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Long queues at Alton Towers, where's the fun?

So we decided to go to Alton Towers on a Saturday, and at a time when the schools had broken up for the holidays   We should have known better, but we were looking forward to it and I was quite optimistic that it wouldnt be too bad.

We had taken the kids to Legoland near Windsor a couple of weeks before and that was bad enough, queuing for up to an hour for some of the more popular rides and attractions.  However, our nightmare day out at Alton Towers made the whole Legoland fiasco seem quite insignificant.

We arrived at around 10.30 am, which wasnt early, but wasnt exactly late either.  The first thing to do was to queue up at the booths for tickets, this wasnt too bad and it all seemed to be flowing quite well.  Ticket prices were 29 for adults and 5 for the shortcut pass, but unfortunately all the short cut tickets had already sold out.

We didnt sit down to eat at any of the expensive junk food places; we had already decided this would just waste valuable time.  A small lightweight packed lunch turned out to be a very good idea as it meant we could eat whilst we waited in the queue to get on the rides.  Believe me, we had plenty of time to eat!

The first thrill of the day was to be Oblivion, a vertical drop roller coaster and one that I was particularly looking forward to, as I never had the opportunity to ride it on my last visit to the park.  Well, it was fun, it was VERY brief, and the wait time for that turned out to be around an hour and a half!  I didnt really grumble too much about that, probably because it was still quite early and I foolishly thought as lunchtime was approaching the queues might get better.

This was not to be the case, because we then had to stand for nearly two hours to get on Air.  I cant bring myself to say it was worth the wait though, because my legs really were aching by the time it was our turn to get strapped into the coaster.  After riding Air, I needed a sit down and some hot coffee, but I decided to have a hot drink on the move so that we could get to the next queue sorry, I mean the next roller coaster!

The final attraction of the day at Alton Towers was to be "Rita, Queen of speed".  Yes, this was to be the grand finale.  We didnt know it at the time, but the queue for this new thrill had grown to nearly two and a half hours; they had in fact had to extend the queue barriers to make room and the closed the gates not long after we joined the queue.  Still, at least this gave us plenty of time to eat the remainder of our picnic and read all the messages scrawled on the fence by all the previous thrill seekers.  These individuals had presumably been fed up as well!  It occurred to me at some point during out wait, that the queue I was in, was probably several times longer than the actual roller coaster track!

Anyway, we decided we had had enough and it was time to leave at around 6 pm, just before the fireworks started; no way was I about to queue up to leave the park.  For us, a day out at Alton Towers had consisted of a couple of minutes of sheer exhilaration on the 3 rides we managed to get on, and about 6 hours of shuffling whilst looking at the back of someones head!  Not exactly value for money is it?  By the way, I decided not to buy a car park token for 4 quid on the way out.  So there!

A roller coaster There are, in my opinion a number of reasons for the extended queuing times at Alton Towers and one of them is the number of people they try to pack through the gates each day.  Its a VERY big place with lots of open space, so it appears to be deceptively less busy than it actually is.

Another thing that may lead to the long wait times at Alton Towers is the shortcut-pass system they operate.  It's all very well to skim a few more quid of park visitors so that these people can join shorter queues, but if you think about it, it has got to increase the amount of time the rest of us spend queuing.  They are in fact operating a two-tier system, whereby if you can afford it, you can buy your way to the front of the queue.  What kind of message does this send out?  Thats really not very fair in my opinion!

The fast track system they operate, and I believe other theme parks use, is in some ways a much better.  You simply book your ride and then come back at the appropriate time.  The trouble is, at Alton Towers these tickets are all sold out by 10.30 and again its this two-tier system that slows the main queue down.

You are always going to get queues at theme parks, its a fact, and yes there are going to be some days that are busier than others.  However, I think the park planners should consider the worst-case scenario and get rid of these unfair money making schemes.  They provide extra income for the park, but at the expense of increased waiting time for the majority of paying public.  What do we want?  We want a single system, with a maximum waiting time of one hour.  There should be enough rides and attractions for the number of visitors to the park.

