Alton Towers
5 months ago
I'm going to ramble about a UK theme park and what it means to me!
When I was a really little kid my first ever PC game was a theme park management game produced by Bullfrog simply called 'Theme Park', we played it in school to teach us business on the MS DOS workstation (debatable how useful this was) and I remember bugging my parents to buy me the sequel. Theme Park World, from PC World back in 1999, it barely ran on our PC and caused all kinds of headaches to get working. As a kid I was **obsessed** with theme parks, I used to draw them on paper, make books about park designs, convert the back garden into a theme park with all my toys. I first saw Rollercoaster Tycoon at one of those scholastic book fairs that would visit the school and occasionally sell games, my friend bought RCT2 and I borrowed it off him weekly.
But despite all the games, the drawings, imagining theme parks, my parents never took me to one. There was a story when I was younger that my Grandad went on one and threw up and it kinda traumatized me as a kid. My parents weren't thrill seekers and often would complain at the loud and noisy rides. So for 20-odd years I went about being terrified of them, occasionally I'd find myself in proximity to theme parks, often disneyland, other parks in america, but I never rode the coasters or really enjoyed being in the parks.
I never drove on the motorway either, so when Dad died last year I suddenly found myself driving everyone everywhere (something he always did and I wasn't allowed to) to see my family and friends across the country. One day I was randomly invited to Alton Towers, the UK's biggest theme park up Staffordshire, by my good friend Grandiose. Originally I wasn't going to go, I made up some excuses about being busy or whatever, but somehow I just kinda went for it and decided to go along. I initially figured I'd turn up late, look and watch friends on some rides, then go home early. We ended up going on one of the busiest days of the year during the summer holidays of 2023, crammed with kids, most rides had 2-hour wait times. I think in the end we rode 4 rides, I rode Thirteen first, and it was like a 20-year awakening....
It was love at first sight, I was there in the park I'd imagined as a little kid. THE theme park from those games (which was very true, as Theme Park/RCT took big inspiration from the British parks of the time, Alton Towers even featuring in the original RCT)
It had all come full circle from when I was younger, taking me 20+ years to appreciate the parks & rides, somewhere I should have gone a lot sooner...
I often get told by other rollercoaster enthusiasts that I should go to different parks, that alton towers isn't that good, the rides aren't the biggest, the most modern or exciting. But to me it means everything, the history of the park and the area, the rides themselves are all so unique and interesting, themed incredibly well.
It was something I needed in my life when I was at my lowest, somewhere to go, somewhere new to explore, new to experience. I've since got a season pass and I go every other week. I've bought pretty much all the merchandise, ridden every ride hundreds of times, all in the short space of one year. Its been an intense journey so far but I've loved it.
If you ever get the chance to visit Alton Towers I highly recommend it!
My Alton Towers rollercoaster tier list:
1. Oblivion (best ride in the park, perfect, peak 90's aesthetic and music)
2. Nemesis Reborn (Super cool theme, most intense ride in the park)
3. Rita (super fast and smooth, front row is a must!)
4. The Smiler (pretty good, bit rough in places)
5. The Wicker Man (fast and fun, but not the most intense)
6. Thirteen (Don't spoil the surprise)
7. Galactica (needs a rebrand)
8. Spinball Whizzer (rough and tough, mind that final bend, ouch!)
Do you like Alton Towers or theme parks? Lets talk about them!
When I was a really little kid my first ever PC game was a theme park management game produced by Bullfrog simply called 'Theme Park', we played it in school to teach us business on the MS DOS workstation (debatable how useful this was) and I remember bugging my parents to buy me the sequel. Theme Park World, from PC World back in 1999, it barely ran on our PC and caused all kinds of headaches to get working. As a kid I was **obsessed** with theme parks, I used to draw them on paper, make books about park designs, convert the back garden into a theme park with all my toys. I first saw Rollercoaster Tycoon at one of those scholastic book fairs that would visit the school and occasionally sell games, my friend bought RCT2 and I borrowed it off him weekly.
But despite all the games, the drawings, imagining theme parks, my parents never took me to one. There was a story when I was younger that my Grandad went on one and threw up and it kinda traumatized me as a kid. My parents weren't thrill seekers and often would complain at the loud and noisy rides. So for 20-odd years I went about being terrified of them, occasionally I'd find myself in proximity to theme parks, often disneyland, other parks in america, but I never rode the coasters or really enjoyed being in the parks.
I never drove on the motorway either, so when Dad died last year I suddenly found myself driving everyone everywhere (something he always did and I wasn't allowed to) to see my family and friends across the country. One day I was randomly invited to Alton Towers, the UK's biggest theme park up Staffordshire, by my good friend Grandiose. Originally I wasn't going to go, I made up some excuses about being busy or whatever, but somehow I just kinda went for it and decided to go along. I initially figured I'd turn up late, look and watch friends on some rides, then go home early. We ended up going on one of the busiest days of the year during the summer holidays of 2023, crammed with kids, most rides had 2-hour wait times. I think in the end we rode 4 rides, I rode Thirteen first, and it was like a 20-year awakening....
