Alton Towers Waterpark General Discussion

[Sazzle]

Taking this topic for a bit of a ride, as it hasn't been looked at for a year

Anyone know of the food/drink offering changes to the waterpark recently? I believe Original Sandwich Co has gone, but I haven't had chance to check anything out for myself.

Any and all information appreciated

 

[Synky]

I think there was some talk of it in the General Hotel Discussion thread.

 

[.Adam]

Basically a new restaurant opened a few weeks back called The Adventurers Cave that serves burgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets etc.. on the former site of a staff only area (entrance to the right of the changing room cave) and the old Original Sandwich company is now The Ice Cream Shack. This serves cold food, ice creams, sundaes, donuts and drinks.

 

[djtruefitt]

Has the old ice cream hatch thing closed now?

 

[.Adam]

Yes that has closed now.

 

[djtruefitt]

Is that the new staff room

 

[venny]

Visited for the first time in many years earlier this week. We used to be regular visitors, but as we’ve stopped going to the hotels after their fall from grace, so too have our waterpark visits declined. It cost us £22 per adult to get in. I thought it would be worth making a few observations: -

- Despite it being so long since we’ve visited I could only see one positive change, which is the addition of calming music being played in the outdoor jacuzzi.

- The old food outlet was closed, with the Adventurers Cave outlet being new to us. It’s depressing to see you funnelled into a dull cafe with an even worse menu. The food was horrendous and there is no beer available.

- The playlist is annoyingly repetitive.

- The repaints are truly terrible. The rockwork is perhaps the worse offender, which has been painted a solid brown in most places. It now looks like a giant turd floating atop the water. The remainder of the treehouse structure remains in its downgraded solid colours, without any of the textures it had previously. The outdoor pools have also been covered in an off-white paint which is showing through. It looks dirty.

- I know the wheels in the treehouse have always been temperamental, but they now seem worse than ever. More than half now seen to do nothing.

- Woodwork around the place is rotting. The paintwork forming the walls that face onto the hotel are dirty, faded and have random elements of half removed equipment.

- There are bare patches in the planting. It looks like there’s been nothing added for years and the original plants have just been left to grow, rather than any sort of renewal for the now dead lower growth.

- There is actually rust showing through on some of the steelwork, for example one of the buckets in the kids area is leaking from the bottom as it’s started to rust through.

- The place was pretty quiet but our group commented that they wouldn’t have enjoyed it any busier.

All in all, it was a pretty poor experience and a real shame to see the place looking much shabbier than it used to be, with terrible food and lots of stuff broken. It needs a total renewal to align with prices being charged.

 

[George W]

When I took my 8 year old brother in August when we did an overnight stay he absolutely loved the place I think it was the highlight of his summer, I will say a lot of the above I did notice but if you're taking young ones I think a visit to the waterpark is still a way to make an Alton towers visit really memorable for them.

And although it was August and very busy after 5pm the crowd had died down and fortunately it was open until 9pm so we stayed until 7:30pm but I think he could have happily stayed longer.

The slides and wacky works are still good although the only other waterpark I've been to is the one at Butlins Minehead so I don't have much to compare it to but yea although I don't see them adding much it would be nice if Merlin looked after the place a bit but upkeep isn't something Merlin is really ever competent at (besides essential maintenance obviously).

 

[GaryH]

It is really amazing how different your visit to Alton is with a child. We notice all the bad stuff, they just see it as amazing and wonderful. It’s quite refreshing actually to go with the family and put all the niggles to the side. We can always focus on them again when we leave the family at home!