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Random Memories

Did anyone see Webmaster? I saw it advertised a lot at the time but never knew what it was about exactly.
 
Here are some maps starting with the absolute peak of Alton Towers glory days in my opinion, 2005. This was the year Rita opened along side the Corkscrew with TRRR playing classic rock music and a wonderful, magical atmosphere. We had McDonald’s, the Squirrel Nutty, Ripsaw, The Flume, Air & Toyland Tours! This was also the year Fastrack was still free!

Next is the map for 2006 with CatCF and finally 2009 with Sharkbait Reef and Cloud Cuckoo Land.


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Another missing part of the park that I think people would be really surprised by today and hail it as "a great new step up for UK parks" if these same eateries from 20-30 years ago opened today.

The blandness and uniformity of current food places is quite deliberate and based on 'Merlin brand' rather than the theme park. The food has always been junky but at least the eateries were really creative, especially inside the Cred Street diner. It's a theme park remember!
 
Found this book in the loft recently, thought it was long gone. It is dated 1988 and features 3 short stories on Henry Hound and his adventures. It introduces characters such as Henrietta, the Count and a skellington named Algenon (inspiration for the later introduced Sir Algenon maybe?) and features the Skyride and Log Flume. Anyway thought it was worth a share.

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I don't remember much about my early trips to Alton Towers, except for ...
A caterpillar ride that went through a hollowed out apple
Sack slides ( where you sat in a sack and went down a wavy slide)
a what seemed to be at the time large adventure playground
A Children's TV set with some sort of snakes and ladders but upright (??)
Not being tall enough ( by quite a big margin) to ride the corkscrew
and a log flume with large plastic dinosaurs below ( although his could be Gulliver's kingdom at matlock - not sure)

Later on I can remember a few School trips when i was finaly tall enough for corkscrew, amongst other things, queuing up for Thunderlooper peeking over a fence where they were digging out a large hole with some psuedo fake military keep out classified/restricted danger signs
And thats pretty much it for my early /teenage memories of the place
 
The Log Flume did used to have dinosaurs from 1984 to 1996, so it probably was Alton Towers. Have a look at the TS Gallery :)
 
I missed the dinosaurs, they really made the log flume. They also had dinosaurs roaring noise played through speakers in the back ground which added to the atmosphere. The flume wasn't the same when they got removed.
 
AT86 said:
Does anybody else miss the more unique and themed eateries from the good old days? Much better than the bland pretty much unthemed (or a few vinyls on the wall) F&B outlets that exist today.

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Ah yes the good old days!
 
Stuntman707 said:
Here are some maps starting with the absolute peak of Alton Towers glory days in my opinion, 2005. This was the year Rita opened along side the Corkscrew with TRRR playing classic rock music and a wonderful, magical atmosphere. We had McDonald’s, the Squirrel Nutty, Ripsaw, The Flume, Air & Toyland Tours! This was also the year Fastrack was still free!
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Resurrecting this from the dead - as far as I know there was no free Fastrack in 2005. In the beginning of 2004 it was in operation on Nemesis (since 2001), Air (since opening in 2002), Black Hole (new that year) and The Flume (also new that year). I believe the service was last available during the Spring or Summer of 2004 - around the time the new '4-play' Family and Thrill passes were launched (not branded Fastrack at that point).

It might have briefly been made available around the Fireworks that year.

Certainly by 2005, despite being advertised as you see, the service was actually never open. Perhaps the intention was there but the growth in revenue from those paid passes prevented it from happening. By 2006 all mention of free Fastrack was gone and the paid passes were renamed 'Fastrack'.
 
I remember the Black hole queue having tv screens playing MTV. Can’t remember the exact year but must’ve been around 2001.

Also not sure if they are there anymore but around the same year there were electric chair seats in Merry England? that had electric buzzers you held onto. I vaguely remember hating it

I think they just vibrated really quickly and didn’t actually electrocute you lol
 
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Matt878787 said:
I remember the Black hole queue having tv screens playing MTV. Can’t remember the exact year but must’ve been around 2001.

Also not sure if they are there anymore but around the same year there were electric chair seats in Merry England? that had electric buzzers you held onto. I vaguely remember hating it

I think they just vibrated really quickly and didn’t actually electrocute you lol
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Yeah they had one of these in Transylvania at Chessington too. Used to draw pretty big crowds of spectators.

Probably considered a health and safety risk now!
 
Matt878787 said:
I remember the Black hole queue having tv screens playing MTV. Can’t remember the exact year but must’ve been around 2001.
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This was the infamous German MTV channel which used to play uncensored versions of Eminem et al. They soon turned the TVs off when management got wind of it.
 
Bet the school teachers loved that haha.

I remember Madonna American Pie being played. Strange how you remember the little things!
 
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