Alton Towers - too many punters?

we're shit at stuff like that, 2 hours to get on one ride man, mental. The car parks are always shit, the food is always minging and really expensive. You'd think the odd one would nip over to Florida and see how it's done

I never wanted to go to Florida based on my experiences in this country but ended up loving it, they absolutely rinse you but they're smiling all day as they're doing it
 
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LewisLad said:
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.
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As a counter to this I went to Thorpe park first week of school holidays and was surprised how quiet it was. Never queued for more than an hour, some rides less than 15 minutes.
 
Mrs took the kids to legoland windsor the other week and they had no problems.

We went to flamingo land about 2 month ago though and it was stupid. Only half things open but park was full so the queues were stupid. Only got on about 2 rides. Only about 4 open with another 4 closed. The zoo was pretty shocking aswell. Wouldnt be surprised if that place went under soon as its looking very dated
 
Dave Herbal said:
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.
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Went last year, the queues were awful then and we vowed never to go back. Sounds much worse this year so looks like our decision was spot on.
 
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.
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Aye i complained about this. They advertise is as the park to yourself for an hour...but no rides are on so basically you have to pick a ride and wait for an hour at it to make sure your're at the front as at 10am everyone comes piling in. Would it be that hard to get the rides going an hour earlier?
 
Epping said:
Last time I went to Thorpe park the thing that got me was the throughput was so slow .

The loading unloading if riders could have been done a lot quicker
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From what I witnessed, some were organised well (like the smiler), some were like clown school (oblivion). Presume they’re mainly student summer jobs so don’t really give one, but it would only take one person to organise them a bit better…
 
Slightly off topic but I see they aren’t reopening the Ultimate at Lightwater Valley. They say they want it as a child’s park so rides like that and what used to be the rat have just closed.
Had some great times as a kid but from what I hear it’s utter shite now.
 
errant said:
From what I witnessed, some were organised well (like the smiler), some were like clown school (oblivion). Presume they’re mainly student summer jobs so don’t really give one, but it would only take one person to organise them a bit better…
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I appreciate safety is paramount but they go up and down the csrs really slow checking the lap bars etc... what shoudl take 20 seconds in some instances was taking two minutes

when the previous car train has past a certain poit the next one should be on its way.. if nothing else sat at the top of the lift hill
 
SAFCMark said:
Is it actually still busy once the schools go back during the week?

Assumed it would be fairly quiet
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I think that the last time I visited for a day on the rides was around 2009 and it was a Tuesday. The main thing I remembered was that a group of adults from Sunderland were sat in the pub near the entrance when we arrived, and were still there when we left.

There are sometimes school trips but I would expect those in June/July.

More recently we’ve been to the water park, if I travelled a distance I’d stay in the hotel.
 
errant said:
My assumption is that most uk attractions during the kids holidays with limited foreign travel will be busy…
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It was getting like that when I went before the pandemic. My kids had a school trip there before the holidays & my daughter only got on 4-5 rides all day. They just want as many bodies in there as possible and its simply not worth the travel, parking & entrance fee if you only get on a few rides all day & spend most of your day in a queue.

Unless you buy a fast pass the only way to get on anywhere near a decent number of rides is to stay over & get on a few in the last couple of hours after the day trippers have gone home. As others have said though if you stay over getting an earlier hour entrance to the park the next day is a con as the rides dont open until an hour later - unless you're at the very front of that queue you'll be waiting at least an hour for your first ride or even worse you could spend that 1st hour in a queue only to find the ride isn't operating after the 1st couple of test runs, then have to walk somewhere else & queue ages for another ride.

Personally I'd prefer it if they did away with the fast tickets, 2 for ones & just set one price for everybody & capped the numbers so everyone has the same experience, but I can't see it happening so I'll not be going back.
 

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