Ideas for Visiting Alton Towers

Alton Towers is certainly one of our favorite theme parks within the UK. It’s residence to an excellent many rides and points of interest, from the kid-friendly rides and reveals in CBeebies Land to the high-octane thrill rides such because the Smiler and Nemesis Reborn.

It’s the largest theme park within the UK, and we’ve have been fortunate sufficient to go to Alton Towers on many events.

On this information, we’re going to share you with all our ideas to assist make sure you get essentially the most out of your Alton Towers go to, from discovering your method across the park via to creating positive you get to journey all of the rides you need to journey, even on a busy day.

This information is concentrated particularly on ideas for visiting Alton Towers.

If you happen to’re searching for extra particulars on the park, together with details about all of the rides, eating places, opening occasions, ticket costs, our opinions and extra, take a look at our full information to visiting Alton Towers.

That information goes into an excellent deal extra element concerning the park typically, while this information focuses particularly on sharing tricks to get essentially the most out of your go to.

15 Ideas for Visiting Alton Towers

Alton Towers Resort is situated in central Staffordshire in England (about midway between Birmingham and Manchester) and is the biggest theme park within the UK. The Alton Towers theme park sits on over 550 acres of land, with the bigger resort space totaling 910 acres.

A go to to Alton Towers is usually a particular journey with household and associates searching for a enjoyable day or two. For a lot of it is usually a major funding of their hard-earned time and money.

We’ve visited Alton Towers a number of occasions through the years and we needed to offer ideas and recommendation that will help you take advantage of your go to to Alton Towers and get essentially the most out of your day.

These embrace tips on the best way to plan forward, save time, get monetary savings, keep away from surprises, and hopefully assist keep away from any tantrums!

 

Purchase Tickets & Parking in Advance

If you wish to get one of the best worth for tickets, you’ll positively need to e-book your tickets prematurely on the official website right here.

Tickets purchased on-line are practically all the time considerably cheaper than shopping for them in particular person on website. Shopping for your tickets prematurely additionally means you may go straight to the turnstile and skip any line for the ticket workplace.

It’s additionally value noting that Alton Towers operates a dynamic pricing system, so on busier peak days tickets are usually costlier, and on quieter days tickets might be cheaper. If you happen to might be versatile together with your dates, you would possibly discover that selecting a special day in your go to can prevent some cash.

We additionally advocate buying parking prematurely in case you are not staying on website (parking is included for on-site resort company). While there’s no saving for doing so, it saves you having to pay for parking on website.

The Alton Towers Dungeon (situated inside the park however requires an additional ticket) tickets are additionally cheaper if booked prematurely than if bought in-person on the day. They’re at the moment £2 per particular person cheaper on-line than in particular person.

 

Make a Basic Route Plan for the Day

Alton Towers is unfold out over a big space, and it may well take some time (typically so long as half an hour) to stroll from one journey to a different. So it’s a good suggestion to plan out your normal day and have a normal route plan for what you need to go to and in what order.

Because you presumably need to spend extra time having fun with the rides and points of interest than strolling, it’s a good suggestion to have a normal plan in your day on the park. Spending a while wanting on the park map both on the park’s web site or within the park’s app will help you intend your route and prevent time on the day.

Alton Towers is specified by totally different zones, every of which has a special theme and every of which accommodates various rides and points of interest. You’ll be able to study extra about all of the zones and particulars of each journey in my detailed Alton Towers information.

Relying in your group, you might or could not find yourself visiting all of the zones. For instance, in case you are visiting with youthful children, you might be doubtless going to spend extra time in CBeebies Land and The World of David Walliams and never a lot time within the X-Sector and the Darkish Forest.

So a normal plan is perhaps one thing like this “Buy tickets and parking prematurely. Arrive at park at 9:30am, begin in CBeebies Land, break to have a packed snack, then go to World of David Walliams, stroll to Mutiny Bay and purchase lunch there, spend the remainder of day break up between Mutiny Bay and Katanga Canyon (save water rides for final!).”

