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2026: General Discussion

Having watched numerous vlogs and updates of social media from the opening it’s clear to see that not much has got done over closed season.

I used to really enjoy watching all the updates on socials and watching the buzz about the place but each year it seems to be getting less and less.

I really do worry for the future of Towers’ having worked there and helped commission and launch The Smiler it is completely different back then and it shows in my opinion the general lot and care for the place seems to have disappeared and now with long term and committed staff leaving it seems like it’s only a matter of time before it turns into a generic theme park.

I hope if they do sell that someone with great enthusiasm and passion takes over and doesn't let it rot anymore than it has.
 
Excalibur said:
I hope if they do sell that someone with great enthusiasm and passion takes over and doesn't let it rot anymore than it has.
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I’ve been wondering this the past couple of days, because at the moment it’s clear Merlin has no clear intent to invest at Alton Towers.

Which brings up the point of why keep the park stagnant if Merlin need to pay down debt inherited from a different leadership in an a different economic environment. The only way I can see things continuing is either Merlin see growth potential with the park and invest to bring people in droves or sell the park to a more willing operator and use the funds to invest in areas they do see growth potential for the company.

Alton Towers is a much more sticky business than Merlin is, there’s always going to be an operator willing to run the park and it’s such a sizeable business in the area that local authorities won’t let it go away entirely due to the significant loss of employment and tourism in the area. I can’t really see the paradigm that Alton Towers is in currently lasting.

This has a very different feel to the cutbacks of 2016, as at least at the time we knew about the development of SW8 and the prospect of renewal at the park with the TLC program. Additionally the 2016 cutbacks with ride closures seemed a bit more concrete than the temperamental availability of attractions that we see now. You knew which rides were shut but you still got on the essentials and must-dos.

I felt really sad seeing the state of the park from TPWW’s opening day vlog especially with Katanga Canyon practically being a ghost town when that essentially feels like classic Alton Towers. I really hope the status quo doesn’t hold and that we see renewal soon.
 
Bert2theSpark said:
I’ve been wondering this the past couple of days, because at the moment it’s clear Merlin has no clear intent to invest at Alton Towers.
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This ignores that in the past four years alone we've had The Curse at Alton Manor, Nemesis: Reborn, Toxicator and Bluey the Ride: Here Come the Grannies. You've also had two new permanent structures built for new scare maze attractions. Two new scare zones. A refurbishment of Hex. A refurbishment of the Skyride. Theming elements restored or added to attractions. Relaying of broken pathwork (and not just tarmac thrown over it) and the new light show for Alton After Dark. That's just off the top of my head.

Many areas of the park have also taken a step back, yes, that's undeniable. Merlin's clearly investing in Alton Towers though... just not at the rate that it actually really probably needs.
 
GaryH said:
Invest yes. Maintain no. Big difference.

Has been a bit of a standing joke the past few years when a new ride opens as to how long the effects on it will last.
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It’s most likely a case of Merlin putting in the millions initially but then basically saying ‘here’s your brand new ride, market it, but we’re not going to give you any extra operating budget to staff the ride or maintain it, you have to work that part out yourself’
 
Yeah....investment into new attractions hasn't been lacking. They cant be blamed for that.

Upkeep of the park and existing attractions has been incredibly poor though in places. Clearly the park management team just haven't been able to achieve everything they wanted with the budgets Merlin have allocated them.

Its sad to see a theme park that once hit the 3m mark now slip back down to 2 to 2.5m whilst parks like Europa Park have pushed for 6m in same period. Towers could have easily broken through the 4m mark with more resources allocated to them. An extra 1m visitors in a year brings in a hell of a lot of revenue too.

Merlin have been short sighted. They thought growth was only achieved by expanding their number of locations and forgot that their existing ones could have provided more income with more money provided to them.
 
Benzin said:
Some flats for anyone 0.9m and up who want to do more than CBeebies Land is far more a necessity over YET another thrill ride.
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Absolutely should be number 1 priority; we're going in 2 weeks and my 5 year old (1.17m roughly) has very little really outside of Cbeebies. And even Cbeebies he's probably getting a bit big for. It's not helped by the closures of RMT, Rapids & Battle Galleons, either.

We're debating going to Drayton Manor on the way home just so he can have a day where he can actually ride bigger and more thrilling rides.
 
Benjsh said:
Yeah....investment into new attractions hasn't been lacking. They cant be blamed for that.

Upkeep of the park and existing attractions has been incredibly poor though in places. Clearly the park management team just haven't been able to achieve everything they wanted with the budgets Merlin have allocated them.