It was love at first sight, I was there in the park I'd imagined as a little kid. THE theme park from those games (which was very true, as Theme Park/RCT took big inspiration from the British parks of the time, Alton Towers even featuring in the original RCT)
It had all come full circle from when I was younger, taking me 20+ years to appreciate the parks & rides, somewhere I should have gone a lot sooner...
I often get told by other rollercoaster enthusiasts that I should go to different parks, that alton towers isn't that good, the rides aren't the biggest, the most modern or exciting. But to me it means everything, the history of the park and the area, the rides themselves are all so unique and interesting, themed incredibly well.
It was something I needed in my life when I was at my lowest, somewhere to go, somewhere new to explore, new to experience. I've since got a season pass and I go every other week. I've bought pretty much all the merchandise, ridden every ride hundreds of times, all in the short space of one year. Its been an intense journey so far but I've loved it.
If you ever get the chance to visit Alton Towers I highly recommend it!
My Alton Towers rollercoaster tier list:
1. Oblivion (best ride in the park, perfect, peak 90's aesthetic and music)
2. Nemesis Reborn (Super cool theme, most intense ride in the park)
3. Rita (super fast and smooth, front row is a must!)
4. The Smiler (pretty good, bit rough in places)
5. The Wicker Man (fast and fun, but not the most intense)
6. Thirteen (Don't spoil the surprise)
7. Galactica (needs a rebrand)
8. Spinball Whizzer (rough and tough, mind that final bend, ouch!)
Do you like Alton Towers or theme parks? Lets talk about them!
So glad you've become a coaster enthusiast! Those places are all about happiness, thrills, and well, the experience of having fun.
Got a question: if you had to be TFed into a bit of roller coaster to replace a bit of broken track, which coaster would it be? :3
I guess we'll probably try and do Thorpe Park next year sometime, but its a long way away from where I live.
Oblivion is super short, but that drop was terrifying. XD "FUUUUUUUUUCK!" was the word I used all the way down.
Was too scared to go for Nemesis, that looked so fucking scary!
Queued for "Air" for about 1H45M before realising we were only half way, and gave up. (I don't know what it's called now, but it was a ride where you sort of dangle from. It was new at the time, probably renamed now.)
Black Hole was in complete darkness, (had a huge tent around it. I think they renamed it if still running.) you'd occasionally catch sight of girders that looked way too close, as they whizzed past. XD
Black Hole was taken down and a new ride called The Smiler is there now which is really good.
They also got rid of Mousetrap which was my favourite back as a kid.
'Will you marry meeeaaaAAAAAAAA'
(As it happens we wouldn't have got much roller coaster fun if we had made the side trip, as we got there shortly after a rather nasty coaster accident that shut, I believe, everything at Alton Towers and even two of the four coasters at Chessington.)
Also a couple years ago I found the local university library had a copy of the 1987(?) Official Guide to Alton Towers so it was fun reading over what was there and occasionally looking up what had happened to it. One that caught our fancy was that in 1987 they'd had a huge model trail layout but that by 2017(?) it had been removed.
My wife was sad about the lost labor there, but my guess was just they had happened to have a couple model railroaders in the park at the same time and they built the thing before park security noticed and they decided to make the best of it.
Its annoying that any mention of the park brings up the Smiler incident. I really like the park and people seem determined to bring that up to me every time I talk about Alton Towers, like they're so dense they can't see mentioning it just makes me not want to talk to them anymore.
And I understand the park mention problem. The regional park where I grew up had a nasty (and lethal) fire in a haunted house ride that was the lead of any mention of it for a while. I only mentioned because of the proximity to the time we almost visited Alton Towers.
(Weirdly, a park we get to every couple years had a fatal accident on one of their marquee roller coasters this year, while we were visiting it, but I haven't seen any press about it outside a couple local news. My father who keeps tabs on every time an amusement park or carnival ride stops long enough they have to unload the passengers mid-ride-cycle didn't even hear about it.)
The rides may not be the largest or most thrilling ones...but the quality is awesome.
They'll open a double launching water coaster for 2026
I love Oblivion. Took three attempts of going to Alton Towers before I plucked up the nerve to go on it. Nemesis...ehh, it was too much of a bone rattler for me. Too much G force as I'm bashed from siude to side.
I loved Air....not sure that still exists.
Is Hex still a thing? I love that one for the novelty.
I'm shocked people are so scared of Oblivion, for a ride that lasts 90-seconds (with 90% of that time being the lift hill) its the smoothest, fastest, shortest coaster in the park with the best view.
Nemesis has been 'reborn' for 2024 with a retrack which has made it so much smoother now.
Went with a friend in the early 00s...we chickened out. Went with my sister years later...we chickened out.
It was going with mum that got us on there. She was determined to go on as much as possible. We had lunch at that cafe at the base of it and she watched it. Timed it. And that was it, once she learned how it all works, she wasn't nervous. On we went, and it was really cool.
The flying dinosaur in Universal Japan is basically like the final form of Galactica.
I'm looking forward dragging you around to some of our European mainland parks. <3
I've been to a couple of theme parks and even the ones without all those rollercoaster rides were very fun. I especially liked one where they combined a theme park with a water park. Thrill rides and bumper cars in the morning and waterslides in the afternoon, those were the days.