By: Thrill seeker with sore feet!

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Si, my previous posting was somewhat ironic. I hope you understood this(?)

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miserablemoaninggit - 4-Nov-11 20:32 

Yes miserablemoaner, if you dislike queuing for things as much as I do then the solution is not to go peak times! And if you have to take kids in the holidays use your brain and avoid a Saturday ;)

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Si - 4-Nov-11 14:49 

Yes, Si is right. If one must go to Alton Towers, ensure that you do not go with school children i.e. any person under the age of 18, or indeed any member of the teaching profession by going during term time. Also ensure that you do it in the chilly Autumn and Winter months. So, a non-child family trip in Autumn and Winter is absolutely fine, but for the rest of the year it is best to boycott Alton towers. Uh?

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miserablemoaninggit - 3-Nov-11 17:10 

You people should know better than to go at half term or the school holidays! Me and my fiancée went yesterday, Nov 2nd, longest we queued was for Oblivion and that took 15 minutes total time to queue and ride. We did 13 twice, once riding at the front, took two minutes to queue for nemesis and 5 for air as we wanted to be on the front! Best of it was tickets were only £15 each, fantastic day out!

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Si - 3-Nov-11 08:01 

In fact, glancing at more recent posts, the Alton Towers marketing department have clearly put in some time and effort - desperation clearly! There are far better ways of spending time than queuing at Alton Horrors!

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miserablemoaning git - 30-Oct-11 19:46 

Caroline's post is laughable! So obviously a 'marketing post' on behalf of Alton Towers - 'Just enjoy the day and don't worry about what you can or don't get on . . . ' she says. Doh! Does she think we are all idiots. The post by disgruntled is a much more true reflection of the sheer boredom and frustration that is Alton Towers. Caroline - you're having a laugh!

+2

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miserablemoaninggit - 30-Oct-11 14:40 

Went on 29th October for the 'scarefest' - but the only nightmares were the queue times. This place should be called 'Alton Queues'. One and a half hours for '13', an hour for Nemesis and the same for Oblivion. We gave up on trying to get in the Terror of the Towers as the queue times for this were one and a half hours - although as one of 'Alton Queues' employees told us we could buy fast track tickets!
I agree with many others that a two tier system is in place of people who are willing to pay extra to jump the queues, meaning of course a longer wait for those who choose not to pay.
What a ripoff the £12 spent on the two horror shows were, where the Black Hole used to be - amatuer dramatics for the feint hearted.
In conclusion an expensive, frustrating and tiring day out with less thrills and more QUEUES

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disgruntled - 30-Oct-11 12:22 

Well I love Alton Towers to be honest. If you go at the right time of year (fireworks is always busier and if you're not going to stay to watch there is no point going then) and plan to get on the big rides very early in the day and go over to air/nemesis or rita first then normally you can get on a few more.
Go when it's raining or even sometimes bank holidays can be ridiculously quiet. Get there early and if you can get early ride time make use of it. Use the skyride to get around the park instead of struggling across the gardens and getting lost (unless you want to see them as they are actually pretty amazing.)
If there's a long queue either join it or come back later. Just enjoy the day and don't worry about what you do or don't get on...

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Caroline - 5-Oct-11 12:33 

Hi I took my two on the first day of the summer hols on Tesco tickets (what a cheap skate!!). Hardly any queues for the rides themselves, but when we first arrived (10.40am) we had to queue for over an hour just to change cour Tesco Clubcard tickets into proper tickets! When not just send us the proper tickets in the first place?!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Liz P-H - 28-Sep-11 12:18 

What is unfortunate is that when you spend too long in one queue, it leaves less time for future rides. It is good when theme parks allow you to book yuor ride and come back later, because this gives you more time to enjoy the rides.

