2023: General Discussion

[tayspru]

Visited again last week, and it’s just hit me that the security checks are going nowhere fast ! The tents have some new graphics attached

Surely it wouldn’t cost too much to have some kind of semi permanent wood structure installed for bag check? A sort of wooded trellis or something equally simple would improve the look of the entrance plaza no end !

Anyone know if this is something the park has even considered ?

 

[Archie]

Visited again last week, and it’s just hit me that the security checks are going nowhere fast ! The tents have some new graphics attached

Surely it wouldn’t cost too much to have some kind of semi permanent wood structure installed for bag check? A sort of wooded trellis or something equally simple would improve the look of the entrance plaza no end !

Anyone know if this is something the park has even considered ?

to be honest i'd just redo the entire entrance area, it is all starting to look quite dated, new more open and modern monorail station, new bus station, permanent drop off area, permanent security area

 

[JakeDLP]

I'd completely re-do/ refurb towers street to be a more immersive space

 

[Trooper Looper]

I wouldn't say towers Street looks outdated, but more on the lines of 'Not looked after well'. It looked great before it's 2017 TLC repaint, that just plastered Primary colours everywhere. Towers Street, especially back in the 80s looked great. It even used to have a restaurant. Before the trees grew, you were introduced to a wonderful open view of the towers.

 

[Steve74]

I wouldn't say towers Street looks outdated, but more on the lines of 'Not looked after well'. It looked great before it's 2017 TLC repaint, that just plastered Primary colours everywhere. Towers Street, especially back in the 80s looked great. It even used to have a restaurant. Before the trees grew, you were introduced to a wonderful open view of the towers.

That's certainly of its time and far prefer what we have now, even if it does need a bit of sprucing up here and there. That looks like it was designed in Planet Coaster with Grid Mode switched on!

 

[Burner]

It looked a lot classier back then.

Now it just looks like its been on the receiving end of Homer Simpson's make up gun.

 

[JakeDLP]

I wouldn't say towers Street looks outdated, but more on the lines of 'Not looked after well'. It looked great before it's 2017 TLC repaint, that just plastered Primary colours everywhere. Towers Street, especially back in the 80s looked great. It even used to have a restaurant. Before the trees grew, you were introduced to a wonderful open view of the towers.

It needs to return to something with this sort of atmosphere and colour palette, much more appealing

 

[Archie]

It needs to return to something with this sort of atmosphere and colour palette, much more appealing

as pretty as this looks, i can understand why they moved away from it, you know alton towers is this magical place where the most weird and wonderful things happen, maybe this looks a little to conventional and just a recreation of a typical town square (although i'm fully aware that not that many town in the UK look as nice as this.)

 

[Dave]

I wouldn't say towers Street looks outdated, but more on the lines of 'Not looked after well'. It looked great before it's 2017 TLC repaint, that just plastered Primary colours everywhere. Towers Street, especially back in the 80s looked great. It even used to have a restaurant. Before the trees grew, you were introduced to a wonderful open view of the towers.

It didn’t look great before the primary colours repaint, it looked terrible. In fact at the time the bright colours did give the entrance a new lease of life.

That said it was a sticking plaster solution and I would love them to bring back some of the detail of the 80’s street.

 

[TroySmith1]

I always thought adding facades similar to universal studios “diagon alley” but with AT own take on it would look much more world class. Even if it’s a castle style type professional facades? Either that or theme each building to there famous coasters. Hopefully at some point, once they addressed all the other areas it does need redesigning, offices relocating and stop all the temporary food trucks! When there so many empty beautifully space’s literally designed for catering, shops and treats. I agree Towers Street and the monorail needs bringing back to life but I have no idea when that actually might be?

Also I would love to see the frogs made from professional brass and more of a iconic feature. You can dream ay?

First impressions count so good job they have the castles to distract the public.


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[deanW]

I wouldn’t even be mad if they just did a decent rip-off of Main Street from the Disney Parks

 

[QTXAdsy]

While I would say Towers Street and the entrance are all due for a major revamp, I just can't see Merlin forking out the cash on just rebuilding the entrance unless it was to play a much bigger role for every pound they spend they'll want 3 pound back and I just can't see what they'd get out of rebuilding that area of the park unless some new indoor attraction or RCR was to be part of it. Any idea what could be a good reason to rebuild it other than just sheer looks?

Only thing they ever did was add the Corkscrew elements and even then that was just because the Corkscrews were lying in the car park and didn't cost anything to do.

 

[siralgenon]

It really does make me wonder how they always manage to refurb things and make them look worse than they did in the first place. I mean why you'd take out those flower beds and replace them with grass and rocks I don't know.

 

[TroySmith1]

Yes good point most of the Merlin theme parks, and actually most theme parks in the uk we don’t have impressive entrances with majority quite old fashioned but I wouldn’t say iconic.

True usually Merlin only refurbish when they have to or can market it. I’m trying to think of examples of extensive funding for general upgrades or facades (non marketable).


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[rob666]

It really does make me wonder how they always manage to refurb things and make them look worse than they did in the first place. I mean why you'd take out those flower beds and replace them with grass and rocks I don't know.

Bloody obvious mate...about ten times more expensive to keep flower beds in order.
How do you think I make money...convert the odd bit of lawn over to a fancy border...extra few hundred quid a year!

 

[djtruefitt]

Visited again last week, and it’s just hit me that the security checks are going nowhere fast ! The tents have some new graphics attached

Surely it wouldn’t cost too much to have some kind of semi permanent wood structure installed for bag check? A sort of wooded trellis or something equally simple would improve the look of the entrance plaza no end !

Anyone know if this is something the park has even considered ?

Thing that annoys me about the tents is they are never all open. You’ll usually get 3 (4 at a push open) and then a couple always shut. If they really do insist on keeping them, They’ll be better off removing a few of the tents if they never intend on opening them, and spreading the tends they do open out.

 

[Jb85]

Just make Towers Street look like Bicester village. Simple.

 

[ScottishChris]

If they were going to do work on the entrance, the 'correct' thing to to (from an operational point of view) would be to move it to where the Galactica pathway is. It would remove the requirement for the monorail as everything would become walkable. The cost saying in operations/ maintenance would be substantial. With the monorail gone, there would be a good amount of space to build a suitable entry point. Freeing up Towers Street would also open up an area for development.
The problem with this, though, is you lose the 'wow' factor of the Towers view on entry.

 

[Dave]

If they were going to do work on the entrance, the 'correct' thing to to (from an operational point of view) would be to move it to where the Galactica pathway is. It would remove the requirement for the monorail as everything would become walkable. The cost saying in operations/ maintenance would be substantial. With the monorail gone, there would be a good amount of space to build a suitable entry point. Freeing up Towers Street would also open up an area for development.
The problem with this, though, is you lose the 'wow' factor of the Towers view on entry.

That would be a terrible idea and not just because you lose the wow factor of Towers Street. If you put the entrance near Galactica (or as was at one point proposed where the monorail depot is now). You are funnelling all the guests into one narrow strip of the park which is going to cause crowd chaos. It can’t dissipate as Towers is effectively a U shaped park and you would be entering at the top left of that U.

At the moment all things being equal guests enter at the bottom of the U and therefore can move in either direction easily spreading guests.

Plus they wouldn’t be able to build much in the way of ride hardware on the Towers Street space as it’s close to Farley.

 

[James]

It would be costly to create the required infrastructure to have that side of the park as a new entrance. It would be cheaper to spend a few million refurbishing Towers Street.