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Highs and Lows of 2015

GaryH

TS Member
Ok, so the 2015 is over - boo. A mixed year for Alton, and we of course are all too aware of the Smiler incident. Its definitely been a year of ups and downs. Smiler incident aside, what were your highs and lows of 2015?

For me, it has to be:

Highs
Being surprised at how nice the Enchanted Village lodges actually were
Staff on park and in the resort in general are great
Tree Top Quest I found hugely enjoyable
Scarefest was one of the best for many years
The Fireworks, while not as spectacular for 2015 were great, uplifting and a fitting end to a troubled year

Lows
Hotel Entertainment
The number of rides closed - Flume, Sub Terra etc.
State on some areas of the park, i.e. around Nemesis
Number of food outlets closed, even on peak days
 
Lows

Various single rider queues closed.
Towers ruins hardly open (getting worse every year).
Not managing to re-open their most customer attracting coaster (Smiler).
Installation of too many fences.
All the fountains still not working in the gardens (may be out of their control, but I worry they will silt up over time).

Highs

Restoration work started on the Gothic Prospect Tower.
 
Highs
No queues
Fireworks
Scarefest
Staff (Both hotel and on park)

Lows
Altons Towers Website
Staggered opening times
Park opening times
Ride closures
Guess service in the box office (Excluding the ones we dealt with over the phone/email)

[edited...I just wanted to add three more to my Lows list]

Pot holes (mainly the road leading to the disable/VIP parking)
Broken effects
Fencing blocking the view of the rapids/runaway mine train tunnel
 
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Highs
Staff on park being happy to chat and joke.
Going on my first meet
The Fireworks, Saturday. blooming good mixed show.
Riding Nemesis and Air in the dark.
The Fireworks, Sunday. seeing how it works from the other side.
And all the fun I had with my daughter at towers.

Lows
The number of rides closed
State on some areas of the park
that ride incident that shall not be named.
The incident that closed the exit road on firework Saturday.
deep freeze toilets.
bob the builder land creeping into dark forest. (rita scaffold)
 
Highs
Scarefest
Friendly Staff
Park to ourselves
Forbidden Valley Scarezone

Lows
The state of Nemesis, so sad to see the ride that made Alton Towers rotting away !
Alton Towers Hotels singers absolutely terrible. (Bring back A band on a ship)
Ancient toilets still not been addressed.
 
Deep freeze toilets lol! What incident was there exiting on the Saturday out of interest?

I was staying at the hotel so I didn't get caught up in the traffic on Saturday night. What I've been told was that there was an accident of some sort on the main road and the traffic had to be diverted via down the back roads.

I also hear than anyone trying to enter the park to check in for their stay at the hotel on Saturday night had to wait until all the traffic was cleared, as all the lanes into the Alton Towers resort were apparently turned into exit lanes only.

I don't know if anyone can confirm.
 
I haven't been that many times this season, favouring other parks so mine's only a short list:

Highs:

- Rides run on good capacity (2/3 trains) even at quieter periods
- Short queues
- Enjoying Rita a lot more than usual this season

Lows:

- The park seeming to be making little effort to save costs on the front line towards the end of season (coasters still having entrance hosts and batchers on really quiet days when not needed)
- Sub Terra's long closure
 
Highs

Park clean and looked after.
Staff great as always.
Rides looking great.
Food good as always.
Towers Street looking great.

Lows

(Do i dare post these)
Closing times reduced AGAIN.
Rides close times reduced even when the park is open.
Areas closing when the park is open.
Fireworks poor but just ok.
Food units closed when the park is open.
And dare i say it the atmosphere has gone altogether.

While i know the bottom one will get better the magic has been ripped out the place.
 
Highs

- Fireworks event. A reasonably decent effort made despite budget cuts.
- Oblivion loading 2 trains in the station again.

Nothing else to report.

Lows

- Everything else.

You name it, and it belongs here.
 
Highs:

Great Scarefest (apart from Molly Crowe.)
Fireworks
No queues for top rides
Staff as always

LOWS:

State of the entire park
Toilets, all of them
Ride closures
Opening times in summer
High prices
Poor quality food
Disappointing scare zones
 
when your first intention was to completely destroy towers for they've done and continue to do. but when 2015 has brought us a fine scarefest and fireworks its hard to do hopefully they can improve these two areas again.
the park needs work and constant investment to bring it back up to standard that most of the european parks have set
 
I notice a lot of people complain about the toilets...... Maybe I'm the only one here who thinks like this but I don't have any problem with the toilets. They are always open, seems to always be someone in there cleaning, there's always toilet roll, soap and the hand driers work. Not sure what more you could want from public toilets , I tend to find them clean and acceptable in general...
 
I find the toilet to be fine in good weather, the water is usually cold and there is little to no heating in any of them, so using the sit down facilities was cold on the behind.
Although the 80's motorway loos theming is great.
 
My highs of 2015
- Having a Nemesis overdose (8 Rides in one day!)
- Shortest queues ever
- Nitrogenie did taste really good if a little pricey and busy
- The Entertainers and themed staff were awesome
- (edit) My respect for Mr Varney in handling the Incident as well as he did

My lows
- The food was limited and awful. Many units were closed. I'd have rather spent the money in McDonald's outside the park. The burgers were of minimum standards, very stingy on toppings and the fries were more like mushy chips.
- The maintenance of the park is the worst i've ever seen. Scaffolding on Rita, The dark forest is mostly cut down and gone, Exposed orange foam on theming outside Duel, Broken lift on Sub Terra, Nemesis station looks almost abandoned it is so worn down & shoddy welding of new fencing around Air with mis-matched paint colour.
- Having Death signs all around the park's fences making the park feel more dangerous than it is and killing the atmosphere of the park. (why not just have a big disclaimer at the entrance saying don't jump over fences?) H&S signs belong in an industrial park not a theme park.
- And of course The Incident, mistakes were made but hopefully lessons learnt for an even safer theme park next season.
 
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For me a low would be the first time back in X Sector after the Smiler crash with the eerie silence and the dominant ride motionless.
 
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