nikfonso
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Oblivion > Smiler > Nemisis > 13 > Sonic > Rita > Air
I thought i'd do a little post about my weekend away at Alton Towers for Scarefest with my daughter as some of you may/may not be interested in my views! Basically i'm no longer with my daughters mum and therefore i no longer live with her so I try to take my daughter on weekend adventures away as often as i can.
First off we had a totally brilliant time, i know AT (or shall i say Merlin) get a lot of stick on here but we both went home with some great stories, great photo's, great memories and of course we went home with huge smiles on our faces! I actually have post Alton Towers blues today, bad times!
We stayed at Splash which was fine on the whole but i do agree that certain area's could be revamped/be given a bit of TLC in my opinion. Same goes for the actual water park too, the changing rooms look a little 'meh' in my opinion and the whole place just looks as though it's just aged and needs a lick of paint here and there.
Of course it was busy in there but we went into the water park around 3/4pm when i think a lot of the guests had headed for dinner or the theme park by then so it wasn't too over crowded.
The Park was great fun and the extra themeing for Halloween was a nice touch. Maybe they could've done a better job but as AT is so bl00dy huge, to do the whole place up for a few weeks and pull it all down again would surely be a monumental task!? We did really like the fact that a lot of the public made an effort in dressing up which made the 'Halloween' experience that bit better but AT has that spooky feel to it anyway so i don't think much more was needed.
Unfortunately my daughter didn't fancy doing any of the scare mazes so no comment on them but in hindsight i would've saved a lot of money by going to AT out of season.
When booking the trip i purchased 2 x gold fast track passes which were a god send because some of the queues times were crazy! The Smiler at times had a 2 hour wait! We also got given a 1 hour fast track by the hotel which meant we got another go on the Nemisis, Oblivion and Sonic but the sky-ride had a minor 10 min fault plus the Nemisis also had a minor fault so unfortunately we didn't make it on Air.
So the negatives......
Firstly the price of photo's! £10 each is outrageous! Okay it's £8 with a MAP and yes you get a digital download but still! I bought the passport for £25 (4 x photos) and even then i thought it was still pretty steep plus i was even more peeved when i couldn't use my MAP.
Secondly the fastrack/annual pass collection queue down Towers Street! Christ that queue was a nightmare, i waited about 20 mins to collect my MAP but the queue was mainly full of people wanting fastracks and i moved about 10 feet. Luckily i tweeted Alton Towers to see if the hotel issues MAPs and thankfully they did! That saved me a lot of time. Personally i think they should have separate queues as it would make life a lot easier for the people collecting their maps.
The hotel 1 hour fastrack didn't include the Smiler?? Why the bloody hell not? I shelled out nearly £400 for this trip and they can't give us 1 privileged go on the Smiler. What made it worse was that the Smiler fastrack alone was £10!!!!!!! Incredible.
The Sonic crew - very rude, me and my daughter got to the Sonic fastrack queue just before 9pm and after 10 mins of waiting like lemons we were turned away saying we were too late. Then the next morning we got to the front of the fastrack queue for Sonic and we abruptly told to go and wait by the exit gate (which was wide open by the way). Then a family did the same thing as me and my daughter and one of the crew said under his breath 'for f**k sake' as he chased after them. Even my daughter heard him say this which i thought wasn't right.
Flambo's! When we stayed over at AT in 2011 and 2012 we really enjoyed flambo's but they completely cut back on the variety which is a big shame plus the price is quite expensive. The kids offering was also very basic although saying all this the food i ate was very good.
I'll continue the rest tomorrow....!!
First off we had a totally brilliant time, i know AT (or shall i say Merlin) get a lot of stick on here but we both went home with some great stories, great photo's, great memories and of course we went home with huge smiles on our faces! I actually have post Alton Towers blues today, bad times!
We stayed at Splash which was fine on the whole but i do agree that certain area's could be revamped/be given a bit of TLC in my opinion. Same goes for the actual water park too, the changing rooms look a little 'meh' in my opinion and the whole place just looks as though it's just aged and needs a lick of paint here and there.
Of course it was busy in there but we went into the water park around 3/4pm when i think a lot of the guests had headed for dinner or the theme park by then so it wasn't too over crowded.
The Park was great fun and the extra themeing for Halloween was a nice touch. Maybe they could've done a better job but as AT is so bl00dy huge, to do the whole place up for a few weeks and pull it all down again would surely be a monumental task!? We did really like the fact that a lot of the public made an effort in dressing up which made the 'Halloween' experience that bit better but AT has that spooky feel to it anyway so i don't think much more was needed.
Unfortunately my daughter didn't fancy doing any of the scare mazes so no comment on them but in hindsight i would've saved a lot of money by going to AT out of season.
When booking the trip i purchased 2 x gold fast track passes which were a god send because some of the queues times were crazy! The Smiler at times had a 2 hour wait! We also got given a 1 hour fast track by the hotel which meant we got another go on the Nemisis, Oblivion and Sonic but the sky-ride had a minor 10 min fault plus the Nemisis also had a minor fault so unfortunately we didn't make it on Air.
So the negatives......
Firstly the price of photo's! £10 each is outrageous! Okay it's £8 with a MAP and yes you get a digital download but still! I bought the passport for £25 (4 x photos) and even then i thought it was still pretty steep plus i was even more peeved when i couldn't use my MAP.
Secondly the fastrack/annual pass collection queue down Towers Street! Christ that queue was a nightmare, i waited about 20 mins to collect my MAP but the queue was mainly full of people wanting fastracks and i moved about 10 feet. Luckily i tweeted Alton Towers to see if the hotel issues MAPs and thankfully they did! That saved me a lot of time. Personally i think they should have separate queues as it would make life a lot easier for the people collecting their maps.
The hotel 1 hour fastrack didn't include the Smiler?? Why the bloody hell not? I shelled out nearly £400 for this trip and they can't give us 1 privileged go on the Smiler. What made it worse was that the Smiler fastrack alone was £10!!!!!!! Incredible.
The Sonic crew - very rude, me and my daughter got to the Sonic fastrack queue just before 9pm and after 10 mins of waiting like lemons we were turned away saying we were too late. Then the next morning we got to the front of the fastrack queue for Sonic and we abruptly told to go and wait by the exit gate (which was wide open by the way). Then a family did the same thing as me and my daughter and one of the crew said under his breath 'for f**k sake' as he chased after them. Even my daughter heard him say this which i thought wasn't right.
Flambo's! When we stayed over at AT in 2011 and 2012 we really enjoyed flambo's but they completely cut back on the variety which is a big shame plus the price is quite expensive. The kids offering was also very basic although saying all this the food i ate was very good.
I'll continue the rest tomorrow....!!
