Alton Towers tips

[goingpearshaped]

We are are off to Alton Towers with toung teens soon. Any tips for what to do and when please (e.g. where to head first?) Anything to avoid? Not been in well over 20 years! Thanks.

Are there stations to fill up water bottles?

Mine love alton towers. Head for the smiler area or Wicker Man first if you arrive when the gates open, as they get busy quickly. I get the fast track passes when we go, as I can't be doing with long queues, but they are expensive. There are drinks stations, but we just take a drinks bottle and then buy a drink when we eat. Make sure you download the app, as it gives you live queue times. Buy a season pass for one of you, then £15 guest tickets for the rest of the party if you are a family of 4 it saves you on entry fee plus save £6 parking. Eating at the Woodcutters isn't too expensive.

THank you so much @PutinIsAWarCriminal , so helpful. Not sure we can fund the fast track which is worrying me. The info suggests that you can buy single fast track for one off rides and I wondered if possible for the congo river? I cant see how to do this online.

Thanks again for the inside info.

Smiler area first literally run if you can! You can do smiler and oblivion then head straight to the Nemesis area. It'll then be time for lunch and you'll have the big ones under your belt.

If you don't mind paying extra priority parking is good.

I'd also recommend woodcutters for lunch but get there early, say 11.30 or you'll be queuing for a table. Last time we did smiler area, nemesis area, woodcutters at 11.30 then cable car over to the Rita area. Worked well.

I believe they have a queue app, we used them in florida and they were really useful.

Thank you @Yorshiregass32 , so helpful. Just annoyingly paid for £6 parking and now wondering if I can switch to the other parking.

Aim to get there around 9.15 then parking is better,you can get the monorail into the park. Head for wicker Man and big rides first. Get the app for queue times etc.

Thank you @LetsGoCrazyPurpleBanana , really appreciate it! Any more tips?

Yes you can buy single fast tracks from guest services, but they are limited.

We’ve just been Monday and Tuesday and made the mistake of arriving at 10am first day and not really having a plan. Second day we did much better and arrived at 9am, on first monorail into the park and headed straight for the Smiler. It’s queues were the worst all day, so good to get it done in 40mins. The wicker man would be another good starting point, even shorter (dh headed there with our youngest as he’s too small for the smiler).

Nemesis and Galactica weren’t too bad for queues later in the day, and watching the app we got on Wicker Man, Thirteen, Spinball Wizard, Runnaway Mine Train and Congo River in between 10 and 40 mins. I don’t think you would need fast pass for Congo River as between us we did it 4 times without much of a queue. Rita always seemed long, we went to it second with the queue time showing as 15 min, but it was more like 50, and we didn’t think it was worth it. We did bite the bullet and queue over an hour for Oblivion, which was a favourite. If I’d known we could get a fast pass just for it, I would have done it!

The queues get shorter in the last hour and ride queues stay open until closing time and continue until the whole queue is done. Our first day ended with Nemesis and two goes of Glactica with no queue and they are right by an exit to the car park to save on a wait for the mono rail. You could plan to do one of the biggies at closing time if there’s one you haven’t got on/ couldn’t face queuing for.

There are free water fill stations. 10 doughnuts for £7.75 were good, but we took a picnic to save money otherwise, so can’t comment on food.

Thank you @PutinIsAWarCriminal ! Cheers @sparkysdream , sounds like you had a fab time. Trying to figure out what they want, one under 1.4 and both not keen on smiler ( a friend mentioned the accident). What was Gangsta Granny like? They are keen on that.

Thanks re the plan, that is v helpful. Also good re congo river as they want to do that plus last min rides.

I might try wicker man first but they are not sure if too scary!

Gangsta Granny broke when we were all on together but DH and youngest went on later and thought it was okay, not amazing. I don't think wicker man is too scary, not like smiler, so a good call for all to get on. Thirteen would also be good, but maybe scarier. If they are not keen on bigger coasters Run away minetrain was a favourite for our 7 year old. He tried 13 and wicker man but wasn't keen to try again 😆

Thank you so much @sparkysdream !

@sparkysdream , can I please ask you one more thing? Is fast track worth it for runaway mine train please? Debating that one as both keen. They are unsure re wicker man so don't want to buy and then they chicken out. Going to head to that one first and see. Mega thanks 👍

Not much of a queue for Mine Train usually. You'll get on it a couple of times probably. Things like Blade and the retro rides have quite low queues too.

Thank you @leccybill !!! So helpful.

Agree with leccybill, we got on Runway mine train a few times over the two days. There were times the queue was big in the middle of the day, but it’s next to Wickerman, and DH managed on it first thing after wicker man with next to no queue. Blade and hex were off both days we were there.

I wouldn't necessarily buy fast pass for Runaway mine train, but I think you are being a bit misled about queue times for it, if even some of the schools have broken up the queues for it can be huuge because its one of the only rides the whole family can do together. It also doesn't open till 11am when the rest of the park opens at 10, so the queue is bad from the start.....

I'd think about doing it as last ride of the day.....Get in the queue literally 5 mins before the line shuts (eg if the park closes at 5pm, dont go through the ride gates until 4.55pm. Then you will definitely be on the last train of the day.....on that ride you get 2 goes all day, but on the last ride, if the kids on board scream to carry on, they let you go round again and again....my kids once got 10 consecutive loops out of them, and I had to have a little sit down on the concourse once we got off!!

If things are really busy and its just getting a bit much, if you walk through the forbidden forest to Duel its never really busy, only 10-15 mins tops and thats a great family ride where everyone can take part too

My 7 year old distinctly underwhelmed by ganster granny. Its basically a long queue in a building followed by sitting in a little 8 seater trolley thing that barely moves, maybe 30 foot? the whole ride whilst bits of graphics play on the wall showing the police chase etc. Theres no coaster type element to it at all, and the effects aren't really very good.