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The Alton Towers Dungeon

Haven't been in to experience it and don't plan on doing it either. It will 100% be on their hit list for future redevelopment though I imagine.

They tried something new for the park with the Dungeons and it didn't work and it seems it won't last much longer. But the building is prime for redevelopment and I can definitely see a new dark ride being added there within the next 4-5 years.

Most likely a dark ride to be tied into whatever theme Project Horizon will be as well. They could easily make that work.
 
Shaggy_Dog_ said:
I would so love to see attendance figures for this! We need someone to volunteer to visit the park and sit outside the entrance to the Dungeons and count the number of guests going in throughout the entire day. I can’t imagine it would be too many.
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Why?
Seems a strange thing to do for a day at a theme park!
We all know it is quiet, why would you want to know a single days visitors?
 
This attraction is still limping along, with some more operational changes.

Previously time slots were every half hour (but every 15mins in past seasons) between 11.30am and 30 mins before ride close, meaning on 5pm close for example you would exit at 5.15pm and still have time to pop into the shops on Towers Street and catch the monorail back.

With the below changes it does make some sense so you aren’t eating into ride time, but exiting at 6.15pm on a 5pm close now means you have missed the last monorail and it’s a long walk back to the car.


From: https://twitter.com/towerstimes/status/1658206203543994368?s=46&t=zG_i8R9vX93ZZU0RljfzWA
 
It makes some sense, but I personally can't wait until this is changed into something else. I've only ever done it twice. It's fine, but that's about it.
 
I really wouldn't be surprised if it is mothballed once Project Horizon opens. It never seems busy around that area, and it cannot be making much money for the park at all.
 
The Dungeons IIRC was only ever a stop-gap due to budget cuts following the Smiler incident so it closing within the next few years or less is almost certain to happen as that building will certainly be used for a dark ride of some kind sometime after Project Horizon opens up as depending on what capacity that ride might have, the large throughput on the boat system in that building will be very useful, ofc, this is depending what kind of theme Project Horizons is which might help give a clue what we might get for a theme of dark ride in there.

Plus add in TWODW getting the boot sooner if they don't want to keep the IP rights for much longer and having it themed into with Project Horizon will make that area of the park transform dramatically, only if they did a good job that is.
 
I've had no desire to do it more than once. Generally not enough time in the day to justify going on a pretty mediocre attraction that is also an upcharge. It would be a lot better if the boat segment was repurposed and routed around the whole building, retheming the attraction into a family dark ride.

Wait, this sounds familiar...

To be more constructive, this attraction would've probably worked better if it was situated nearby the hotels and operated a little more out of park hours. That would've been too expensive though.
 
I think the only reason we actually got the Dungeons in the first place was due to the original plans for The World of David Walliams falling through.

I could be wrong here, but I seem to remember hearing that The World of David Walliams was originally planned for 2019, with the Gangsta Granny dark ride being a retheme of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ride system.

For whatever reason, that plan fell through and the Dungeons were opened instead to fill the gap. The World of David Walliams got revived for 2020 and the main dark ride of the area was instead the Garmendale ride system that got built in the Wobble World space.

Had things panned out as they were allegedly supposed to, I’m not sure we would ever have had the Dungeons in the first place.
 
I went to the dungeons on Thursday,

It was great...But;

A family had decided to bring their very young child...My best guess would be 7 years old. Before we even entered the child was terrified of the actor scanning the tickets, which should have been a sign for the parents to maybe not take him?

For the whole experience the kid was screaming, crying or talking VERY loudly. Honestly ruined the experience for me, which is a shame because the actors (especially the judge) were amazing.

If the kid wasnt there i reckon i wouldve loved it.
 
RollerCoaster21 said:
I went to the dungeons on Thursday,

It was great...But;

A family had decided to bring their very young child...My best guess would be 7 years old. Before we even entered the child was terrified of the actor scanning the tickets, which should have been a sign for the parents to maybe not take him?

For the whole experience the kid was screaming, crying or talking VERY loudly. Honestly ruined the experience for me, which is a shame because the actors (especially the judge) were amazing.

If the kid wasnt there i reckon i wouldve loved it.
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I ALSO did the dungeons on Thursday! I echo your comments totally about the judge actor, he was fantastic.

