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Queue Times Discussion 2024

NuttySquirrel said:
I'm pretty sure the parents pay for the tickets - but the schools are able to block book them at a discounted rate.

I might be wrong though - maybe my school was just cheap!
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When I was year 7 the last week of term was ‘activities week’, which involved trips such as Alton Towers, Waterworld, paintballing, bowling etc.

5 years later and it had been downgraded to ‘activities day’, which was basically football on the Astro, or playing computer games in the IT suite 😂
 
I know my secondary school certainly made parents pay for reward trips.

If I’m remembering correctly, I think Oakwood cost my parents £24 back in 2016, and Thorpe Park cost them £30 in 2018. Although bear in mind that that would have included the cost of a coach as well.

In my early years at secondary school, we also had paid-for “flexible learning days” at the end of term… these were ostensibly tied into a subject area, but more often than not, they just entailed going on some kind of fun trip. When I was in Year 8, back in 2016, the Maths department took us to Bristol Zoo on our “flexible learning day”… we were let loose around the zoo on our own, and while they gave us a small workbook of zoo-themed maths questions to offer some vague relation to Maths, few paid any attention to them, so it was basically a second reward trip! In hindsight, I’m thinking that might be the reason why they were tapered back considerably towards the end of my time in secondary school…
 
Matt N said:
In hindsight, I’m thinking that might be the reason why they were tapered back considerably towards the end of my time in secondary school…
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Health and safety considerations, safeguarding concerns, risk assessments and litigious parents nationwide are generally why school trips have been cut back, along with increased costs for schools and insurance issues.
 
I did a two hundred page risk assessment for a camping trip for a bunch of young naughty buggers (complex social services terminology) back in the late nineties...Oh bring back the old campsite at Drayton!!!
Bet it would four hundred pages by now.
The staff copied and pasted from it for over a decade!

Fasttracks are often provided by the park as a discount bonus...or even one free one shot per twenty students.
The next few days will be hell, heat, good weather and all those schools...
The perfect time to be sat in the shade with queuetimes and a beer.
 
Used to let us lot run wild in Drayton Manor (year 9, 1997) and Alton Towers (year 10, 1998). Not sure "rewards trips" were a thing back then. I was a horrible sod and I was allowed to go to both. But my son is currently in Year 10, and apparently they did keep some of the more mischievous kids back when they went to Thorpe Park a few weeks ago. I'm sure the teachers just want to get paid for a theme park beano deep down. He said they were the first to leave them in the dust and leg it to the queue entrances as soon as they were in the park.
 
My first ever visit to ATwas a school trip

We managed to ride black hole and rapids before we was supposed to go back for our coach

On the way to it we noticed the entire park was emptying....turned around and kept on going on rides until it closed

Don't think i've ever seen teachers+schoolmates as angry as when we got to our coach...was suspended from school and put on report for a month as punishment

Was worth it though 🤣
 
One of the best things I was taught by one of my teachers was when to go to AT. Our school trip was in April. All day thunder looper walk ons.
I was really surprised how quiet the park was early June this year, maybe i got in just before the exams finished. That seems to have flipped now and the school trip season seems busier than ever.
 
No. It was actually a very good day. Operations were good and rides were available nearly all day with minimal downtime.

Queues were very quiet for a Saturday in July. All morning Nemesis was about 15 minutes. Oblivion stayed around 10. Wickerman was mostly half hour throughout the day. Biggest queues were Rita and Smiler at 50 mins.

Park looked good, liked some of the new additions like the coffee and pimms bar and seating area on the lawn and the additional extra seating to the side of woodcutters.

We took a packed lunch and there were plenty of picnic tables out on the lawns to use. Weather stayed dry until 5pm at which point we left and it chucked it down not long after.

Was a very good day.
 
Well I ended up deciding to go on Wednesday and as expected it was shite.
got on a whopping two whole rides, the entire park was absolutely rammed lowest queue I saw all day was Oblivion at 60 mins
Must have waited about 2 hours for the smiler was absolutely awful.
 
yoursilentface said:
My first ever visit to ATwas a school trip

We managed to ride black hole and rapids before we was supposed to go back for our coach

On the way to it we noticed the entire park was emptying....turned around and kept on going on rides until it closed

Don't think i've ever seen teachers+schoolmates as angry as when we got to our coach...was suspended from school and put on report for a month as punishment

Was worth it though 🤣
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My first ever trip was with school too!
Think it was around may time ish don't really remember the rides I got on as it was years ago lol remember doing Air and Oblivion.
Whole place was pretty quiet as it was a bit before summer holidays and most school trips going (usually june/july time)
 
Numaticjoe said:
My first ever trip was with school too!
Think it was around may time ish don't really remember the rides I got on as it was years ago lol remember doing Air and Oblivion.
Whole place was pretty quiet as it was a bit before summer holidays and most school trips going (usually june/july time)
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I have never been to AT with school, but a school trip to drayton is probably the reason I am a coaster enthusiast.
It was in late primary school (think it was year 5/6), and from what I recall I wasn't tall enough for a all of the rides (I think I couldn't do shockwave and the standing part for apocolipse but I recall going on g-force a few times) but the first couple hours was spent in a confernce room thing where they challenged us to design a theme park and draw a map of it, (As you may expect the designs were mad, I think I had a rollercoaster with jet engines on it to go faster than the speed of sound) and for a long story short it got me into theme park design, which got me into RCT3, which eventually got me into being a coaster enthusiast.
 
On park today, in a 50 minute queue for runaway mine train as my daughter wants to go on the Congo river rapids which is on a delayed opening. Big queues everywhere, first week of the summer holidays yet the park is closing early at 5pm today. Madness.
 
NuttySquirrel said:
I'm pretty sure the parents pay for the tickets - but the schools are able to block book them at a discounted rate.

I might be wrong though - maybe my school was just cheap!
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The discounted schools pricing isn't that heavily discounted in July now at £26, although still probably £10 less than the price without schools discount. So £30 with the coach sounds about right.
For weekdays outside of July though it can be as low as £13.
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School Trip Prices & Planning | Alton Towers Resort

Our experts can help with planning a school trip, from costs to itineraries. See our detailed school prices for a range of trips at Alton Towers Resort.
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