As I’m originally from the UK and now living in the US, the Laulings go back to the UK at least twice a year. For the most part these trips are focused on seeing family and friends, which aren’t always the most exciting activities for the Laulings, and I want them to love Europe as much as I do. So now I make sure that for half of the trip we do something touristy. This time around, I decided to do a trip to Alton Towers theme park and a day at the caves in Castleton (reviewed separately).
Having grown up in the South of Manchester, UK, Alton Towers was a staple part of my childhood and I remember many day trips as a teenager, and I was lucky enough to experience the Corkscrew, the Black Hole, the Enterprise as my first upside down ride, and the longest log flume in the world. So I thought how cool would it be if my youngest Lauling also got to go on the Enterprise as his first upside down ride. My older Lauling was also stoked having seen a documentary on the making of the Wicker Man and so he was really excited to get to ride it.
We could have done Alton Towers as a day trip from Rainow, where we were staying, but I wanted to take the opportunity for the extra 30 minutes of early ride time given the park was scheduled to close at the early hour of 4 pm (and open at 10 am) by staying over for 2 nights. We went on the 26th-28th June, which was before the schools in the UK broke up, but is a time when there were quite a few school trips going on.
Where to stay
Alton Towers has 5 different accommodation options: the Alton Towers Hotel, Splash Landings Hotel, CBeebies Hotel, the Enchanted Village and the star gazing pods. The Splash Landings Hotel is closest to the monorail, the Alton Towers hotel is the next, and a bit more up-market than Splash Landings. CBeebies sits behind the Alton Towers hotel and is for pre-schooler age, and the Enchanted Village just beyond Alton Towers hotel (so further away from the Monorail) and the stargazing pods beyond that.
I opted to stay at the Alton Towers hotel, and I definitely liked that it has a table service restaurant rather than the buffet at Splash Landings, and was closer to the monorail than the enchanted village, but I definitely made a poor room choice. I booked the coca cola room, which had the bunk beds in a separate area from the adult’s bed and seemed much more spacious than the other themed room options. It was on the top floor, right outside the elevator, which plays music and talks to you, so you could hear that every time it opened. Fortunately there are only a few rooms on the top floor, so that definitely wasn’t the deal breaker. It overlooks the lake which at first you think ‘oh, great view’, until you realize that on nice summer days, which was what it was when we stayed, you are right over the bar. There is a bar to top floor atrium just down from the room, so you will hear the music in any of the top floor rooms until it stops at 10 pm. Then just when you think it’s going to be quiet, you can hear the people sitting outside the bar on the patio until 11.30 pm or so. And if it’s a hot day and you want to have the windows open, it will be even worse! So this is the perfect room if you are going to be those people at the bar, otherwise request to not be lake facing. Fortunately we were still somewhat on US time, so it wasn’t terrible for us, but it certainly was irritating at 11.30 pm on the second night!
We took a wander to the other hotels. The star gazing pods are tiny and very close together- I would skip unless this is the only thing you can afford. The enchanted village is a further walk from the park but the rooms look cute. I wonder how noisy it would be as they are all individual units and I can imagine people would be running around late at night but I had debated between these and the Alton Towers Hotel. The treehouses look awesome, but are super expensive. Great choice if you have a big group. Next time I might do a suite at Splash Landings or pick a moon room at the Alton Towers hotel.
The coca cola suite came with 6 bottles of coke and 6 of diet coke and a drawer of Roses chocolates and 4 helium balloons. It was super spacious and nicely themed. There were a couple of lego games for the xbox and 1 bathroom with two sinks.
The secret garden restaurant was table service for dinner and buffet in the morning.
Day 1
I booked us in to the indoor water park for our arrival day. It took about an hour to drive to Alton Towers, over some pretty narrow country roads, and we arrived around 11.30. I had booked us into the waterpark in advance and we headed straight there. There was no difficulty parking in the hotel car park. The waterpark is fairly small with one large pool, two splash areas; one for older and one for younger kids, and a lazy river. There is also a slide which you go down in a tube (double or single) but the Laulings didn’t want to do it. We spent most of our time in the pool and did a few loops on the lazy river. There is also an outdoor waterpark area which opened after lunch. We had left by that point and it was a pretty cool day to be out there. It wasn’t super crowded as it was a weekday and school wasn’t out, although there were still a decent number of kids there.
As we hadn’t checked in to the hotel, and we’d come from the US, we didn’t have towels.
Lauling Tip: Take your own towels otherwise you need to ask for them at the check-in desk and they cost £3 each! You also need a 20p for the locker (which you get back).
The Laulings were excited to check in to the hotel, so we left after about an hour and a half and had lunch at the bar at Splash Landings (mainly because the main buffet restaurant wasn’t open). It wasn’t very spectacular and was delivered in a brown bag to our table.
