I visited Alton Towers more times than I ever had last year, going twice in August and for 2 days in October for Scarefest. If you don't know, it's my favourite UK park and is home to my favourite UK coaster (Smiler). I know an Alton Towers review is a bit of a generic post, but I've never talked about it before and also it means I can gush about their coaster lineup😂. So let's get going!
Towers opened from July-November in 2020, with main season until mid-September, Oktoberfest until early October and then Scarefest until the start of November. They also held a gardens event where Spinball and Cbeebies land were open into december. By August, the park had almost every ride open, just with many on lower capacity to facilitate the social distancing.
Oblivion was very fun (still has the best drop I've done on a coaster), but in recent years has started to feel a little bit outdated. I think some paint and a few adjustments could do wonders. Smiler on the other hand needs a bit more drastic of a paint job, but I think they can hold off on it a few years as it still looks pretty good otherwise. honestly the whole of X-sector is such a creative concept and storyline that a bit of work could make it my favourite park area! Enterprise wasn't open for a considerable portion of this year so I didn't get to ride it this season, however from previous rides I know it's good, but as everyone else says, Towers lacks other flats and could do with more.
Nemesis and Galactica were running better than normal, having ridden them for quite a few years, you can tell they're slightly starting to slip. But, after 4 rides on each in October, they really weren't rough at all, which felt great! They're 2 of my favourite UK coasters, with Galactica placing 22nd on my overall ranking and Nemesis being in my top 10. Nemesis, (in my opinion) is a world class coaster, with my only complaint of it being that it doesn't fully explain the storyline from the ride experience, but other than that it's amazing. Galactica is really fun too, just has a completely different theme to Nemesis so doesn't quite make sense being next to it. The Blade is really fun and a great thrilling, yet family friendly flat ride themed around the area well.
Dark Forest is one of my least favourite areas of the park, but it can be really fun. Th13teen is a great family coaster (especially at night), and Rita can be fun too (just a little bit rough round the edges). I really like the way the 3 main areas at Towers (Dark Forest, Forbidden Valley and X-Sector) contrast each other, just I feel Dark Forest doesn't live up to the others very well.
Wicker Man rode incredibly last season year, especially at night. The queues on it are quite bad (normally having a 60-150 min queue). I've heard a lot of people complain at it's roughness, but I personally didn't think it was that bad, and has to be expected on a wooden coaster anyway. I'm kinda on the side that the rattle is what makes it a wooden coaster, but then I really like Joris and that's not rough, neither is Zeus, so I don't really know😂
I did Duel quite a lot last year, and I really liked it! We even got stuck on it once and ended up getting pushed round some of it, but that's for another post😂. I do use the guns, but their not the best ones out there. I think the old-school ghost train style of Duel just works well with Towers. Hex was running just as well as normal, if anything, better with the distancing because it helped keep the right amount of people in each cycle. I didn't do the Dungeons this year (but I have before) so I'll probably do a Dungeons post on its own in the future If it's wanted.
Between my trips I got ample rides on everything, and night rides on all the coasters. Overall, Nemesis, Galactica, Wicker and Smiler gave the best night rides, but 13 was really good too, at night and not (however later in the day it had a stupidly long queue😂). We had an amazing time on every trip, so I'd give Towers a 4.5/5. If they either had a really good new permanent flat ride or a new large scale water ride I think they'd get a perfect score.
Did you go to Alton Towers in 2020? How was your trip, I'd love to know! Thanks for reading, I'll see you on the next one!
Cleo x
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