First off, Alton Towers is in the middle of freaking nowhere. I'm glad I had a friend with a car pick me up from the train station, because it was a few single lane roads (careful on the corners) and about 30 miles away. That's part of what gave this park it's charm though. Alton Towers is situated around what looks very much like a castle (but is described by historians not to be) and a set of beautiful gardens. It's very much not a traditional theme park as there is loads of green space, ponds, and forest to walk through. Each area of the park is quite spread out and you do a ton of walking here. It's a different experience than you'll really get anywhere else because of this. There are also odd rules that the park needs to follow because of its location. The people of Alton don't like knowing they have a theme park in their backyard, so all the coasters are set under the treeline (with the exception of Oblivion, barely).
Most of Alton Tower's rides are not the tallest, fastest, or loop the loopiest.
But they are all very unique, and that's what made this place a really enjoyable park. I'm going to apologize in advance for a lack of photos. I brought my camera with and charger, but naturally forgot my American adaptor for the charger, (for my phone too, so no pics there either) so I'll embed the four I actually took.
The first day was misty and pretty gross weather wise. It never actually rained hard enough to care or want to go inside though, which was good. Since we did stay at the hotel (which was quite nice) we were able to enter the park an hour early, and we went straight for Nemesis.
Nemesis
Easily one of the most unique roller coasters I've ever been on. It's a B&M invert that is best experienced in the front row. When it was build, deep ravines and tunnels were excavated for the coaster to create a ride that darts you under ground, around buildings and trees, and just about everywhere else.
I ended up riding Nemesis 7 or 8 times during the weekend. The front row created loads of head/hand/foot/arm/anyotherpartofyourbody choppers. One interesting thing about this coaster was that it didn't really have a huge "first drop" but more kept its speed the whole ride as it went further and further into the ground. This coaster didn't quite break into my top ten, but was definitely close. Very cool ride.
Air
One thing that Alton Towers has in common with SFGAm is that both are testing grounds for B&Ms. While SFGAm had Iron Wolf, Batman, and Raging Bull, Alton Towers has Air and Oblivion. Air was the first ever B&M flying coaster, and after being on five different flyers, I can confirm that this one is a heck of a lot different than the others. It's not necessarily very fast or tall, and you find yourself on your back quite a bit during the ride as well. Still, it delivers the flying experience that all the other flyers do , and keeps you very low to the ground and trees as well. Another note about Air is that it actually used its dual loading station (go figure, Six Flags) to full capacity and it was a thing of operational glory. The second one train hit the break run another train was heading up the lift hill. So efficient. It was great. That goes for most of the operations at AT though. All rides were running as many trains as possible, the crews moved quickly and rarely stacked trains. Kept lines moving great.
After Nemesis and Air we ventured over to ride Duel, a dark shooter ride which may show a bit of age, but is a ton of fun and VERY long. At the end my arm was getting seriously tired from holding up the gun. I love shooting rides, and this one was really good with props jumping out at you and a nice soundtrack inside.
That's another thing AT does right - the soundtracks are all specific for each ride and work really well. Having the right music can really make a ride better.
After Duel it was time to head over to the Dark Forest section of the park. This meant about a 15 minute walk through trees and near the gardens. If it weren't for the rain, Alton Towers would be a beautiful place.
The castle was home to a ride called Hex. If any of you went on Houdini's Great Escape at SFNE or SFGAdv it's a similar ride with a longer preshow focusing on a myth about the Towers themselves. Really cool ride and I love Vekoma Madhouses. They just mess with your perception so much.
Right - to the Dark Forest where the park's two newest coasters are - Rita and Thi3teen.
Thi3teen
I knew bits and pieces about this ride, but really not much more before I ended up riding it. I knew that it disappointed a lot of thrill seekers when it opened the year prior, but I wanted to go in with an open mind. I loved the themeing in the queue. Definitely had that "forest is haunted" feel to it (helps that there is a real creepy forest right next to the queue) with great music and a little girl that pops in every now and then to freak you out. The ride itself definitely had the feel of a grown up kiddie coaster. The outdoor portion was pretty weak, but then you find yourself inside a building where the entire train (track included) is dropped around 35 feet or so. The first time this happens is a pretty cool surprise, as you are combining a drop ride and a roller coaster together. Then the train is launched backwards in the dark outside until it hits the final brakes. Not the most thrilling coaster in the world, but once again - unique.
Rita
Rita was next, which is an Intamin accelerator coaster which was built 4 or so years back. It's got a real short launch track and probably only gets the train to around 55 mph or so, but it's got a fun little layout. The ride length couldn't be more than 20 seconds (but what Intamin accelerator is longer really), but I appreciated actually going on a launch coaster that included things like turns and twists and not just a tophat and brakes.
Was worth a couple extra rides although this coaster consistently had the longest queue in the park. Not because of its popularity I believe, but because it its capacity. While the rest of the park's coasters run atleast three trains (except Nemesis, which really only needs two), Rita runs two and still stacks them consistently. Good ride though.
The last ride of the day was Oblivion
I'm going to be honest. I didn't expect much out of this. It's B&M's first vertical drop roller coaster, but it's a one trick pony with the drop into the tunnel and then a turn into the brakes. I had already been on Griffon which is a solid ride and atleast twice the height, but Oblivion surprised me. The tunnel the train drops into is quite a bit deeper than you'd expect it to be, and couple that with the heavy fog that's pumped inside and you have no idea when the train will actually level out. So while my coaster riding brain is thinking that the train should have hit the bottom of the hill by now (probably thinking Raging Bull) it kept going that half a second longer which was a pretty nice thrill. Ended up doing this a few more times before we left as well.
There was also a coaster called Sonic Spinball which is a Mauer Sohne spinning coaster. Sort of like a wild mouse on steriods that shook the train a little more than I appreciated. Actually enjoyed the Sonic theme (and it was nice to hear an American accent again on the spiel) quite a bit as the queue had fun games for you to play while waiting. Ride was pretty fun, but a little rough. Only did this one once.
Another view of Nemesis in all its beauty.
The view when you first walk into the park. You can see the towers way in the distance, and with the exception of Sonic Spinball, all the roller coasters are located BEHIND the Towers. Just to give an idea of how spread out everything really is. The Skyride is your friend at this park.
Day two was much of the same. We were pretty hungover from the night before so we didn't get into the park until around noon, rerode Nemesis (x3), Air, Duel (x2), Oblivion, Rita, and Thi3teen before calling it a day and heading back to the train station. Overall I really loved Alton Towers. The resort is absolutely beautiful (it includes a nice indoor waterpark which we also enjoyed) and the park isn't your regular regional theme park. If you ever find yourself traveling in north England, you should definitely check this park out.
I'll have a TR up for Thorpe park later this week as I just got back from Fright Nights.
