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2025: Toxicator - General Discussion

When the wind is blowing whilst the fountains are in action, both sides of the floor get absolutely drenched. You can't walk out of either end of the tunnel without feeling like you're going under a waterfall. It's not so bad when there's no wind
 
I did Toxicator for the first time over the weekend. I shared a few thoughts in my trip report from the Saturday, but I’ll give a few slightly more in-depth thoughts here.

Let me start with the theming and presentation…
Presentation
On the presentation front, I think it overall looks really nice. To give a few more refined thoughts:
  • I was unsure on the platform prior to the ride’s opening, but I have to say that it does make the ride look really dominant and visually striking; that platform absolutely towers above the area!
  • Theming-wise, I think they’ve done an excellent job. There are some really nice little details around the area and queue, as well as in the underpass, and I also really like things like the audio and the toxic waste tanks (?) on either side of the ride. Yes, it might not quite match the grandeur of something like Talocan (from what I’ve seen of that one), but it’s better themed than 95% of flat rides out there, including any of the ones that used to populate Alton Towers in years gone by, so I’d consider the theming we have on Toxicator a big win!
  • As with anything designed by John Burton, there are quite a few Easter eggs, or “nods to the past”. Maybe not as many as on some of his other work, but I did notice a couple of “Can you cut it?” references, as well as a reference to 1997 somewhere.
  • I would say, though, that the platform is a double edged sword. I say this because while I think it makes the ride look really dominant, it does maybe sacrifice some practicality in that when the ride is in operation, it seems to leak water everywhere. I’m not sure if this is intentional or a design flaw arising from the ride’s placement on top of a platform, but there was a bit of the queue that I noticed people not standing in because the ride was raining water into it during operation, and the underpass is difficult to walk under for similar reasons.
But on the whole, I would give the park top marks for presentation on this one; the ride looks great thematically!

Let me talk about the ride now…
The Ride
Now prior to Saturday, I had never actually ridden a Huss Top Spin before. I never did Ripsaw when it operated, and I also never did Rameses Revenge either, so this was a new ride type for me! I’m not a great lover of flat rides in general, but I had heard people say that Ripsaw “wasn’t as bad as it looked”, so I wondered if I might like Toxicator.

Unfortunately, I’m sorry to say that the ride really wasn’t for me at all. I really hoped I might like it or not dislike it that much, but unfortunately, I would say it was right down there with Air Race at Drayton Manor and Samurai at Thorpe Park as one of the most vile flat rides I’ve ridden, and I would it was my least favourite thing I rode all weekend at Alton Towers. I’m aware this is quite strong criticism, so I feel I should back up my stance with reasons. My reasons for disliking the ride so strongly are two fold:
  • Firstly, it has a fair amount of slow and very sustained upside down hangtime. I can take brief or fast hangtime to a point (e.g. the inversion on Swarm’s dive drop, or Smiler’s indoor inversion), but the really slow and sustained kind of hangtime where it just leaves you hanging upside down for ages and ages is the kind that I absolutely hate. Toxicator seemed to have loads of it, unfortunately, and that turned me off it for sure.
  • Secondly, I found the flipping a bit too violent for my liking. I’m not someone who’s averse to going upside down by any means (I’m absolutely fine with it on coasters), but Toxicator seemed to flip over and over in a ridiculously violent fashion that I just did not find remotely enjoyable. It made me feel a bit queasy, if I’m honest, and I just found the flipping too violent and jerky for my liking.
I’m sorry if that’s controversial. I know many, many people love these Huss Top Spins, and rate Toxicator and also the likes of Talocan really highly, but that experience just was not for me at all. In a park like Alton Towers, where there are loads of great rides to pick from, it’s not a ride I see myself rushing back on any time soon.

Wetness-wise, I didn’t get as wet as I feared I might. I got a bit of spray on my legs, but nothing overly terrible; it dried quite quickly, even on an overcast morning like Saturday. I can imagine the spray might be nice on a hotter day!