Nonetheless, in case you are visiting with youngsters and adults who meet all of the journey top necessities, you’re doubtless going to be heading for the larger rides.

A normal plan for Alton Towers if visiting the bigger rides and staying in a single day on website is perhaps as follows.

“Have breakfast in resort at round 8am and head over to park for 9am opening with pre-booked tickets. Use visitor resort entrance. Be a part of queue for most well-liked journey in Forbidden Valley, then do remaining Forbidden Valley Rides. Head to Darkish Forest for the fun rides then have lunch at Woodcutter Grill. After lunch head to Wicker Man, then end the day at X-Sector”.

In fact, relying on how busy the park is and whether or not or not you’ve gotten Fastrack Passes you’ll have to alter your schedule. On very busy days with out Fastrack passes you may not be capable to do greater than 3 or 4 large rides in a day. Conversely, on a quiet day or you probably have a Fastrack Move it is possible for you to to slot in extra rides.

In case you are wanting to go to the Alton Towers Dungeon (additional ticket wanted), be sure you permit about an hour for that.

Having an concept of which rides you need to do as a bunch is a good begin in your go to. You’ll be able to then take a look at the map of the park and determine which areas it’s essential go to.

It’s positively a good suggestion to journey all of the rides in a particular space that you simply need to do earlier than transferring on to a brand new space. In any other case you’re going to spend extra time strolling between areas quite than experiencing the points of interest.

For these with any form of accessibility or incapacity challenge, we extremely advocate studying the Alton Towers accessibility information, advisable routes, and insurance policies. Ask any questions you might have prematurely so you’re ready on the day of your go to.

 

Obtain the Alton Towers App

While I’m nonetheless not satisfied that all the pieces on the earth wants an app, I’ve to say that the Alton Towers app is fairly first rate, and essential when visiting the park.

It has a variety of performance that can enhance your go to, from dwell journey queue occasions, to managing your journey images, to a useful map and navigation function that can get you in all places within the park you need to go.

There’s free WiFi throughout Alton Towers, so that you don’t want to fret about knowledge utilization. The app can be free to obtain and use.

While a number of the data within the app can even simply be discovered within the park, different issues like journey queue occasions are a lot simpler to search out within the app. Having all the knowledge in your pocket can actually assist when deciding which journey to go to subsequent.

The app might be downloaded right here.

 

Arrive Early / Go away Late

To take advantage of your time at Alton Towers you must plan to reach early after which ideally keep till the park closes. The longer you might be on website, the extra it is possible for you to to see and do, and the extra worth you’ll get out of your ticket.

It’s essential to notice that while rides typically begin working at round 10am, the park itself really opens at 9am. So you may go into the park and be a part of the queue for the primary journey you need to go on. Or simply seize a espresso or wander the gardens.

For closing, relying on the time of 12 months and day, the park usually closes at 4pm or 6pm (for particular occasions it may well additionally keep open later than this). Nonetheless, this closing time is the final time you may be a part of a journey queue, not the final time the journey runs. So in case you are nonetheless in a line after closing time, you must nonetheless get to do the journey.

Now, if it’s essential depart the park for any motive, similar to to go to your automobile or let the children have a nap, you then simply must be sure to get a hand stamp from an admission employees member earlier than you exit so you may reenter later. So you may take a break and return. This makes essentially the most sense for these staying in a single day on the Alton Towers Resort.

We predict that benefiting from your time at Alton Towers makes a variety of sense as you’ve gotten invested a good bit of cash into your go to, so ought to get the utmost worth from it.

 

Perceive any Trip Restrictions

Most theme park rides have minimal top restrictions for riders resulting from well being and security causes. A number of of the rides even have most top restrictions.

In case you are visiting Alton Towers with anybody who is perhaps affected by the journey top restrictions, for instance kids or these over 6 toes tall, then it’s a good suggestion to do a little analysis prematurely as to which rides are going to be appropriate for the entire group. You’ll be able to see all of the journey top restrictions on the official website right here.

