news that Fireworks is back to 3 nights, they should never have cut it to 2 in the first place. I still have no plans to renew my MAP once it expires later this year though, needs the likes of Oktoberfest to return for me to feel like I am going to get value.

Same, for the first time in a long time I no longer have an annual pass.

In some ways it’s weird as certain elements of the park is better than its been in a long time (general theming maintenance and investment in ride refreshing), they appear to also be working on uptime and operations to their credit.

But fact is what kept me vaguely interested was events, and since they brought Aramark in and cut the event calendar I have just lost interest.

Will I still visit Towers? Yes, maybe once or twice. But that’s not justifying an annual pass, and the rest of the Merlin portfolio just doesn’t interest me anymore.

If Merlin had kept the events and not outsourced food in such a sham way they would have probably kept me but there you go.

 

[jon81uk]

I had an annual pass for over 10 years, something like 2001 to about 2013 (can't remember exactly) and I've not really missed having it.
Since not having a pass we still did Alton Towers for fireworks in many years. Also done Thorpe Park 3-4 times. But I don't actually miss going 2-4 times to each park in a year really. I think we did each ride so many times when we had annual passes that I feel its very "been there done that" now. I slightly miss the spontaneous trips to Warwick Castle (when we lived in Birmingham) or walking along the South Bank and popping into the aquarium or onto the London Eye (when we lived in London).

But overall, I think an annual visit to Alton Towers and once every few years to Thorpe is plenty for me now.

 

[Hazza]

I'm going for the first time in 3 years (Last went in April 2022) next week. Will it be busy next week? we're going on a weekday. Are there any differences that I need to know since 2022.

 

[Matt N]

I'm going for the first time in 3 years (Last went in April 2022) next week. Will it be busy next week? we're going on a weekday. Are there any differences that I need to know since 2022.

It depends on whether school trip season has started yet. I seem to remember hearing that it doesn’t typically start until the end of June, but I could be wrong there.

 

[AT86]

Closing time switches from 4pm this week to 5pm next week so they must be expecting higher visitation.

It’s not going to be peak school trip season but it certainly won’t be walk ons.

 

[Steve74]

It depends on whether school trip season has started yet. I seem to remember hearing that it doesn’t typically start until the end of June, but I could be wrong there.

From stories you hear throughout the year, I think the school trip season starts the first week of the autumn term.

"Welcome back to school, as a thank you for coming back after the summer break, have a trip to Alton Towers."

 

[djtruefitt]

There were definitely plenty of school trips on park today, and it will only get worse from now on.

 

[DistortAMG]

Interestingly, www.altontowers.com has been down all evening, still down now. I wonder what the cause is, it is unusually long for such a website.

 

[NuttySquirrel]

Maybe the new Dining Plans are proving so popular they have crashed the website?

 

[Squiggs]

Interestingly, www.altontowers.com has been down all evening, still down now. I wonder what the cause is, it is unusually long for such a website.

I think that might just have been a you thing (or at least a localised issue). I was on the website yesterday evening with no problems.

 

[AltonLover123]

It depends on whether school trip season has started yet. I seem to remember hearing that it doesn’t typically start until the end of June, but I could be wrong there.

They started a while back but this week is the start of them in full force.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Interestingly, www.altontowers.com has been down all evening, still down now. I wonder what the cause is, it is unusually long for such a website.

Google Cloud was down last night, affecting a significant part of the internet, including Cloudflare, which I believe Alton Towers use to prevent DDoS attacks and use for load balancing.

Google Cloud outage brings down a lot of the internet | TechCrunch

Google Cloud seems to be at the core of a major outage affecting popular internet apps and services on Thursday.

techcrunch.com

 

[dave___]

Google Cloud was down last night, affecting a significant part of the internet, including Cloudflare, which I believe Alton Towers use to prevent DDoS attacks and use for load balancing.

Google Cloud outage brings down a lot of the internet | TechCrunch

Google Cloud seems to be at the core of a major outage affecting popular internet apps and services on Thursday.

techcrunch.com

Cloudflare's blogs are always a great read when half of the internet goes down

Cloudflare service outage June 12, 2025

Today, June 12, 2025, Cloudflare suffered a significant service outage that affected a large set of our critical services, including Workers KV, WARP, Access, Gateway, Images, Stream, Workers AI, Turnstile and Challenges, AutoRAG, and parts of the Cloudflare Dashboard.

blog.cloudflare.com