Its sad to see a theme park that once hit the 3m mark now slip back down to 2 to 2.5m whilst parks like Europa Park have pushed for 6m in same period. Towers could have easily broken through the 4m mark with more resources allocated to them. An extra 1m visitors in a year brings in a hell of a lot of revenue too.

Merlin have been short sighted. They thought growth was only achieved by expanding their number of locations and forgot that their existing ones could have provided more income with more money provided to them.
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They haven’t done it successfully but Towers very deliberately doesn’t aim to go much above 3 million, it’s always in their planning docs relating to local road capacity.

Plus the figures released every year are made up for Merlin parks as they don’t release them, the one time Merlin did release figures in a planning application Towers was still in the 2.8 million range.
 
Benjsh said:
Yeah....investment into new attractions hasn't been lacking. They cant be blamed for that.
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I’m not sure I’d agree that their investment in new attractions hasn’t been lacking. I’d probably say it’s been passable.

On the point of Thirteen’s van, it’s been there since the ride’s opening day and was used as a theming piece after being surplus to requirements from what used to be a small fleet of the same vehicles which would be used across the resort for maintenance.
 
BarryZola said:
It's unlikely really as we'd have seen a planning application by now (unless in an area where planning permission isn't needed).
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I don't know which area's of the park currently have space for a flat, that wouldn't require planning permission? Maybe the bottom of x-sector, if the ride wasn't too tall?
Either way I suspect next year will be very much a down year, and I wouldn't expect any new rides, although perhaps we will get something new, like a show or a new restaurant or something.
 
JAperson said:
I don't know which area's of the park currently have space for a flat, that wouldn't require planning permission? Maybe the bottom of x-sector, if the ride wasn't too tall?
Either way I suspect next year will be very much a down year, and I wouldn't expect any new rides, although perhaps we will get something new, like a show or a new restaurant or something.
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Blade replacement, Enterprise replacement, Submission replacement, Dark Forest flat replacement and Dungeons building retheme/reuse would all be areas where they could build without needing a planning app I believe.
 
venny said:
I’m not sure I’d agree that their investment in new attractions hasn’t been lacking. I’d probably say it’s been passable.
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I think that's slightly harsh.

2026 - New Family coaster in Cbeebies
2025 - New Thrill Flat ride + 4 million spent on Sky Ride supposedly
2024 - Nemmy overhaul
2023 - Curse at Alton Manor plus some money spent on Rapids which was mostly due to the new safety regulations.
2022 - CBeebies enhancements
2021 - Retro Squad - This is passable due to the circumstances of the country at the time despite the fact I hate funfair rides.

It's not investment into new rides which is the issue for me. Far from it. It's basically everything else where they fall down.

- Food options
- Staffing
- Opening hours
 
AT86 said:
Blade replacement, Enterprise replacement, Submission replacement, Dark Forest flat replacement and Dungeons building retheme/reuse would all be areas where they could build without needing a planning app I believe.
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Yes I think your correct on those. I think a blade replacement might be off the table for now due to Forbidden Valley having just had Toxicator and reborn, then again they might want to give that area more capacity with it being an entrance/exit for hotel guests.
Submission/Enterprise replacement could be a good shout especially as they could probably but not a lot of effort into said ride to make it fit within X-sector, paint is Orange, Grey and Yellow and give it some cool sounding industrial name, or tie it in with the Ministry of joy. Probably the cheapest and easiest out of the options.
Dark Forest I think I'm really not sure about, I think there's a lot of cool ideas for what they could do here, and lots of rides you could make fit in, however I'm not sure the park are keen to do much with Dark Forest at the moment. I think it's the most wildcard option.
Doing something with the dungeons building surely must be on the cards, but I imagine it could be quite expensive to retheme that boat ride again, and get it back into working order. I do wonder if this is also quite likely to be looked at for the next few years, its just whether it's part of a wider retheme of that area, of whether it's going to kind of stay it's own separate thing. One to watch for sure.
Even though these are all valid options, I'm not sure if we can expect any of them to actually happen next year, Merlin have put a lot of actual real terms money into Towers over the past few years, and I doubt they've actually seen much of a return on most of it. However it is also clear that Towers needs new rides to help disperse queues, and take people when older rides break, so anything they can add, including the boat ride with a huge capacity would be a huge bonus operations wise.
Although there is also the staffing issues, we know Towers are struggling for staff, can they really find the staff to maintain more rides as well as operating them on a daily basis? There's a lot to consider with regards to what they might do over the next few years thats for sure.
 
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