This can keep away from you losing time going to rides that you could’t all journey collectively. Understanding which rides your children can and might’t journey will help keep away from a variety of tears and disappointment.

Understanding which rides are appropriate for which members of your group may also mean you can divide your group up if you want, so everybody will get to expertise the points of interest they need to, and no-one will get upset about lacking out or having to attend round.

 

Plan your First Trip

In case you are a thrillseeker and wish the get essentially the most out of your day at Alton Towers, it’s actually essential that you already know what you want to your first journey to be. We’d advocate selecting the journey which is more likely to have the longest traces because the day progresses.

While it may be exhausting to know precisely which rides might be hottest on any given day, as a normal rule of thumb the newer extra thrilling rides are likely to have the longest traces.

For instance, the Smiler and Nemesis Reborn are usually very fashionable rides with lengthy wait occasions. So if these rides are in your to-do listing, we advocate heading to these rides as quickly as you arrive and becoming a member of the road. This could get you onto these rides rapidly.

For example, on a latest go to to Alton Towers I joined the road for Nemesis Reborn at 9.30am and was using by 10.10am, solely 10 minutes after the journey opened. Later within the day, journey wait occasions had been over 2 hours for that journey.

For these centered on the smaller rides and rides geared to youthful kids, lengthy traces are typically much less of a priority. However it may well nonetheless be a good suggestion to start out with the rides your children need to journey most.

 

Take into account the Fastrack Passes

In case you are visiting Alton Towers on a busier day, similar to a faculty vacation or a weekend, then the queue lengths for lots of the rides are more likely to be pretty lengthy.

By pretty lengthy, we imply 1 – 2 hours wait time for the extra in style rides. The most well-liked rides are typically the fun rides and massive themed rides, however even the smaller rides can have lengthy wait occasions on a busy day (or if they’re new to the park).

The excellent news is that you could skip the vast majority of the traces by investing in a Fastrack Move. There are a selection of Fastrack passes out there, that are named Bronze, Gold, Silver and Platinum.

The cross you select will rely upon which rides you actually need to journey, in addition to your finances. It’s additionally attainable to purchase a single Fastrack cross on a per journey foundation for lots of the rides, which generally is a good approach to journey a particular journey rapidly for those who don’t need to spend money on an entire Fastrack cross.

Apart from the Platinum Fastrack cross, all the opposite passes permit you one entry to the particular Fastrack line for every journey that has Fastrack. Nearly all of rides do have Fastrack, except the CBeebies Land rides and a number of the different smaller rides.

The Platinum Fastrack cross is the one cross which lets you use the Fastrack line as many occasions as you need for every journey. It’s additionally the costliest, and actually aimed toward those that need to journey as many rides as attainable, a number of occasions in a day.

We now have visited Alton Towers on a really busy day, and the wait time for lots of the rides was nicely over an hour, with many rides having two hour wait occasions. With our Fastrack passes, we largely obtained onto rides in 5 or ten minutes. So for us it made an enormous distinction, which means as a substitute of using three or 4 rides within the day, we had been capable of journey each journey within the park.

In fact, the Fastrack Passes gained’t make sense for everybody. We’ve visited Alton Towers on quiet days the place wait occasions are often not more than 20 minutes for a journey, wherein case a Fastrack Move makes much less sense.

You should purchase Fastrack Passes prematurely of your go to right here. You too can purchase them in particular person on website, nevertheless you ought to be conscious that the Fastrack passes do come from a restricted pool and so they can promote out.

In case you are visiting throughout peak season and also you do desire a Fastrack, then shopping for prematurely is a good suggestion to make sure you get the Fastrack Move you need.

 

Pack a Smartphone Charger

The probabilities are that you will be utilizing your Smartphone so much at Alton Towers. You’ll be taking images and movies of your adventures, utilizing the Alton Towers app to test journey occasions and discover your method round, and much extra apart from. And all that use goes to empty the battery.

While there are charging stations out there at Alton Towers for a price, we predict a way more smart answer is simply to spend money on a transportable battery pack in your telephone. These can cost your telephone from flat a number of occasions over (relying on the capability), and imply you’ll be capable to maintain utilizing your telephone all day with out fear.

