Here's a very simple thing that I believe would really help improve the visitor experience. Please Alton Towers, I would love you to remove the miserable Pathway of Peril that runs between Spinball and the Towers.
A murky ex-service road, with road markings still visible, lined with dirty fences as if to hide the overflowing bins you are probably walking past. It was meant for vans, not guests! The Awful Avenue is by far the worst part in the entire park.
Being one of the first paths that you walk down from Towers Street, I feel all it does is suck some of the enthusiasm guests have upon entering and gives adults a depressing impression about what they've just paid for. You think you've made it out the other side, but no! For you must side step the backend of a toilet block, dodge the football weilding hosts that await by Goalstriker, before you finally get the amazing view of the Towers and the attractions ahead.
The recent addition of audio in this area at least shows that Alton Towers recognises the Stricken Street needs improving. But instead of covering it up with an Edward Scissorhands-soundalike track playing on tinny nasty speakers, why not fix the problem completely? By just reopening the original lakeside route, and removing the incredibly ugly Goalstriker building?
An aerial view easily shows the old path, also where the scare zone was in recent years.
Also here's where it clearly once began to the left, with gates hiding the access road to the right.
Here's the lakeside plaza out the other end, with the beautiful Goalstriker building now plonked in front.
I faintly remember having a picnic there when I was a kid on my first visit to the park, looking up at the Towers sitting under a tree by the lake. It's a lovely little corner of the park that is just gone now. In the past, it was home to a swimming pool (probably still there, filled in under the Goal striker thing).
The only cost of reopening the old path seems to be moving Goalstriker, just stick it in a tent somewhere out the way, or get rid (they managed to get rid of the one at Chessington few years back). I'd say this is a very fair cost to saving guests from taking the Road to Ruin.
Let's make it happen Alton Towers!