Alton towers fastrack

[Saker]

We are planning to go to Alton Towers at Easter. DS2 has special needs and will probably go on the younger rides with me. But Ds1 who is 13 is very keen to go on everything. The entrance is very expensive but if we are going for it, I am wondering if it is worth paying the extra to fastrack some of the rides - £12 each for Ds1 and Dh ? Has anyone done this before - are the queues usually big enough in school holidays to justify this? ANy other advice about AT welcome, thanks!

Marking place coz I am interested to know this too.

Hi, i live about 15 minutes Alton Towers and have been a few times. In the school hols and at weekend queues for the big rides - Rita, air, nemesis and thirteen tend to be anything from 60 to 90 minutes so if you wanted to take in all the big ones it would be hard to fit them all in a day without a fast track. A good tip if you didn't want to get a fast track is to get there for when the gates open and head straight for your favourite ride then also leave another favourite right until the end of the day as it does get quite a bit quieter then. Hope that helps.

Thank you that's very helpful; next to work out which rides to choose!

Depends how strong your stomach is! Air is the tamest of the lot, like flying. Rita leaves your stomach behind you on the track and Nemesis is just fast with lots of twists, turns and upside down bits. The new Smiler ride is unknown as they haven't released many details yet and thirteen has some unexpected twists but not too fast. There are lots of other rides to fill the gaps in so always plenty to do. If you need to know anything else I'll do my best to answer.

Do you know what the Nemesis Sub-terra is like - is it really scary in a horror film sort of way? Ds1 talks a good talk about not being scared, but I know he will be for weeks after if it is like that?

We went last year with DS1 (who was 12 at the time) and DS2 (SN, 10 at the time).
DS1 was tall enough to go on everything so I went on the fast rides with him while DH looked after DS2 and went on gentler rides with him.

My best tip would be to use the single rider queue. DS1 and I never had to wait more than ten minutes, sometimes we got to go on together and sometimes he went on the ride one cycle after me and I waited for him at the exit. We did it that way round as I was happier with leaving him at the front of the queue than having him waiting outside the ride exit for me.

I was underwhelmed by Nemesis subterra but DS1 was suitably terrified and thought it was 'epic'.

Okay thanks that's worth thinking about. I have been reading around about it - there appear to be whole forums devoted to it - and tbh it seems more and more like hell on earth. Trouble is, I really don't like fast rides, Ds2 can't manage them, Dh isn't bothered so we are all only really going for Ds1! But feel mean not going when he's so keen - course they all talk about it at school etc.

We had an amazing weekend there; the staff were all lovely and really helpful. The park is quite big but there's a cable car / skytrain thing you can use to get around.

We're already planning to take DD and DS3 as soon as DD (another fast ride fan) is over 140cm.

We paid for the fast track and it made our day - whizzing to the front of the queue is worth every penny when you have so much to cram in