There are a variety of choices on the market, we at the moment use one like this which labored nicely to cost our telephones and our associates’ telephones on a latest go to to Alton Towers.

 

Make a Meals Plan

Along with making a normal plan about what rides and attraction you need to go to prematurely, it is usually a good suggestion to consider what and the place you need to eat.  Pondering forward can prevent money and time.

There are a variety of meals distributors and eating places within the park open through the day, from scorching canine and ice cream stands to take a seat down eateries just like the Woodcutter’s Bar and Grill and the Rollercoaster Restaurant.

It may be a good suggestion to take a look at the park map and have a normal plan for lunch so if there’s a particular place you need to eat, you can also make your approach to that space for lunchtime.

If you wish to get monetary savings (and possibly a while), take into account bringing alongside your individual meals and snacks.

Alton Towers has a number of totally different picnic areas, and you might be greater than welcome to deliver your individual meals to the park. This may be an effective way to economize in your go to, particularly in case you are visiting as a bunch or household, as meals prices for a number of individuals can rapidly add up.

 

Carry a Refillable Water Bottle

You will be doing a variety of strolling at Alton Towers, and it’s going to be a protracted day. So that you positively need to keep hydrated.

Somewhat than having to pay for drinks or purchase bottles of water, you may deliver your individual refillable water bottle after which use the water refill stations that are dotted all through the park. We use these water bottles by Klean Kanteen, however there are tons to select from.

In case you are planning to purchase gentle drinks within the park, you would possibly be capable to get monetary savings by utilizing the Coca-Cola Refill stations all through the park.

To make use of these, it’s essential buy one of many refillable Coke Freestyle cups (priced at £15 throughout our final go to) after which you may drink as a lot as you want. You need to use the identical cup on future visits for a decrease per day price.

 

Keep In a single day

One actually good approach to take advantage of your time at Alton Towers is to remain in a single day, both at one of many on-site accommodations (see and e-book all of the choices right here) or at a close-by resort.

We now have accomplished each, and so they every have their execs and cons.

Staying two nights could make it simpler to get there early and keep till closing the park with out worrying about heading residence.

If you happen to solely select to remain one evening, we’d advocate making it the evening earlier than your go to. This fashion you’ll be capable to enter the park at opening time and take advantage of your day.

Lodging at Alton Towers

Staying on website at one of many Alton Towers resort accommodations positively has its benefits. First, the accommodations are all themed, so your general expertise might be prolonged. The theming extends from the principle areas via to every room, and there’s additionally leisure on supply within the resort areas as nicely.

One other benefit of staying on website is that it provides you time to get pleasure from a number of the different points of interest on website that you simply may not in any other case have time to get pleasure from.

These embrace the Splash Landings water park and the park themed Mini Golf. We’ve accomplished each of those when staying in a single day and suppose they’re each value experiencing.

If you happen to keep on website, you additionally get free on-site parking, which can prevent a bit of cash in case you are driving to Alton Towers.

Lastly, one of many predominant benefits of staying in one of many on-site accommodations is that you could enter the park by way of the resort visitor solely entrance, which is close to the resort monorail cease.

This entrance brings you into the park proper subsequent to Galactica and Nemesis Reborn. If these rides are in your to-do listing, then you may are available in early and be a part of the road for them earlier than anybody else.

It additionally means you don’t must queue for the monorail, or stroll to the principle park entrance. On busy mornings the monorail queue might be 40 minutes lengthy, whereas the stroll to the principle park entrance from the accommodations is round 20 minutes. So you may skip all that and be straight into the park as a substitute.

For extra data and an in depth breakdown of what every resort has to supply, see my full Alton Towers information.

You’ll be able to e-book the resort accommodations as a part of a package deal together with your park entrance right here. They typically run presents via the 12 months, so do take a look at what’s on supply as you would possibly be capable to avoid wasting cash in your go to.

