Okay, now I've had time to sleep, digest what happened yesterday and have some coffee, here's what happened. Now again, I'll preface with the fact we had our best day at Alton in years, the rides were reliable, the new flats added some long needed variety, the gardens night-time light walk through was excellent (I highly recommend it, it's not an upcharge either), the staff were great and we got so many rides in including my first ride on Hex in about 16 years.
Now, the bad stuff, and this is in no way shape or form the fault of the park or park staff, I cannot stress that enough.
People were violent. There were a large number (hundreds) of unaccompanied young teens causing havoc. These were kids as young as 11-12 smoking in queues, swearing at staff, assaulting guests and staff and damaging the park. I heard some really bad stuff yesterday and I don't know how much I would believe if I hadn't witnessed some of it with my own eyes.
What I actually witnessed:
- A girl being pushed repeatedly in the Smiler Queue, probably somewhere in the range of 17-19 years old, she was in the queue behind us with her (presumably) boyfriend causing nobody any trouble. Then, these kids who had pushed through the line to get to the front finally reached us, they weren't letting them through and neither were we. So they began shoving her with both hands, calling her names and sorry, at this point it's genuine physical assault. We step in, tell them to get the &%*£ off her. What the hell just happened?
- Verbal abuse given to the staff, and this wasn't just from teens. Some of these were adults and there's even less of an excuse for it.
- Teens pushing in on Enterprise, again we didn't let them pass, we get abuse, they eventually leave the queue. Approximately 20 minutes after this the tweet appears with the large crowd of teens being broken up around Mix Tape and Enterprise, we're certain the troublemakers we encountered are in that group. Reports of a fight are heard.
- Teens kicking over bins in two areas, first on the path (near Roller Disco) that run along the top of the gardens to meet the 'bridge'. Second incident in the car park.
- Teens pushing in and threatening people in the queue for Hex. Security got rid of them.
- Teens pushing in on Spinball, the staff refused their rides (brave, given the scenes we'd seen elsewhere).
- Smoking in almost every queue, teens as young as... well not teens.
- Littering. Nothing compared to sexual assault, but I saw entire meals worth of rubbish (paper plates, cups etc) just discarded as soon as they were finished with, mere metres from bins.
What I heard, but did not directly witness:
- Sexual assault in the first room of Hex, in the dark. I have no reason to believe something a serious as this would be made up, and this is absolutely vile. Nothing on this list is nice, but this one takes the piss.
- Damage to theming. Given what I'd seen some rampaging groups do to bins, I don't doubt this for a second.
- Staff physically assaulted. Yeah, I'd seen it given verbally by a few, and some of these were in their 20s. Not to forget what I saw in the Smiler queue.
- Drunks, violent drunks. I never saw this myself but I guess that's why Alton had a dry day, they know it happens and want to do something to try and prevent it.
We knew something was odd when we arrived in the park and there were a lot more security guards than we expected, plus at least 3 groups of police officers wandering round... still, we didn't let this ruin our day and I hope most others didn't either, though some people experienced things that you just can't ignore (and we're happy to say we stepped in when we witnessed anything). Weirdly, the chaos never seemed to touch the Forbidden Valley, at least never when we were there anyway. We left the park thinking we'd had a genuinely great day, and for the most part loved it, unfortunately it's when we passed the turnstiles when it went really badly for us.
So, the monorail had finished for the day by the time we got their. We'd managed to get on Wicker Man at about 9.30, so by the time we'd made our way to the exit, the shops were shutting and the monorail had sent its last train loads. We had to do the walk, not a problem usually, we tend to walk it anyway.... yeah, not tonight. The teens were running rampage in the car park, the older ones were speeding through the car park, back and forth back and forth, not a damn given to the people trying to reach the relative safety of their cars. One van driver genuinely drove right at us. Why? Who knows, maybe they just thought it was funny... we didn't. There were crowds of idiots running round kicking all the bins over, shouting at people just trying to go home, and I began to worry about the car. I also felt awful for the staff manning the barriers out, yes they had security with them but that cannot have been a pleasant experience. Anyway, we get out of the car park and make our way to the A50 (one seriously dodgy dangerous overtake happened here), we're planning on having a quick McDonalds before the 2 hour drive home as we've not eaten since lunchtime... yeah, no. Lots of the same faces have met up at McDonalds, they're blocking most of the ways through the car park, there's rubbish everywhere and people shouting at each-other. The McDonalds isn't that important, we left immediately. We did stop at the next services to grab something quick from the BP garage, there are a few faces there too causing trouble and speeding around the car park, but only two cars. We quickly eat, then get the hell out of their. From leaving the park until getting a few miles down the A50, that was the first time I'd genuinely felt threatened in a very long time.
I'm sorry to dump this, it just had to be said. Some will probably wonder why I posted this in the YAY not the WTF thread, well because none of this was Merlin's fault. The park is actually looking its best in years as far as my experience goes, and the ride reliability was exactly what I'd expect from a major amusement park which is the first time I've been able to say that after a visit to a Merlin park in years. If you ignore the bad bits, the park felt magical for the first time in ages, the rides were reliable, the extras were really good, the food wasn't bad value for a park, the staff were jolly and the rides ran brilliantly.