We headed over to the Alton Towers hotel around 2.45, with check-in officially starting at 3. I drove up to the front to drop off the bags and then found a parking spot in the circular parking lot right by the hotel. The check-in process was a little slow with only 2 people at the desk, but our room was ready so we were able to go straight up. We all liked the room a lot, although it had its negatives as reviewed earlier.
We had dinner at the Secret Garden, which was OK. Service was a bit slow as the restaurant was pretty busy. At least it had more variety than the park restaurants- both Gavin and I had the Penang curry. The naan bread was rather hard and tasteless, but the curry was nice. The kids had the usual kid food (chicken strips, mac n cheese, burgers…).
Day 2
We had booked an 8 am breakfast and the restaurant was pretty busy, but as it was a buffet it was fine to navigate and the food was plentiful. The buffet could have done with more fruit options, but other than that had a good mix of the usual hot English breakfast options, basic cereals and a few pastry options.
Lauling tip: Book breakfast and dinner in advance to secure the best times
After fueling up, we headed out for the day. The screen in the lobby will tell you whether Woodland walk is open or not; it was not while we were there. That is a path behind the CBeebies hotel that takes you in to the park, but the entrance isn’t always staffed. So instead we followed the green path markers to the monorail, which is right by Splash Landings. The Monorail stop is shared with the parking lots, so expect a lot of people. It hadn’t opened as we arrived at about 8.50, and the queue went around the back of the station. It moved quickly once it opened at 9 though and we were on it by 9.10 and at Alton Towers by 9.20. They were just opening the early ride time line as we got out of the station so we were able to head straight in.
Sadly, the Wicker Man had been down since the Thursday of the week before and was still not open. That would have been my ‘go to’ for the early ride time start, followed by the mine train which is just up the path from there. So instead, I decided we should knock out the CBeebie land rides, which were more for my youngest Lauling. We had a fastrack pass for day 2, which covered all the bigger rides, but not the CBeebie rides, and I figured this area might get busy given this caters to pre-schoolers who would be more likely to be in the park than the older kids who would still need to be in school.
We knocked out Postman pat first (cute, slow to load, definitely one to start with as lines on day 3 got as high as 45 minutes for this), followed by Peter Rabbit (several times), Vroomster zoo ride, Tree top adventures and then the Octonauts roller coaster. They were all walk on except for the roller coaster, which was a 10 minute wait. This got up to 50 minutes wait on day 3. They were all cute for little ones. Add the magical boat ride as that got up to over 60 minute waits on day 3. From there we headed to mutiny bay and did heave ho (rightfully named as it did make me want to heave by the end!) and then battle galleons. These were both walk on. None of the canons were working on battle galleons so you will only get wet, or even have that much fun if other boats are on it at the same time as you. We did get squirted by an on-shore canon at the end. From there we headed up to Hex. It was probably about noon by this point. Hex was also walk-on. The pre-show is a little scary so keep the littles close by. If you’ve done the Houdini ride at six flags, it’s the same concept as that. Take the time to explore the ruins of the house as you exit Hex. The chapel is open and you can see the restored roof art as well as some of the rooms of the house. You get nice views of the park from the towers roof as well.
The gardens 
Battle Galleons 
Wicker Man 
View from the top of Alton Towers Mansion
Then we crossed over to the Forbidden valley. The line for the skyride was really long, so we decided to walk, but got quite lost in the gardens, which got me a bit frustrated! We made it though and headed to Duel, the laser shooting ride. It’s a great concept, along the lines of buzz lightyear spin, (without the spinning cars) but is showing its age and is really just a sad carnival haunted house set-up. We then headed to mine train which was posting a 20 minute wait. It actually only took us 10 minutes to get on. This was by far the favorite ride for us all, and we went on a second time before heading to lunch at the nearby explorers pizza and pasta buffet around 1.30. We were seated immediately which was great. It’s a similar set-up to the buffet at Legoland Windsor, and the food was plentiful and hot and there was an ice cream machine included. The main negative was the soda was flat.
The next ride planned was the river rapids, but that was posting a 45 minute wait, so I decided to buy a one shot fast track for that. This can be done for most of the bigger rides through the Alton Towers resort app. It cost £6 per person. You pick a 15 minute window to arrive, so I chose 2.15, and you go through the shop next to the river rapids to enter at the disabled entrance. From there we were straight on, so the fast track was much faster than at Legoland Windsor. We wore our rain coats to prevent us from getting wet. It didn’t look like you’d ever get soaked due to the high sides of the raft and the fact that the water doesn’t come up that high, but it did splash our legs.
After this, we checked out the sealife center which was pretty impressive for a small facility and then the kids wanted to play in the training camp play area in cbeebies land, so we did that, with a final ride on Peter Rabbit before heading out just after 4. The park opening time did get extended to 4.30 that day, but by leaving early, we only had a short wait to get back on the monorail.
