I’ve never visited Alton Towers specifically alone, but I have spent 2 solo days at Thorpe Park and a solo day at Drayton Manor, and I have to say that while it is a very different type of visit to going in a group, and your first solo visit may feel like a bit of a leap to take, I really enjoy a solo visit in many ways!
I always feel slightly ashamed to admit it, as I mostly go to theme parks with other people, but there are definite pros to going alone, in my view, including:
- Where applicable, you can use single rider queues without the contentious issue of splitting your group up. These often reduce your queueing time and mean that you can get more rides in.
- You are your own boss. You are the sole dictator of what you go on, where you eat, when you go to the toilet, when you enter, when you leave etc; everything can happen on your own terms without needing to compromise and cater to the wants and needs of anyone else.
- Solo trips can often be more efficient in terms of ride count and traversing the park, from my experience. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of group visits, but you’d be very surprised by just how much faffing you cut out by going solo. Particularly if you visit parks in a large group, visiting with others adds more faff, more waiting around and you often traverse the park more slowly and get on less.
The lack of company is a clear downside to going on your own, and on some ride types (I’m thinking of the more “social” ride types like rapids rides), it can sometimes feel a bit weird riding without others, but in the queues in particular, I thought that it felt far less weird than I expected. I found that having a phone or something to occupy me in line made the time whiz by, and even waiting on my own without this wasn’t nearly as strange as I expected. Admittedly, I’m more of an introvert and much happier in my own company, so being on my own probably bothers me less than it does some, but I find that queueing and traversing the park on my own doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
Overall, I would recommend trying a solo park visit. It’s undeniably a very different type of visit, but it can open many doors for you!