This was my second time in the dungeons and I really don’t get the negativity it attracts. I agree it would be better off not being an upcharge, but I genuinely think the experience is pretty damn good. I also remember the boat ride being a lot worse than that on my first runthrough (lots of pitch black scenes), so perhaps things were broken on my first go.
 
coasterverse said:
This was my second time in the dungeons and I really don’t get the negativity it attracts
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Its not negativity about the Dungeons experiance, just the suitibility to having it inside the Alton Towers theme park. A large number of scenes are similar to other Dungeons sites and its an upcharge in a building that used to house a family boat ride. There is very little need to do the Dungeons at AT if you've already done Warwick Castle, or Blackpool or London so many people don't go to the one at AT.
 
jon81uk said:
Its not negativity about the Dungeons experiance, just the suitibility to having it inside the Alton Towers theme park. A large number of scenes are similar to other Dungeons sites and its an upcharge in a building that used to house a family boat ride. There is very little need to do the Dungeons at AT if you've already done Warwick Castle, or Blackpool or London so many people don't go to the one at AT.
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That's pretty accurate to be honest, but having only done Alton Towers Dungeons and London Dungeons before - is that not a common occurrence between them all? Was in Blackpool on Friday and wanted to give that one a try to see how that compared also but had closed before we left Pleasure Beach.

I agree that it doesn't really work as an upcharge attraction - especially not for passholders. In my opinion, the reduced passholder fee would be better off as the general admission fee and passholders gain entry for free, but in an ideal world the upcharge would be scrapped entirely - because most members of the general public have already paid a fairly hefty price just to enter the park.
 
havaska said:
The only way for the Dungeons to really work and make sense is to have it outside the theme park itself. It should be with the hotel complexes.
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Feels like you don't have enough footfall for that to work ?

I.e. from 0930 - closing, folks are in the park, when they've finished for the day they're all (apparently) in their sheds ordering takeaway because there's nowhere to sit in the restaurants.

The waterpark works in that location because it's a destination in of itself, in the way that the Dungeon isn't. The one thing that they tried to do along these lines has sat idle for most of its life.
 
I really hope they go down the 1994 route and retheme the Dungeons to go alongside the opening of Project Horizon. Whether they share a themed area or not, a family boat ride alongside a coaster is doable (Nemesis / Toyland Tours) and would drive footfall to the new area, finally fixing that liminal feeling
 
Whatever happens, when The Dungeons finally goes, the whole building needs to be utilised for a future ride (or rides?). CATCF ended up having a lot of empty space due to the birthday rooms being scrapped, and The Dungeons doesn't use the entire building either. The Dungeons has always felt like a stopgap for something bigger inside that building.

It would be amazing if we saw a retheme alongside Horizon. However, I feel that is highly unlikely, and The Dungeons needs more than a retheme. It needs an extended boat ride or a new ride system that uses the whole warehouse space available. Or a third option, have multiple rides in there.

As for the location of The Dungeons, I think it's fine in the theme park. It would only really work on the resort side if there was a Disney Village-type area by the hotels. I'm personally not a fan of The Dungeons, it's a one-and-done experience for me, and the one at Towers has always felt temporary to me.
 
RollerCoaster21 said:
I went to the dungeons on Thursday,

It was great...But;

A family had decided to bring their very young child...My best guess would be 7 years old. Before we even entered the child was terrified of the actor scanning the tickets, which should have been a sign for the parents to maybe not take him?

For the whole experience the kid was screaming, crying or talking VERY loudly. Honestly ruined the experience for me, which is a shame because the actors (especially the judge) were amazing.

If the kid wasnt there i reckon i wouldve loved it.
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That's a shame that someone else prevented you from enjoying the attraction. I hope that you will have a run-through in the future without any disturbances. I think that 'the kid' should have been taken out of the attraction when it was clear that they weren't enjoying it.
 
I think the Dungeons would have had more appeal had it been located within the towers themselves, like how Warwick have incorperated theirs.

It's always felt a tad egregious to me that we now have to pay to ride an attraction within a building that once contained a free one, so having it be it's own thing rather than replacing something else would have been better imo.
 
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