Spent a fortune on Alton Towers and nearly everything was closed

[Foxy200]

Warning to anyone thinking of taking the kids to Alton Towers this Easter, AVOID it unless you have checked exactly what is open.

We drove all the way up yesterday, paid for a hotel last night and again for tonight, and arrived to find that nearly everything is shut. Only a handful of rides are actually open.

It is absolutely disgraceful to be charging full ticket prices when so much of the park is closed. After just an hour of walking around and seeing the reality of it, we asked for a refund and were told no.

The disappointment for the children has been awful, and to say I am angry is an understatement. We have spent a huge amount on tickets, travel and hotels for what has turned into a complete waste of money.

Families deserve to know before making the trip, this has completely ruined what was meant to be an Easter treat.

Can you go to the water park there instead, it's really good

We had this last year. I made a complaint and got my money back.

Agree OP is exaggerating and clearly doesn't know AT. Skyride and mono rail aren't going to affect your dc.

You can't be expecting water rides at easter.

The only disappointment is oblivion and runaway mine train. And neither of them are that great. More time to go on nemesis and smiler. Personally I love hex!

I watch Theme Park review videos and they have all said the same. Loads of the big rides were not fixed or maintained in the closed season and they are not being upfront about it. YANBU.

Edit - when you actually get there there are staff at ride entrances saying the ride is down. Sometimes they open for an hour, sometimes not at all. The entire back area of the park hasn't been opening until lunchtime.

YADNBU. Has this experience post Covid, loads of rides shut, far too many people in the park, and blamed it on the difficult times but it seems like a normal thing for theme parks these days. Time was, you could time your visit and have a great experience.

Theme parks (especially Merlin ones) are just awful. So much money for the 'pleasure' of a day of queuing with your bored, whiny children. Plus they're a wasp magnet, and the frustration of the experience makes people behave selfishly - thinking there of the lovely couple who left a nappy bag filled with nappy and shit in the middle of the table at Legoland Pizza Hut while everyone else was eating their (horrible) lunch.

The monorail literally only takes people to the car park and back. Has no effect on the ride queues at all.

I did the half marathon in November there. More was open then.

We can't wait until our kids are old/tall enough to go on the big rides at Europa and Efteling.

We're cautiously excited for Universal as the kids will certainly be big enough by then. But Alton Towers is a nightmare to get to and rapidly becoming not worth the trek any more. Most of the rest of the Merlin owned parks are heading that way too to be fair.

I'd be furious too. No doubt they will just tell you that the closure information was on their website and you should have checked first, but it still sucks. The onus shouldn't have to be on the customer to go finding out what isn't available before you book.

All you can do is speak to their cusomer services team and ask for a refund or a voucher to return another time. Say that you will go out of your way to leave bad reviews absolutely everywhere possible, if they don't recompense you, including on MN, which obviously you have already done but can do again.

This is the school holidays so unless it was due to something unforeseen, like high winds and safety concerns, I can only imagine they must be struggling financially if loads of stuff is closed at what you would expect to be a busy time.

You could also threaten to take it up with one of the consumer programmes on the TV or radio as well because the exposure would be really bad for them.

Two of them don’t even open until May so you would have missed them anyway by going at this time of year. I’m sorry you had a bad day but I think you need to accept part of the responsibility. Before we book any tickets for theme parks we always check the website to see if there’s any planned maintenance.

I have to admit, maybe it's because I'm not a billion miles away but even when Alton Towers was THE thing in the 80s or 90s, I'm not sure spending two nights in a hotel would have been worth it. That's a lot of expense.

But then it's so easy to do this in the holidays isn't it? I once took my son to London for the weekend to a special event at the Science Museum. He was so disappointed and so was I. The event itself wasn't that expensive but it was a lot less fun than it seemed on the ads. In the end the highlight of the weekend was a Thai restaurant we found 10 minutes walk from the museum.

Then he got in a grump and refused to go anywhere else and just wanted to hang out till our train (which I'd booked so we couldn't go early).

Sadly, planned activities in the UK in school holidays can often be a bit of a let down mostly because everyone has the same idea and everything was overpriced even before all the recent craziness. Even if it was the best day they could have done, it would have felt expensive and probably been cold.

The funny thing is my trip to London taught me something. I don't have to do "big" to have fun. We have some closer theme parks I'd go to in a heartbeat over Alton Towers. Are the rides as good (when they're running) no but they're cheaper, everyone has lower expectations and it's all just less hassle. Escape rooms can sometimes be pretty reasonable too (and you can often get online vouchers for discounts). It's a fun hour together even if you don't solve the puzzle.

So anyway. Maybe lesson learned?

The one that's never let me down is Paulton's Park (but I still wouldn't go in the Easter holidays). We usually take DS on a Sunday before an INSET day and stay overnight.

I was there yesterday with my kid and almost everything was open. There is a ride availability section on their website and it clearly stated which rides would be closed. Two of the stated closures aren't actually rides, they are transport to get to and around the park. Two are water rides that are opening in May when the weather is warmer. Runaway mine train was closed for maintenance and Oblivion was actually open even though it's stated as closed on their website. So that's 3 rides that were closed.
Thirteen and Spinball opened late due to technical problems but they both still opened during the day. A couple of rides went down during the day but opened again. There are rides that open at 11am, an hour after the rest of the rides which is all stated on their app.
I'm not surprised you didn't get a refund, there were plenty of rides to go on even though it was a busy day, we had a great time yesterday.

Thank you so much having been trying to decide between Alton towers and Blackpool for a couple of days.

I would ask for a refund and point their lack of information about rides being shut.

It doesn't look like many rides were closed? All the big ones bar Oblivion were open and no one expects water rides to be open this early in the year.

I put yanbu but should've put yabu.

Like many others have said there are much more than a handful of rides open.

I took my DD there a couple of weeks ago in term time and we had a fantastic day, as others have said you can't count the monorail or cable cars, River Rapids and Battle Galleons are crap anyway so there's only the mine train that you miss out on.
All the decent rides are open and more than enough to fill a day.

All ride availability is clearly stated on their website.

That's only a handful. AT is huge. Most rides are showing as open on my app.

When we went to Drusillas and some parts were shut down they gave us a pass with money off to return again. Unfortunately was only valid for a few months which we didn't realise and had run out by the time we wanted to go again. Over Easter they are letting children in for £1 but the adults pay full price

Knockhatch doesn't always have everything open but they reduce the price by a little bit on these days. Saw some baby meerkats last week and the news has said some capybara have just arrived. I now have an annual pass for here

Unfortunately I think Brits really are accepting of throwing their money away - pretty much everything in this country is broken, rundown, subpar and expensive, yet we all carry on forking out and meekly accepting it.

OP if it wasn’t stated on the website I would complain. Alton Towers isn’t what it used to be these days.

Explain your comment.

👏👏👏

Oblivion was only closed briefly. It's running again now.