Alton Towers - too many punters?

Dave Herbal

Dave Herbal

Striker
Just got back from our annual trip to AT.
If you’re planning on going during these holidays, don’t.
I’ve never seen it so busy. I know every punter through the door is more money for the owners, but surely it must reach a point where people are no longer getting the product they are paying for?
For starters all the approach roads were gridlocked, we queued for half an hour just to get in the caravan park.
The queues were insane, over 2 hours for some rides. I heard one bloke kicking off saying he’d been there 9 hours and only got on 5 rides.
Even the queues for the kiddy rides and food stalls were long.
The fast track tickets were sold out (even for those willing to fork out £100 per head) so some people had no option but to queue.
Luckily we have a Ride Access Pass, which normally gets you straight onto any ride, but even with that we were still having to queue for up to 30 mins.
I can only assume the staycation summer has led to a massive spike in numbers, but you’d think the operators would have some sort of moral obligation to let people actually enjoy the rides they are paying for? Obviously their half million a day turnover must be increased by any means possible.
 


All I've seen is bad reviews like yours, for months now. Are all the rides open now, a common complaint a few weeks ago was that only half the rides were open, resulting in even longer queues.
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col said:
All I've seen is bad reviews like yours, for months now. Are all the rides open now, a common complaint a few weeks ago was that only half the rides were open, resulting in even longer queues.
Have a look at recent trustpilot reviews
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Alton Towers Resort is rated "Poor" with 1.9 / 5 on Trustpilot

Do you agree with Alton Towers Resort's TrustScore? Voice your opinion today and hear what 609 customers have already said.
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Still a couple off. Thirteen was off yesterday but back on today.
And I know most are casual workers, but Jesus are some of them bad at their jobs.
The ride access pass is for people who can’t queue for hours (disabled etc) and the idea is that when you go on a ride, they give you time equivalent to queuing so you can go away and come back at your allotted time. In reality, most of the staff didn’t bother writing a time down (some didn’t even ask to see the pass) so you could just go from one ride to another as you pleased. Not that I’m complaining about that mind, as it was great for us.
We also ordered 4 beef burgers at one point, only to be served with 2 chicken burger meals, and when I checked the receipt I’d only been charged for 2 beef burgers anyway, despite her repeating the correct order back to me. We also witnessed one bloke taking a full minute to slit a bun and pop a sausage in it. 😂
 
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You have to book ahead for the queue busters, even more so during the six weeks
We were there a fortnight ago, had QBs and had no issues apart from a fuckin monsoon midway through the day
 
Would add Thorpe park to this list as well. This was pre pandemic also, the bairns got on 3 rides all day.
 
Last trip to Thorpe Park has put me off any UK theme park ever again. The wait times are a joke and I'm really not sure the rides are worth it. Maybe I'm just getting old and have less patience but I value my time off work / weekends too much to spend the time standing around in the cold.

Different ball game somewhere like Disney in Paris or anywhere in Florida as it's not so much of a chore.
 
I went about two weeks ago and didn’t find it bad at all, in fact I commented the opposite.

Granted I wasn’t going on any big rides as I was with the little ones but there was plenty of space to move around and stuff. They got on rides no bother etc. My biggest gripe was the food, it was inedible and expensive.

I went to Chester Zoo weekend gone and that was horrendous, same as you described above about volume of people.
 
I went for two days last week including a stay at the park thinking that hotel guests get an hour to themselves before it opens at 10 to the public.

We did get on the park at 9 but they didn't start the rides until 10 so all we got was a decent queue spot for one ride.

I walked for ages to join the queue on the smiler and still ended up waiting 2 hours to get on. The next day the queue was right up to the ride entrance so people would easy be waiting 4 to 5 hours in that. Madness.

Definitely the worst I've seen it for the sheer number of people inside.
 
RokerLegend said:
I went for two days last week including a stay at the park thinking that hotel guests get an hour to themselves before it opens at 10 to the public.

We did get on the park at 9 but they didn't start the rides until 10 so all we got was a decent queue spot for one ride.

I walked for ages to join the queue on the smiler and still ended up waiting 2 hours to get on. The next day the queue was right up to the ride entrance so people would easy be waiting 4 to 5 hours in that. Madness.

Definitely the worst I've seen it for the sheer number of people inside.
Click to expand...
Aye, I expected an hour of rides from 09:00am. 😂
 

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