i am off to alton towers on the 16th of June..

I ma looking for a cheep ticket price over the net So far i have found a place doing tickets for £18.00 on this date.

360! (http://www.365tickets.com/attractions.cfm/attractId/280/afid/2hhbe)

not to sure if its a good site to buy tickets from or some money grabing exercise?

www.ihatework.co.uk

£15

It's a promotion that they are running themselves. It's not valid for weekends. At the moment it's set to expire on May 28th, but if I were you then I would keep an eye on it and see what happens after that date - they might change/extend it.

Well I went recently and if I remember rightly it's £28 on the gate, so that looks fairly reasonable.

A lot of people complain that the price of Alton Towers is too expensive, but it's a great day out, especially on a quiet day. If you compare it with the price of football tickets it looks like a bargain.

I'm going on monday!!!!
Think ours cost £16ish including delivery.

I don't think £28 is too much..

You use to pay that to go to Gatecrasher that is one of the mane resons why i don't go to that..

what about the site do you think its safe to buy from them..

you print your own tickets from home. I don't want to get down there and find out i have been had.

Ermmmmm... Print your own Ticket..

Very dodgy!

Best bet is booking through Alton Towers' site!

But what is it like getting on the rides !?

Don't you have to que for hours !?

Anyone got any tips (anything) to minimize time spent queing for the rides !?

Originally posted by Jamie
But what is it like getting on the rides !?

Don't you have to que for hours !?

Anyone got any tips (anything) to minimize time spent queing for the rides !?
If you go on a quiet day then there should be no massive problem with queues. By quiet, I mean in the middle of school term and midweek.

Even at the weekend the queues shouldn't be too bad, as long as you make the most of the 'virtual queueing' thing they do. Make sure you go around early and pick up tickets for the virtual queueing things because they close once all the tickets have gone and you'll have to join the full queue.

Me and my sister went on Easter bank holiday Monday, and it was pretty busy, but we never had to queue more than about an hour at the most extreme. If you have tickets for the virtual queues you should be more or less straight on everything.

Virtual Queue, or Fastrack as its called now only operates on premium days :/

Best bet is to go mid-week, or earlier in the year. Expect queues around holiday times. But say like this week the park is dead. This coming weekend should be fairly quiet but then again.. it also might not!

(Im a season pass holder ;))

Tip for not queuing on Air:

Use the single rider queue (ask the ride assitant stood at the top of the main queueling), fair enough you seperated from your friends 98% of the time but you get the smug glee of walking past all the fools who have just spent 90mins queuing :lol:

Always plan where you are going, Usually the best method is to head over to Forbidden Valley (nemesis, air, ripsaw etc.) do all those rides, then head over to Ugland around 11am to do Corkscrew etc. Then before 12 attempt both water rides and the mine train. If you want the water rides are better for queues after 3pm as well. Then head to Spinball Whizzer and finally x-sector.. once you've completed most of the rides you want to go on then look at the boards see which queues are the shortest and head to that area, or generally walk around.

Also, dont use the cross valley path! its knackering and you WILL get lost.

I went yesterday, didnt get any fastrack tickets and went on the following rides:

Black Hole
Oblivion (twice)
Submission
Enterprise
Corkscrew (uncomfortable as always)
Nemesis
Air (broke down whilst I was in queue, nothing new there then)
Ripsaw
River Rapids
Log Flume


and the cable cars twice if you count them!

Got sunburnt quite bad though as the weather was excellent. :)

Are there no offers on tickets this year? Last year you could get buy one get one free by collecting cornflakes tokens. I think it cost £18 for two tickets and there was hardly a que for any of the rides.:thumbsup:

Originally posted by duffman
Are there no offers on tickets this year? Last year you could get buy one get one free by collecting cornflakes tokens. I think it cost £18 for two tickets and there was hardly a que for any of the rides.:thumbsup:

Nope, there were too many problems last year with fraudsters :(

Originally posted by RPG
Nope, there were too many problems last year with fraudsters :(

Really? I never knew that. I would have thought the extra footfall would have outweiged the loss of 1 entree fee per sale though, a silly question but how do you fraud a piece of cardboard with four tokens stuck on it? I thought that wouldn't be possible.

Originally posted by dinp
Black Hole
Oblivion (twice)
Submission
Enterprise
Corkscrew (uncomfortable as always)
Nemesis
Air (broke down whilst I was in queue, nothing new there then)
Ripsaw
River Rapids
Log Flume
Funny you should say that, but Air was broken down while I was there too. It was operating, but only 1 station was working. Does it have a bad record?

Also the queue for Oblivion always seems to be short. Why is this? Is it because others like me don't dare to go on it? Or does it just let more people on at a time?

A teacher friend was saying that one of her kids has a yearly pass and they always go on a bank holiday.
It seems that most people think it will be mad and avoid going, so it is actually quite quiet. I dunno i wouldn't go anyway.

I'm going tomorrow!

I would highly recommend going mid week and when it first opens early on in the year. This time of year is full of end of school trips.

We went and stayed at the new hotel last year so we could go in the new waterpark - Cariba Creek and our stay included a saturday. We went into the park itself and it was horrendous!

We went about 4 weeks ago and it poured down all day. We were very very wet but got on practically everything and hardly had to que.

Also - Air is notorious for breaking down, going slow because of problems or only one 'car' working.

Me going to Alton Towers on Tuesday, don't know how much it is coz company is paying for it...

Did you have a good time Spook?