Note: your hotel stay also includes a round of mini-golf, which is housed next to the monorail station. We didn’t find an opportunity to use it however as it closed at 5 each day.
I had booked the roller coaster restaurant for dinner that night. So we showered and changed and then headed out for our 6.30 reservation. This restaurant is actually in the park. You follow the path past the monorail and there are sign posts to the back entrance of the park, entering near Nemesis. That gate is only open after 5. There are large bins/ trash cans blocking the pathway out of the Forbidden valley area, so don’t get any ideas of a late night park exploration.
The concept of the restaurant is great- it sends the food down tracks to each table, like a roller coaster. You order on an ipad. The downside is the food is fast food; burgers, pasta etc. It was fun to watch though and kept the boys entertained. The seating is quite tight and you share your roller coaster track with 2 other tables. It’s worth doing once for the novelty.
Overall, the food options were disappointing and I would have loved to have seen a more upmarket restaurant, more similar to the quality you’d get at Disney.
Day 3
Having been lucky enough to have a high 60s F day weather on day 2, and subsequently people up all night outside, the weather was similarly warm for day 3. We were up again for our 8 am breakfast but then had to pack up and check-out. We loaded everything in the car on our way to the monorail but were running 15 minutes later than we were on day 2. We got to the monorail around 9.05, so it was already open and the queue was only just outside the monorail entrance. However, it moved much more slowly than it had the day before. I realized when we go to the top why that was; 1) one of the queue directors liked to stop and chat to all the female drivers, 2) they waited for the train to get in before directing people to the cars, instead of having people already lined up for each car, as they had done the day before. So it was quite chaotic and showed either a lack of consistency in training, or poor performance on this crew’s part. We were on the train around 9.15, getting to the park at 9.25. The early ride time entrance was already open, so we headed straight in. There were staff outside the Wicker Man stating they were hoping to have it running later that day and to keep an eye on the app. I was quietly hopeful, but sadly, they never got it open. Of course, they did have it running the next day, after we left. On top of that, the Enterprise was also down and had been all season. It’s supposedly scheduled to be open in another 2 weeks’ time. So we weren’t able to achieve either of our goals!
We headed round the back of the Wicker man to the mine train and rode that about 7 times back to back, most times we just stayed on as the train wasn’t full. At 10 when the park officially opened, we headed next door to the rapids and did that as a walk-on. From there we headed to Duel, also walk on (always is!) and then to the Blade, which both Laulings loved so we did that probably 4 times, also not needing to come off for 2 of those as it wasn’t full. By this time it was 11 am and the app was showing all the big rides as having a 60+ minute wait. It didn’t help that Nemesis was also down on this day, along with Wicker Man, meaning two fewer rides than usual to distribute the crowds on. Fortunately I had a fastrack gold pass for this day for everyone, which gave us one ride on all the big rides and some of the smaller ones (Hex, river rapids, minetrain, enterprise had it been open, battle galleons and Marauder’s mayhem). The eldest Lauling and I took the skyride over to thirteen, while my husband and the youngest Lauling stayed on the Blade another time. Thirteen was absolutely awesome and different to anything I’ve ever experienced. It starts out as a regular coaster, and then stops in a ‘crypt’, and then the whole thing drops like tower of terror, and then it goes backwards in the dark. The fastrack pass was scanned and we were straight on the ride using that line. We both loved it! We then met daddy and the youngest Lauling and switched. Gavin and the older Lauling rode using the other two fastracks given the youngest Lauling was too small to ride. I took the younger one over to cloud cuckoo land and did the driving school, which was walk on surprisingly (the one at Legoland has huge waits and no Qbot option) and the frog hopper, which was very bouncy compared to peter rabbit! We then all met back up and went to Hex, using our fastrack. To enter that one you also follow the disabled entrance signs by cloud cuckoo land. After that it was about 1 pm so we did lunch at Wood cutters bar and grill. This was an order at the bar with table service restaurant. There was a wait to get the food, but it was a nice break.
We then headed up to battle galleons, which had about a 20 minute wait but we had a fastrack so we got straight on. It was much more fun this day as there were full boats to shoot at and be shot at from. We then used our fast track for one last ride on the rapids and mine train before having an ice cream on the front lawn and heading out around 4.10 again. The park was actually open until 6 pm this day, a 2 hour extension to the official closing time. The monorail return was staffed by the same numtys from the morning, and they were so not paying attention, the train we were in left with at least 2 cars completely empty….
So aside from a few staffing issues, I would definitely recommend Alton Towers. It was more efficiently run than LegoLand in general and the grounds are amazing; unlike any other park you’ll go to. Take the advantage of buying one off fastracks to help maximize your day as the crowds grow or buy the gold pass, and get there early to bang out a few of the big rides. We’ll be back to do the Enterprise and the Wicker Man!