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Terry - 23-Sep-11 17:36 

sorry for my bad spellings on queue
l
l
V

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lyrii - 17-Sep-11 18:07 

omg !! that seems like the worst Ques ever
we went on a busy day and this was what we did in 4 hours
rita-20 mins
th13teen-1 hour
nemesis-6 mins
rip saw 10 mins
the blade 15 mins
air - 20 mins
oblivion- 2 mins
( so we went on it twice and we queued 5 mins for that )
sonic spinball - 35 mins
duel- 0 mins
rapids-10 mins
( we went on those twice so another 13 mins )
flume- 40 mins
( it kept breaking down )
and then we just went shopping for ages in all the gift shops :)
and we went the next day and got on 10 rides
cant believe you went through such ques !

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lyrii - 17-Sep-11 18:06 

i also find that there is a lack of information around the park and was frequently caught in a queue where i had to wait for 2 hours when the information board said it was only 20 minutes. Also i found that the map was incredibly uninformed and this made it hard to navigate the park.

+7

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Jack - 13-Sep-11 13:19 

I last went to Alton Towers 28yrs ago and the kids were at school and it was a little wet and I had a ball.
Yesterday (7/9/11) we went again using our sun tickets and all I can say was it was fantastic! We arrived for 10am and by 11.30am we had done 6 of the large rides. Not a single queue in site. We decided to take a break and a mooch and decided to use our discount food and drink vouchers that we were handed ats we came in and the prices were no where near as expensive as I thought they were going to be. We then went round and did all the rides we wanted to do and the biggies second time round. The last blast was all the water rides at the end with our bigest laugh coming from Battle Galleons. All in all a brill day.

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Sharron - 8-Sep-11 16:30 

i have been to alton towers loads of times- normally once a year. i use to live 20 mins away from it. i must admit queuing is a problem, and i find that air is the worst culprit. Though i disagree that the ride thrill experience is not worth the wait. Oblivion, i believe, has seen better days and there for is not the 'best ride' in the park anymore, and does not hold too much of a crowd problem. but i must say that even though you have to wait the rides are worth it and when we go we defiantly get the chance to go on more than 3 rides.:)
Sorry that your experience at alton towers was not what you had hoped :(

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emily :) - 1-Aug-11 11:55 

Avoid paying silly prices & pick up some of the Sun Alton Towers Tickets on ebay - they're going for about £15 for 2 on average....at least then even if you do have to queue for hours you won't have spent £100 to get into the park! And get there first thing & get the fast passes. Yes, it's a 2 tier system, but Disney do it too. The worst queue for me was in Florida for the "Jaws" ride - we waited for an hour & a half & I was losing the will to live by the time we got to the front. Ride was quite entertaining though.
Am going to Alton Towers start of July with the kids - wish me luck!

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Malarkey - 19-Jun-11 11:19 

I went to Alton Towers for the first and last time when I was around 21 years old. I still remember that monorail and looking out over into Alton Towers, seeing the very long queues - incredibly long queues! I got off at the entrance and promptly - with 2 friends - we got on the monorail heading back to where we had parked the car. I've never been back since and it is highly unlikely that I ever will; I enjoy my holiday time far too much to want to spend it at Alton Towers!

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miserablemoaninggit - 7-Jun-11 15:50 

Wow!! 6 hours queuing for 3 minutes of fun, multiplying by the number of people who were with you, I think you have a case in court for compensation. It's like they sell you this magical day of fun but you end up getting torture! Have you thought about official complaint, BBC's watchdog, ombudsman, etc...
I am going for the first time in my life to Alton Towers soon, we worked very hard and saved for very long to be able to go...on top of this it will be my little girl's birthday surprise. She has been ill and is now better so expect to pay for fun, not torture. If the same you described happens to me, oh heck, I am not going to be a happy bunny.

+6

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Emilia - 7-Jun-11 14:02 

im goin to alton towers on the 23 of may how long will the queues be

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nike boy 2011 - 28-Apr-11 21:13 

@eewnfj it ruens the rides if its wet though doesnt it

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jake - 20-Jan-11 20:10 

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