Setting off for alton towers in about 1/2 an hour,starting to get a little nervous.........:(

Lemme know what it's like:) I'm planning on staying in the hotel there with some friends in the next month or so. Gonna go lookin for ghosties. :o

The hotel's only a couple of years old, so I very much doubt there's any ghosts there yet...

we had a fantastic day! It was fairly quiet too which was good - tho suppose that may have had something to do with it being cup final day.

We went on:
Air
Nemesis
The Blade (old Pirate Ship)
River Rapids
Runaway Mine Train
Haunted House
Spinball Whizzer
Hex

All very good apart from the Haunted House which has had a bit of a makeover and you now to get to shoot things a la Quasar/Laserquest but is in fact bobbins.

Air seemed to be running smoothly whilst we were in that sector. Longest queue was 40 odd mins for the spinball whizzer but it was a laugh.

You now have to pay for parking, £3 standard or £6 priority. If you don't like waiting I'd definately go for the £6 parking, no monorail to catch you just go straight in and the exit bypasses all the people trying to get out at the same time.

Even had a bit of a wander around the gardens and house which are worth a look in themselves.

Was too chicken for Oblivion!

Oh and a word of advice, if you're looking for some scran on the way home don't go to The Blacksmiths Arms in Alton, it' s appalling!

Originally posted by spook
All very good apart from the Haunted House which has had a bit of a makeover and you now to get to shoot things a la Quasar/Laserquest but is in fact bobbins.
I thought it was quite funny, but the problem with it is that you're so busy shooting stuff that it's not at all scary.

Originally posted by spook
You now have to pay for parking, £3 standard or £6 priority. If you don't like waiting I'd definately go for the £6 parking, no monorail to catch you just go straight in and the exit bypasses all the people trying to get out at the same time.

Oh and a word of advice, if you're looking for some scran on the way home don't go to The Blacksmiths Arms in Alton, it' s appalling!

I dont have to pay for Parking :thumbsup: Ah the Joys of season passes :lol:

Best pub around there is "The Old Oak" or similar named in Farley :thumbsup:

Glad you had a good time!

Just got back about 1 1/2 hours ago,had a really amazing day,apart from the sun burn,lol. I was kinda suprised how busy it was,looked like there were a lot of people having sickies today!

Went on:-
Oblivion-twice
Air-twice
Hex
Black hole-3 times!! :loopy:
Runaway mine cart ;)

For someone whos a total roller coaster n00b and teriffied of them i didn't think that was to bad. Wouldnt have mined a go on spinball wizzer,but the que was like an hour all day. Air and Oblivion are fantastic. Nemasis looked a bit to daunting this time,definatly like to go again this year.:)

I used to love Oblivion too, but it just scares the life out of me now for some reason. I don't think i'll ever be able to go on it again :(

Nemesis is great though! By far the best ride there, you definately have to try it next time. :thumbsup:

This has got nothing to do with Sheffield!

Me and my boyfriend are wanting to go to Alton Towers at some point this year but neither of us can drive yet. Wondering if there was a good way to get there without a car??!!! xx

this coach company do a pick up at Sheffield interchange....cost for alton towers is £34.50 inc coach and entry to the park...enjoy!

http://www.andrews-of-tideswell.co.uk/

You could go by coach with "Andrews" this Saturday for £34.50

Get their day trip brochure from or book at

Travel Information Centre
Sheffield Interchange
150 Pond Hill
Sheffield
0114 2211522

You're best off going by coach. I went last wednesday with my partner and some friends by car, and now Alton Towers are charging £3 for you to park your car in the car park, or £6 to park it near the park itself!!! AND we had to wait an hour to get into the park coz the monorail was so slow and they only had YTS staff on the ticket booths. So we only had five hours to race around the park in the end. Still had a good day though, although Blackpool Pleasure Beach is better, in my own humble opinion. :)
P.S what does anyone think of Air? It wasn't worth the wait in the queue, we thought.

I agree littlewitch

Blackpool tourist board are so thick! They have more big rides that alton towers, theyre better rides than alton towers, its cheaper, it has a train station...yet they still fail to market to market it and put up with the image of a depleted seaside town...or go for the "were gonna be the new Las Vegas" angle.

They are badly missing a trick there.

Thanks everyone xx

Exactly BoyFace!
I love Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The great thing about it is if you buy a all day wristband, you can come and go as much as you like. Which means that when you get hungry, you are not forced to buy the overpriced food inside the park, but can go for a stroll along the beach and eat steaming bags of chips and huge icecreams with two flakes and raspberry sauce for loads cheaper!! You can then go back in and continue on the rides, with a little bit more money in your pocket, which you can then blow on the 2p machines in the arcade along the sea front when the sun's gone down and the park is closed for the night. Blackpool is ACE!!! :)

Off subject a bit but it seriously narks me when you get stung for car parking charges when you go somewhere. Alton Towers have you by the b*lls because you can't park anywhere else. At least at Blackpool you can park in any number of car parks or probably park on the street if you're prepared to walk a bit.
I went to the Lowry Theatre in Manchester last week for the first time. £8.50 for the ticket and £5.00 for parking. Same thing again, no where to park except the "official" car park. I emailed the Lowry to tell them - nice venue, lousy trick about the parking, won't be coming again.
Rant over......

Been looking at coach trips to alton towers (the andrews website). Theyve got a coach goin on the 24 of July (Saturday) and then the 27th Aug (Friday).

When do you think will be the best time to go?? I know they are both in the school holidays but i was thinking that maybe August will be quieter.

The best way is by central trains.

Its about £36 all in, and unlike a coach the travel back is "by any means" on the ticket so you dont have to leave early.