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The Alton Towers Dungeon

Tom said:
When do we expect the Dungeon to quietly disappear?
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At the end of this/next season I'd assume. I'd like to hope 2022 might see a new dark ride take that space to support TWODW. I know it's gonna have a dark ride already but this would be on a much bigger scale.
The reality however, is that when the Dungeon does closed, it will probably be sat SBNO for far too long.
 
It will be interesting to see how it’s gone during Covid, as groups are limited to about 12 people and I imagine most groups are much smaller. Especially when queues are long in the park I’m not sure that many will want to lose 45 mins of their day for the dungeons when they might not do all rides.
 
Hmm perhaps it will be closed after all? Although even Towers social media team don’t seem particularly sure.



Does the budget for running the Dungeons come from midway? Perhaps they wouldn’t stump up the extra cash to run the Dungeons on the previously planned closed dates.
 
AT86 said:
Hmm perhaps it will be closed after all? Although even Towers social media team don’t seem particularly sure.



Does the budget for running the Dungeons come from midway? Perhaps they wouldn’t stump up the extra cash to run the Dungeons on the previously planned closed dates.
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The "I think" is worrying, surely either the customer service team should know or at least be able to quickly contact someone who knows.
 
AT86 said:
Hmm perhaps it will be closed after all? Although even Towers social media team don’t seem particularly sure.



Does the budget for running the Dungeons come from midway? Perhaps they wouldn’t stump up the extra cash to run the Dungeons on the previously planned closed dates.
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I would imagine it would just come from Towers budgets.

I’ve had a quick look and you can now book all of Sept, however current it’s closed every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for the first two weeks in October.
 
AT86 said:
Hmm perhaps it will be closed after all? Although even Towers social media team don’t seem particularly sure.



Does the budget for running the Dungeons come from midway? Perhaps they wouldn’t stump up the extra cash to run the Dungeons on the previously planned closed dates.
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That's an awful response from Towers, it's their job to find out the answer before responding, not reply with 'i don't know'. It's like when I went to Splash Landings Reception last week to ask if Flambos was opening the following night and he said he didn't know...well find out then!
 
siralgenon said:
That's an awful response from Towers, it's their job to find out the answer before responding, not reply with 'i don't know'. It's like when I went to Splash Landings Reception last week to ask if Flambos was opening the following night and he said he didn't know...well find out then!
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I don't think the two situations are comparable really.

Social media is just that it is a platform to be social on, they should be able to answer queries but I wouldn't expect them to always have all the answers.

But the front desk of a hotel should 1000% know every single thing that is happening inside their hotel. I've been frustrated with a similar situation at ATH where we asked the front desk what time the bar shut and they said it is open late until all guests go to bed, then it closed at 11pm while people were still waiting to be served.
 
jon81uk said:
I don't think the two situations are comparable really.

Social media is just that it is a platform to be social on, they should be able to answer queries but I wouldn't expect them to always have all the answers.

But the front desk of a hotel should 1000% know every single thing that is happening inside their hotel. I've been frustrated with a similar situation at ATH where we asked the front desk what time the bar shut and they said it is open late until all guests go to bed, then it closed at 11pm while people were still waiting to be served.
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I think they are, their job is to answer peoples questions, therefore they should find out the answer and respond. Not reply straight away with a 'not sure'. The guest wasn't sure, that's why they messaged them in the first place. But yes I agree, a hotel reception should know even more than the media team.
 
I finally made my first visit to the Alton Towers Dungeon yesterday.

As someone who has already experienced five Dungeons (London old, London new, Warwick, Blackpool Tower and Edinburgh), I was fully expecting the same type of experience (albeit shorter than all but Warwick). Indeed, it effectively was.

The Judge is a cut down version of what you might see in other Dungeons, but was perfectly fun. The Black River, although totally disjointed and lacking any sort of real narrative, was a basic dark ride with some nice theming sprinkled here and there (Charlie was hardly a good dark ride), the Torturer is totally standard in every way, as is the Doctor and also the Publican. The Haunting of Molly Leigh at the end is much like Witches of Warwick - and is probably the highlight: quite frightening.

The Dungeon was better than I expected from a theming point of view (I had very low expectations) and is a perfectly enjoyable experience.

BUT...

Irrespective of this, it's a total wasted opportunity for that building and that ride system. Given what is already out there at other Dungeons, the Alton Towers effort largely lacks creativity because everything pretty much replicas others and generally is a weaker version. There is no old building or stairs to navigate here... just black walls inside a large show building. I would much rather see a family dark ride in this building rather than a shoehorned Dungeon.

To think this was the building of Around the World in Eighty Days and Toyland Tours, it's amazing how it has ended up with the dour Charlie and now the most basic Dungeon attraction in the world (citation needed).

I hope the future of this site is brighter - because the Alton Towers Dungeon really doesn't feel at home inside it, even if there's not really anything wrong with it.
 
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When it's time for the Dungeon to go, what do people think will happen with it? I can think of 3 options:
1. They keep the boat ride as "The Black River" and just operate it as a ride in that way,
2. Rethemed to fit in with TWoDW
3. Absolutely nothing - building will remain empty

I think any of these could be likely to happen, but what does everyone else think?
 
Danscott22 said:
When it's time for the Dungeon to go, what do people think will happen with it? I can think of 3 options:
1. They keep the boat ride as "The Black River" and just operate it as a ride in that way,
2. Rethemed to fit in with TWoDW
3. Absolutely nothing - building will remain empty

I think any of these could be likely to happen, but what does everyone else think?
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I think it could be used as a phase 2 of David Walliams if the opening is successful.
I don't know his books well so I don't know what they could theme it to.
 
I think Gangsta Granny was originally planned for that building, but they got told to push it back a year and use that building for the Dungeon instead.
 
Sorry to bump this thread, but I was just discussing the success of the Dungeons in the Walliams thread. Here’s what I said over there:
Matt N said:
Out of interest, is it known how successful the Dungeons has actually been? It always seems deserted whenever I walk by the area...

I was only wondering because if it hasn’t been particularly successful (it could be a raging success for all I know; Merlin know far more about what the park needs and what works than I do), maybe this means that the park might remove it and reuse the boat ride system for a 2nd Walliams dark ride?

I’ll say that the Dungeons certainly wasn’t what I personally had in mind for CATCF’s replacement; even though it looks well done for what it is, I’ll admit that those actor-led attractions aren’t really my kind of thing. I know that not especially liking actor-led attractions is an unpopular opinion, but I’ve never really been that into them, personally, even though I understand the appeal. I was personally hoping for a family dark ride, more in the vein of the rides it replaced, and I hope that this might be on the agenda in the future.
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So my basic question is; do we actually know how successful the Dungeons have been? And what do we see the short to medium future of the attraction holding? Do we think it’ll get removed in the not too distant future to provide space for a TWODW expansion, or do we think it’ll be more like Sharkbait Reef and be a longer-term resident of the park?
 
The 2019 Merlin accounts stated that The Alton Towers Dungeon contributed £1million of revenue to the midway group. This wouldn’t be all profit of course because they would need to deduct the running costs from this figure. There is also the cost of actually installing it in the first place.

I would imagine it hasn’t quite paid for itself just yet, but due to the low cost of installation I could be wrong - the fact it had reduced capacity etc last year, meaning reduced income may well have messed up their initial targets of return on investment.

All signs point to this being a temporary installation from the start. The reduced level of theming in the actual building for a start. Most of the theming is props which are fully removable and can be simply relocated to another Dungeons attraction as and when the time comes, meaning the cost of creating the fixtures and fittings won’t be wasted.
 
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