I really want to be excited by Toxicator, and I do think the park should be applauded for building a new flat ride, but my experience on it over the weekend reminded me why I have little to no personal excitement for the idea of new flat rides at Alton Towers. I’m just not a massive fan of them in general, and the types I do really like (namely drop towers and S&S Screamin’ Swings, to name a couple… mainly things that offer notable airtime and don’t really spin!) are types of ride that Alton Towers can’t build due to height restrictions. I get that the park lacks flat rides, but I struggle to muster up an awful lot of personal enthusiasm for any hypothetical flats that Towers might build in the future, and Toxicator has definitely not changed that, I’m afraid.

One other thing I would say, which I admit is perhaps slightly picky, is that if the park builds any more flat rides in the coming years, I hope they go for something that the park hasn’t had before. As much as Toxicator is a brilliant visual piece and looks really cool, I get the overriding impression that many people see it as “Ripsaw in a different colour”. While Toxicator is a new ride, the fact that it’s effectively a revival of a ride from 1997 does only add to the impression that Alton Towers isn’t really progressing and hasn’t done much that’s meaningfully new in years. Curse and Nemesis Reborn were brilliantly executed projects, but they were refurbishments and/or revivals of old staples rather than meaningfully new things, and I feel that Toxicator kind of has this feel to the casual visitor as well. I don’t think Toxicator being a Top Spin was necessarily a bad thing per se, as the ride type does offer many really cool aspects, but I do hope that future flat ride additions to Alton Towers offer something the park has never had before rather than simply being similar “revivals” of Enterprise, Submission, Blade et al. My fear is that the casual visitor might lump Toxicator in with the likes of Curse and Nemesis Reborn as being a refurbishment or revival of the old rather than properly new blood, and I feel that Alton Towers is maybe at that point where it could do with some properly new blood ride-wise.

I hate to leave negative reviews, so I’ll try and be somewhat balanced and diplomatic with my summary. In summation, I would say that Toxicator is an excellent ride visually, and I will give them top marks for presentation. The ride really does look brilliant! I will also applaud them for trying to fill the flat ride gap in Alton Towers’ lineup. And if you like flat rides more than I do, I’m sure you’ll really enjoy the ride itself! But I’m afraid that the ride experience was not for me at all, and it’s probably a one and done within the sphere of Alton Towers for me; I don’t see myself rushing back on it any time soon. I’m sorry to leave a negative review, but I feel obliged to be 100% honest whenever I review things, and that is how I honestly felt.

Here are a couple of photos I took (I didn’t take many, as I didn’t spend very long in the queue):
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Could you imagine a the Toxicator tunnel becoming a Scare Zone for Halloween think that would be awesome covering it in fog with actors around
 
jon81uk said:
No the tunnel is needed to allow circulation and for people to get to Toxicator, Galactica and Rollercoaster restaurant. they generally only put scares where you don't need to cross that area to get to something else.
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Freak Show and Dark Apocalypse were pn main pathways also there is anoth3r way to get to Galactica
 
jon81uk said:
No the tunnel is needed to allow circulation and for people to get to Toxicator, Galactica and Rollercoaster restaurant. they generally only put scares where you don't need to cross that area to get to something else.
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You'd also have to factor in evacuation routes - the only other route out of FV towards the Galactica gate is round the far side of Costa next to Nemesis, which is narrower. So that would probably rule out taking over the tunnel as a scarezone - before even thinking about a chicken run.
 
I would imagine they could do a scare zone under the tunnel (I mean it was entirely closed off last year, and it was fine, they just need to remove the outdoor section of the costa) it also isn't used too often, as most people take the ramp and go past costa to avoid the water

however I don't think it is a good idea, as even on the non spray modes it still drenched underneath the tunnel, I can't imagine the props, actors, etc would really last that long being constantly rained on, in addition it probably wouldn't be too enjoyable to go through a scary part, the bam hit by a masive amount of water
 
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