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WTF Merlin?

The Towers at Alton Towers are finally reopening allowing guests to walk around. FOR £10!

Step back in time and take an insightful and informative tour of Alton Towers with your personal guide. This experience consists of a 2-hour in-depth walking experience into the history of our fantabulous listed House and Gardens. access to some of the most sought-after exclusive locations, including an incredible rooftop panoramic view of the Theme Park, there is no better way to capture the magic.

Selected dates only.

Please be advised this tour includes 2.5km of walking, over 350 steps, and steep gradients. These are historic Gardens and House which include historic and natural woodland pathways and steps. You should wear footwear suitable for this environment.
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So not only do you have to take 2 hours out of your theme park day but you also have to spend an extra £10 on top of your ticket price for something that used to be free. 😂

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DelPiero said:
On Gardaland's open late, close rides early thing. I'm pretty sure it's only like that for another week as from the 30th of June the closing time of the rides will change.
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Yeah, as of right now, the only major rides that still close before the park does are I Corsari, Colorado Boat and Flying Island, so not a big blow for anyone planning on doing the park this Summer.
 
Alton Towers definitely needs fewer attractions, especially indoor ones.

Pretty ridiculous they haven't turned it back into a proper dark ride.
 
At an enthusiast event, apparently Thorpe Park ran just one train on Hyperia yesterday and closed the queue after only 38 minutes of operation (a full hour of ERT was advertised). Almost everyone in the event got only one ride in as a result.

It's commonly being stated that Thorpe Park charges over £5,000 for an organiser to get one hour of Hyperia ERT, so it's unfortunate to see subpar operations from the park.

This is NOT the first time Hyperia has ran one train for an ERT event, with the Attraction Source event having the same thing happen during their 'Fearless Frenzy' event.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1809665250964435206
 
In theory, throughput SHOULD be a lot better with a train of goons, because we all know what we're doing - but brainfade is not uncommon :D

(I fastened my FoF restraint upside down and got stuck in the damn thing...)
 
Alton Towers was rather abysmal today, easily the worst day at a park in my lifetime, and yes I was expecting large crowds of school trips etc.

Nemesis Reborn closed all day. Wicker Man went down multiple times. Oblivion went down multiple times. Thirteen went down multiple times. Curse at Alton Manor went down. Hex still closed. Sky Ride still closed of course. We even, and I'm embarrassed to say this, waited 2 hours and 40 minutes for Rita (advertised at 70) only for it to break down twice and we never got to ride it. We rode two rides the entire day.

On Rita, every other train was being filled with only fast track. It moved at a glacial pace. The park in general also looks like it's falling apart. Think I might finally be done with visiting Merlin parks for good!
 
Ethan said:
Alton Towers was rather abysmal today, easily the worst day at a park in my lifetime, and yes I was expecting large crowds of school trips etc.

Nemesis Reborn closed all day. Wicker Man went down multiple times. Oblivion went down multiple times. Thirteen went down multiple times. Curse at Alton Manor went down. Hex still closed. Sky Ride still closed of course. We even, and I'm embarrassed to say this, waited 2 hours and 40 minutes for Rita (advertised at 70) only for it to break down twice and we never got to ride it. We rode two rides the entire day.

On Rita, every other train was being filled with only fast track. It moved at a glacial pace. The park in general also looks like it's falling apart. Think I might finally be done with visiting Merlin parks for good!
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Yikes, that sounds rough. I had an eerily similar experience at Thorpe Park during school trip season back in 2018; Rush and Samurai were the only rides I managed all day, and I waited 2.5 hours for Saw only for it to break down when I was at the very end of the line about to get on...

The parks get very crowded during school trip season!
 
Matt N said:
Yikes, that sounds rough. I had an eerily similar experience at Thorpe Park during school trip season back in 2018; Rush and Samurai were the only rides I managed all day, and I waited 2.5 hours for Saw only for it to break down when I was at the very end of the line about to get on...

The parks get very crowded during school trip season!
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I genuinely don’t know if the crowd volumes were really the issue yesterday tbh. I’d say the over selling of fast pass, the 3 minute dispatches, the wildly inaccurate queue times and the ride reliability were what ruined the day.

It was busy and that’s absolutely fair enough, but it wasn’t unmanageable. I’ve never stepped foot into guest services before but yesterday I felt I had no choice but to say something, (politely and friendly of course, not the staff’s fault at all), but even then I declined the fastpass they offered for our next visit because all that does is add to the issue and tbh I don’t want to visit again. Nemesis Reborn doesn’t even look worth it to me although I’d love to be proven wrong.

I just hope they either sort themselves out, or Universal opens in the UK and forces them to do better.
 
So I'm going to Alton Towers next week, having not been there for 6 years.

Today, it seems they have changed next week's closing times from 6pm to 5pm. In summer holiday.
Explain!
 
Jamesss said:
So I'm going to Alton Towers next week, having not been there for 6 years.

Today, it seems they have changed next week's closing times from 6pm to 5pm. In summer holiday.
Explain!
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When I went earlier in the year they closed at 4pm. With the Skyride still closed we didn't have the time to do everything in the park, the shorter opening hours this year are appalling.
 
Melons said:
When I went earlier in the year they closed at 4pm. With the Skyride still closed we didn't have the time to do everything in the park, the shorter opening hours this year are appalling.
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It's been closing at 4pm at points for years now, I wouldn't expect better tbh!
 
Plus the rides might not even open on time or at all! On my visit in April I had to do a serious amount of backtracking and it really ate into my day because Nemesis Reborn and Wicker Man didn't open until well after 11. And yes, the park does look very run down, it was depressing. It feels like Alton Towers is going really downhill with operations and upkeep despite investments like Nemesis Reborn. They need to spend more time updating the park, because right now it feels dated.
 
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