Alton Towers Day Out

Yesterday me and Z went off to Alton Towers. I took a day off work whilst she was lucky enough to have it as a scheduled day off.

It was an early start as we had an 8.25am train to catch from Kings Cross. We were a little concerned about the weather, the reports had suggest heavy rain for the day and as we were travelling up towards Derby to get our connecting coach, we went through the heavy rain and we felt we were going to have a soaking wet day.

Thankfully when we arrived at Derby the rain appeared to stop and the skies weren’t quite so dark. As usual with any trip we were delayed, not this time by an unreliable service, but by a few stragglers who managed to get stuck in the loo, and thus we had to go back for them losing the best part of 30 minutes plus. To anyone who goes on these trips, please for your own sake, ensure that when you are doing these trips not to inconvenience others. These people should be left where they were, it does state clearly what to do, and if you spend time farting around doing who knows what, whilst everyone else boards the coach, then you deserve to be left behind.

When we arrived at Alton Towers, the rain was spitting, and so we were conscious of getting around as fast as possible to enjoy in case of the heavens opening. What I wasn’t aware of and thankfully we spotted it, there is the option to drop all bags at the guest services centre for £3 a day and you can access it as many times as you wish to avoid the risk of losing the bag whilst on the ride, as you can’t carry bags on the rides for the obvious reasons. A very useful service and one I don’t recall being there before. Another useful service which we didn’t know about until too late though is a priority service available where you don’t have to queue for 45 minutes plus, etc, you go to almost the head of the queue and the option only costs £7. They call it short cut, but still. I was surprised more people didn’t use the option, maybe like us they didn’t know about it.

Z wanted to do all the thrill rides, white knuckle in other words. Me, I was more than happy to do so, I tend to like those rides. We walked our way to X-sector and Z spots the first ride she wants to do, Oblivion. Well we queued up and it only took about 25 minutes or so which is pretty quick and I am guessing the lousy weather put people off. Z wasn’t ready for the ride, not at all. By the end of the ride and it is only about 30 seconds or so, she was as white as a sheet. She was so pale and the pictures that are taken, she looked like she had seen a ghost.

I will give Z her dues, later on she was determined to go back again and again and again, in total 4 times we rode that ride and each time she got more and more used to it and more and more into it. I can safely say it was the ride she enjoyed the most.

We did do other rides there including submission, which felt quite tame after Oblivion and then Enterprise which was even tamer. You can guess that we felt in comparison those rides would be. We then went to try Rita ‘Queen of Speed’. This is a monster ride, it basically shoots you forward at a rate of knots from a standing start and you are propelled around the ride so quickly with turns and twists. We waited 45 minutes for that ride and would do so again, sadly there wasn’t to be time in the end. The main reason being that, for the 45 minutes we were able to get 3 rides on the Oblivion because the queues for that were so short, I have no idea why though.

We also went and did Air, Nemesis as well. Air is a ride everyone should try and it does especially because of the way you go around the ride like you are in the air with no bum on a seat, it is a very different and enjoyable experience. Z decided that the picture she wanted was the one from Air where we are both screaming for joy with the ride, so we now have that adorning our living room. Nemesis is an older ride, but still very good.

I did notice a number of rides from when I last went have now gone, including the Thunderlooper and the Black Hole is boarded up, obviously with the intention of replacing it with something else. I have to also admit I haven’t been in probably over 10 years now, so I couldn’t expect anything less.

If you are interested in going yourself and want a deal then have a look, this page is the place to go.

Alton Towers All-Inclusive Day Out

I would recommend to anyone who can afford the £38 each to do it, and if possible pay the extra £7 to go through the quick channel at the queue for each ride. It would probably mean you get to do maybe 15-20 goes on the rides instead of the 9 we managed and we went when it wasn’t that busy, so I leave it to your imagination as to how packed it can be.

Z has in her head the Oblivion ride, I can remember each and every time we went on and how I was screaming with joy and enjoying it so much and the look on her face at the end of each one, each time having more of her natural colour than before. Z made a point to me that on each ride I was always shouting/screaming with joy and that in each picture I really look like I was enjoying myself. To me you can’t go on these white knuckle rides and not pumped the adrenaline, so stoke it up and add to the joy. It makes it a much better day.