r/altontowers

Weather turned out fine actually. Probably helped scare some people away. Lines were moderate. Managed 9 rides in total from 09:45-17:15

Food there is expensive.

Wickerman 8/10 - best theming, likes the intro scenes and introduction. Great start to the day, not super thrilling, but fun. Would recommend people start the day with this as it’s closest to the entrance.

Nemesis Reborn 9/10 - good theming art-wise but no story. Thrilling and a lot of fun with inversions. I enjoyed this a lot!

Toxicator 7.5/10 - initially looked very boring from afar, but it was the scariest ride for me surprisingly. Felt like I had to put my entire trust in the seat handles to not drop me into the ground! Butt clenching ride for me.

Smiler 9/10 - Probably one of, if not the best ride of the entire park. Good mixture of inversions, drops and speed. Didn’t feel too short. Theming is all over the place and had no coherent ‘story’. The design of the intro tunnel whilst lining up felt like an after thought. Line was the shortest here for me, so got to go 2x!

Galactica 7/10 - probably the biggest let-down for me. Lines were super long and the ride was…meh. Initial half was fun because the whole ride concept (lying/standing) was new and fresh for me. 2nd half of the ride was boring and I joked that I could sleep when it turned me facing skywards. The main gripe I have with it? Ride duration too short and the turnover time too long. Felt like the track could’ve been longer and theming done a bit better (there was essentially no theming apart from a donut hole).

Nemesis Sub-Terra 6/10 - honestly, I really enjoyed it (esp the first part). But it felt incomplete. It felt very rushed and random. Fun however and I would recommend.

The Curse 1/10 - it made a 4 year old cry. Don’t even waste your time on this. Bad props and effects for a hunted house train ride. A skip for me.

Oblivion 8/10 - Probably the scariest experience of the park. Very thrilling! Only issue was once again, it felt like an incomplete ride and was too short.

thanks for listening

This Easter break, in addition to the theme parks (not even going to comment on the absolute state of Towers - Thorpe and Chessington were running well, though), we decided to visit some of Merlin’s “gateway attractions” in London as we are MAP holders and live in the southeast.

A common theme at all of them (excluding Madame Tussaud’s which we didn’t make it to) was rude, unhelpful staff. I’m not saying everyone at the theme parks exudes joy, but they at least respond when you greet them/speak to them and just have basic manners.

At London Dungeon, one of the two obnoxiously rude staff at the front entrance totally ignored us when we greeted them, and only spoke to complain about people “getting in free” when we produced our MAPs. I’m sorry, but as Passholders we quite literally pay (at no small cost) through our membership? This attraction had by far the rudest staff. The actors inside were great, though - credit where it’s due. The actual “tour” was much better than Edinburgh Dungeon.

Pop badges - forgive the rant but this really irked me, especially attending with children who were excited to get new badges for their lanyards. None of the attractions we visited had pop badges for Passholders, which was disappointing.

At the London Dungeon, Shrek’s Adventure and The London Eye, we found a mixture of some staff who said they were out of stock (a staff member at The London Eye said “permanently”), to many more who didn’t seem to have a clue about the pop badges at all, even after we explained what we were asking for. At The London Eye, another staff member told us to “just buy one on eBay” - this is literally what Merlin instructs Passholders *not* to do.

My personal favourite was the London Aquarium (now branded as a SEA Life) which claimed to no longer issue them “because of the plastic” (it’s a Merlin attraction and the badges are available to Passholders at all attractions).

I would get on board with the ‘let’s reduce plastic and save the oceans’ thing if it weren’t greenwashing (and cost cutting), because throughout the aquarium there were stands selling sweets and drinks all wrapped in plastic and vending machines at various points full of single use plastics (photo attached for lols) - not to mention the fact that they’re flogging a load of plastic tat in the gift shop. All of this is likely to end up in landfill (or the oceans), unlike the pop badges which are kept/reused.

Once they’ve sorted out the many other more pressing things, Merlin need to sort out the gateway attractions and retrain their staff (and get some pop badge stock in - we’ve missed out but others shouldn’t).

Honestly, I wonder what’s the point of being a MAP holder sometimes. I regret that I have to fund this shoddy company to access many theme parks.