 

Lodging close to Alton Towers

As a substitute of staying on website, you can too keep at a close-by resort. We now have additionally accomplished this, staying round 10 minutes drive away on the evening earlier than our go to.

This allow us to arrive early and meant I obtained to journey Nemesis Reborn as one of many first riders with solely a brief wait, quite than the 2 hour wait that occurred in a while.

The principle benefit of staying exterior the park is that you simply get a wider alternative of lodging, it may be higher worth, and it’s going to be a extra conventional resort expertise. Relying on the resort, it could even be a little bit of a quieter and extra stress-free expertise because the on-site accommodations are very fashionable with households.

Each might be good choices that are nicely value contemplating in your Alton Towers go to. In case you are considering a resort, listed here are some suggestions within the space, sorted by approximate driving distance from the resort:

• The White Hart – a well-liked inn within the village of Alton, providing a spread of en-suite rooms. 7 minutes’ drive from Alton Towers
• The Laurel’s B&B – This can be a well-rated B&B which serves breakfast. Rooms are en-suite with tea/espresso making amenities. 8 minutes’ drive from Alton Towers
• The Bay Tree – a really well-reviewed B&B with en-suite lodging and breakfast out there. 8 minutes’ drive from Alton Towers
• Peakstones Inn – This 3* resort presents a spread of en-suite rooms and there’s an on-site restaurant and bar. Breakfast is out there. 10 minutes’ drive from Alton Towers.
• Heywood Corridor – This property presents various self-contained flats, every with a small kitchen an en-suite lavatory. There’s additionally a scorching tub and backyard for company use. 12 minutes’ drive from Alton Towers.
• Whiston Corridor – A former nineteenth century corridor which has been transformed into a contemporary mid-range resort with its personal golf course. A variety of en-suite rooms can be found, and breakfast is obtainable. We loved our keep right here and the meals specifically was superb. 13 minutes’ drivee from Alton Towers.
• The Duncombe Arms – This pub/resort is present in Ellastone and presents air-conditioned rooms with espresso machines and en-suite amenities. Breakfast is out there and there’s a restaurant and bar for different meals. 13 minutes drive from Alton Towers
• The Royal Oak – This inn presents a spread of snug rooms within the city of Ashbourne. There’s a restaurant and bar on website with meals out there. 19 minutes’ drive from Alton Towers.
• YHA Ilam Corridor – This youth hostel is present in a gothic corridor set in 84 acres of parkland. There’s an on-site breakfast, kitchen for self-catering, and a alternative of shared or non-public lodging. 22 minutes’ drive from Alton Towers.

In fact, there are tons extra choices to contemplate. You’ll be able to see a full vary of lodging choices close to Alton Towers on Reserving.com right here, which incorporates various vacation leases as nicely.

 

Make Meal Reservations if Staying In a single day

If you happen to resolve to remain at one of many on-site accommodations, you’ll want to make meal reservations prematurely of your go to. This consists of breakfast and dinner mealtimes.

The eating places get busy, so reservations are required to ensure that them to have the ability to guarantee everybody has a great expertise. Reservations are free, and detailed details about the best way to e-book might be despatched to you as a part of your reserving affirmation.

The extra in style occasions, similar to round 7:00pm to 7.30pm for dinner and round 8am for breakfast, e-book up quick, so if you need extra alternative, we advise reserving nicely prematurely. You’ll be able to all the time change the time of your reservation for those who change your thoughts, topic to availability.

Whilst you can nonetheless typically eat and not using a reserving, it may be a protracted watch for a desk otherwise you may not get your alternative of a restaurant.

 

Take into account the Digital Picture Move

If you wish to have recollections of your time at Alton Towers, then we’d recommend investing in a Digital Picture Move in your go to. While you may clearly take images throughout the park, the one place the place images is strictly forbidden is on the rides.

The excellent news is that every one the rides have their very own images techniques in place, often positioned to seize a key second through the journey the place you’re looking most excited or terrified. Naturally these could make for some memorable pictures! Moreover, there are some particular points of interest with a photograph shoot factor, similar to in CBeebies Land, the place you may have extra images taken of your go to.

