I've visited a fair amount of theme parks in my time, both here in England and abroad, one of these being Alton Towers in Staffordshire.
I have visited on numerous occasions now and 90% of my trips I have walked away feeling disappointed. My most recent visit was on Monday and because it had been a couple of years since our last visit, I forgot just how deflated this park makes me feel until I'm actually there again. It was then that I made a conscious decision not to visit this park again (and I told Mike to remind me if I forget again in a further 2 years and begin making plans to visit!).
Alton towers is almost a 2.5hr drive for us, so when we arrived on Monday at almost 11.30, I knew we only had until 4pm (closing time) to get everything done. We stopped for a quick bite to eat (and the food was yet again, a miserable let down) before heading off onto our first ride; Wickerman. Both this ride and Galactica were my priority as they were new since we last visited. We queued for Wickerman for approximately 20 minutes before it was announced that the ride was having 'technical difficulties'. Another 10 minutes passed then it was suggested that we all leave the queue and 'come back later' because this difficulty wasn't sorting itself out! Flashbacks then started to occur from our last trip 'ride closed' 'technical difficulties' - some things never change here.
We then passed The Haunted House and luckily we were able to walk straight onto the ride - although it was a ride that you had to quickly jump in your allocated seat because the cannons (or whatever they were) don't stop. The guns that were used as part of the ride were all over the floor, and the hefty wires that are attached to the guns were all tangled so I ended up having to grapple and step over several wires, making sure I wasn't getting my feet tangled, all while our 'cannon' was moving!
After this ride we headed to Galactica which stated was a 35 minute wait. This wait time was just acceptable for me, any longer and I wouldn't have waited. Little did I know that 1.5hrs later and we were still queuing. They have decided to split the carriages up into 2 which gives you the option of experiencing the virtual reality head sets whilst riding the ride. I felt like this massively slowed the whole queuing process down and people that didn't want to use the VR sets that were miles behind you in the queue were able to 'overtake' you in the queue and be seated on the ride. How is this fair? I think each seat should have the option of the VR headset, and if you don't want to wear it, then don't. This whole queuing system is flawed.
I forgot how huge the grounds of Alton Towers were - no one wants to be trudging uphill round a theme park with kids in tow in the heat. The areas are so spaced out that it really does become a chore having to move from one land to another, despite how beautiful the grounds are. Not to mention that after the walking, we were then faced with a 15-20 minute walk back to the car park at the end of our day.
At the start of the day, I really thought arriving at almost dinner we would be strapped for time, however by 3pm I had had enough and we left for home. Need I say more? I spent more time driving to and from the park than actually in it, and went on a whopping 2 rides.
We visited Alton Towers during Scarefest several years ago and we had several bad experiences during our day, so much so that I made a complaint and was given 2 adult admissions for £10. It definitely needs to rethink a few things...