The Digital Picture Move provides you entry to all of the journey images out of your day at Alton Towers, for you and anybody in your group. The images are all delivered digitally by way of the Alton Towers app, and you’ll then share them with associates digitally, or print them together with your most well-liked print service.

On a latest go to to Alton Towers as a bunch of six (4 adults and two children) we ended up with over 100 digital pictures between the six of us, which made the Digital Picture Move greater than value it.

The principle tip I might give could be to have all of the images taken and added to the app, after which on the finish of the day you may resolve if you wish to pay for them. Earlier than you pay for them they are often previewed in a small model with a watermark. If you happen to resolve you just like the images, you may pay to unlock greater decision variations with no watermark. In any other case, for those who don’t like them, you don’t must pay.

The images keep within the app for 90 days after your go to, so you’ve gotten loads of time to resolve. After you have bought, they then stay within the app for a further 12 months, throughout which era you may obtain them to your system and maintain them perpetually.

You’ll be able to after all additionally purchase the Digital Picture Move prematurely of your go to or throughout your go to. It’s usually offered as an possibility once you purchase your tickets.

Nonetheless, until you might be 100% sure you’re going to need the photographs, our advice is to attend till you see all of them earlier than deciding to purchase.

 

Be Ready for Solar & Rain

The climate in England is notoriously fickle, even within the top of summer time. We’ve had experiences the place we visited Alton Towers throughout two days, with the primary day being pouring rain and the second day being gloriously scorching sunshine.

So that you simply by no means know fairly what you’ll get, and the climate forecast isn’t all the time going to get it proper. So we advocate being ready for a spread of eventualities. We’d typically recommend contemplating packing the next, which you’ll be able to alter relying on the time of 12 months you might be visiting:

 

Take Benefit of Free Exhibits and Leisure

Alton Towers has much more to supply than thrilling rides. There are additionally various free reveals and different sorts of leisure on supply, a lot of that are good in case you are visiting the park with youthful kids.

These reveals generally is a good approach to take a break and sit down while being entertained. Exhibits range, however embrace dwell motion reveals such because the Furchester Lodge, Hey Duggee, Bluey, and Teletubbies reveals. Most of the reveals additionally embrace the chance to take a photograph with the characters.

Moreover, there’s a dwell stage arrange subsequent to the Alton Towers lake which frequently hosts performances. It would be best to test the schedule once you arrive to see what’s on in your explicit day.

In case you are staying in one of many on-site accommodations, then the celebration doesn’t cease once you get again for the evening. Every resort usually has dwell performances every evening so that you can get pleasure from as nicely.

 

Additional Studying

That’s it for our ideas for visiting Alton Towers! We hope you discovered it helpful.

Earlier than you go, we needed to share a number of of our different guides that you simply would possibly discover helpful.

• We now have an entire information to visiting Alton Towers, which has all the pieces it’s essential know. It consists of data on all of the rides, accommodations, actions and much extra.
• For wider UK journey planning, we’ve prompt one week and two week UK itineraries
• We now have guides to many different cities in England. See our information to issues to do in Manchester,  issues to do in Stratford upon Avon,  issues to do in Bristol,  issues to do in Portsmouth, tips about a weekend in York, tips about Visiting Oxford on a Day Journey, and issues to do in Cambridge
• If you happen to’re heading to Scotland, take a look at our 2 day Edinburgh itinerary, our Glasgow and Loch Lomond itinerary, our information to the greatest day journeys from Glasgow, our information to issues to do in Edinburgh, our itinerary for Skye and the Highlands, our information to the greatest day journeys from Aberdeen, and our information to one of the best day journeys from Edinburgh to get you began. We even have a information to getting from London to Edinburgh.
• We now have a information to 10 of one of the best Stately Houses in England, a few of which aren’t that removed from Alton Towers

And that’s it! Have you ever ever visited Alton Towers? Do you’ve gotten something you’d add to the above, or a query about an upcoming go to? Simply tell us within the feedback under!