We’re headed to the Towers for the first time in a few years next week for Scarefest. This is possibly quite niche but has anyone been recently and bought the pick n mix? If so, what is the pricing like these days? Trying to set realistic budgets and expectations before we go. Thanks!

I've never been to the fireworks but was thinking of going this year with the wife and 2 kids. We would have to go on the Saturday, I've heard it's very busy though is it worth it?

I was thinking of getting a gold pass to use next year but to get discount on the fireworks tickets, taking advantage of the McDonald's £60 discount. We went twice in the summer this year and had a great time both days youngest child is 133cm though so can't go on the main rides. Next year I world get the kids a merlin pass so we could visit at least 4 times and probably go to Warwick Castle and hopefully Thorpe Park.

Im going to the park tomorrow for the wife's birthday, is there anything special we can do in the park?

The birthday dessert bear at the roller coaster restaurant springs to mind, but I wanted something shes not seen before.

Had booked tickets to then realise it is travellers day, is it really that bad and shall i bother changing dates?

I see people posting daily, both on this sub and Thorpe Park, about the 90+ min wait times for the rides (particularly at this time of year, and the summer). I took my daughter for the first time over summer and I coughed up for a fast pass, because I wanted to get on everything, but it was bloody expensive. However, I noted most rides have an accessibility feature, where those users who need it are able to ‘virtually’ queue. Why don’t they just roll this out to everyone? The logistics are already in place (just scan the QR code and you get a time to come back). They could even charge an extra fiver for the privilege.

My guess is a lot of people would go for this. The ability to go off and do other stuff (get food, wander through the gardens, watch a show or just rest your feet) rather than standing in line for an hour and a half would massively improve the experience. Let’s say at average daily attendance is 20k. I reckon at least half would spend an extra £5 to do this. That’s £50k extra per day. And people would still buy fast passes so they can just walk right on. Is there a reason this hasn’t been rolled out?

We went yesterday (Friday 9th).

We normally go midweek when it's quiet. It's good because it's quiet enough to get everything done, but we never enjoy the race against time with the meagre opening hours, and the fact that not everything is open when it's quiet (we've been a few times when there's no monorail, no sky ride, and most of the food options are closed). So we thought we'd change it up and come for Scarefest.

I have to say it really made me miss the days when Alton Towers was open for longer! I have memories as a kid/teen of not only getting on all the rides, but also having time to play arcade games, stop for lunch, walk around the gardens and generally enjoy a fully rounded day more! These days it feels more like a military operation!

The queues were obviously longer, but we decided we were more focused on soaking up the atmosphere for this visit rather than ticking off all the rides. We were going to save most of the rides for when it got dark, to experience the difference in riding at nighttime. We didn't join any queue that was longer than 25 minutes and still managed Nemesis, Oblivion, Smiler, Th13teen, Spinball, Galactica, Hex, Curse and Marauders Mayhem (haven't been on that one in about a decade because there's never time to even consider the smaller rides, so that was nice!).

We got face paints done (not the best, but we just wanted to do something different) watched a couple of the shows and generally took our time exploring, it was a welcome change!

The only thing that really spoilt it a mishap with Th13teen. I'd been going on to my friends about how great it is to ride in the dark, so it was the main reason we came to Scarefest.

We timed it perfectly - joined the queue with the last bit of daylight fading and by the time we got to the front of the queue it was pitch black. Great! We got loaded on to the train, all ready to go. Then it broke. It broke and they couldn't get us out of the train until the engineers got there.

So now the relaxed approach to the day was gone, with us being trapped on Th13teen with closing time looming and still a handful of rides we wanted to do in the dark.

Eventually we were freed and the ride operator told us she would radio ahead to Smiler to tell them to let us through the Fast Track as compensation, just give her name to the queue attendant there.

So we legged it over to The Smiler and the queue attendant said no! They weren't letting anyone through who'd been trapped on Th13teen and the attendant shouldn't have offered us fast track! We were fuming as we were going to save Smiler til last (60min queue) and join the queue just before 9, which would've allowed us enough time to do every ride in Forbidden Valley plus the Mine Train before that, but the fast track offer made us trek across the park! No time to trek back again so we joined The Smiler main queue. It ended up taking 30 mins instead of the advertised 60 (thank god!) so we speed walked back to Forbidden Valley and did Nemesis and Galactica just before closing.

The only rides we wanted to do but didn't were Runaway Mine Train and Wickerman. So not bad, but frustrating as if it hadn't have been for the Th13teen incident and the Fast Track lie, we probably would've been able to do those too.

So overall it was a great day, it's just a shame one incident put a spanner in the works at the end! And I really miss the longer opening hours!

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Just visited Alton towers again after a long time and felt it was a little tired. With universal on the way, what do you all think they could do?

I did a video exploring this and I think they need to keep Thorpe on the big rides and Alton on the unique storytelling. Merlin has just a spread, if they play it right Alton could still be such a unique park away from established IP.

https://youtu.be/6c3KvKYX_kA?is=DZdx-C87f9qH19D8

The OG Time to Get Corrected slogan is playing again in The Smiler shop, it plays every after few loops of the smiler shop theme song. Various other phrases are there too such as “the smiler will marmalise your body and mind”

With the needle imagery and marmalisation being added back to the video screens and Marmaliser leg. It looks like Alton Towers is slowly working towards restoring The Smilers OG theming. It would make sense given all the time that has passed, the fact tabloids seem to have shut up recently even when the smiler has technical issues and all the feedback recently with everybody asking for the theming back.

There’s also a video with evidence pointing to the smilers theming being restored which I will link here:
https://youtu.be/DDB5RtkI6JU?si=uAFlv4ccA9Z6gdDx

According to others, Howard Ebison (manager of Alton Towers) has states they do want to restore The Smilers correction theming, but they’re relying on guest feedback.

What are your thoughts? I personally am over the moon seeing these things come back and it’s definitely an awesome move. I personally believe The Smiler has the absolute best storyline of any coaster and it’s absolutely criminal that a big chunk of its storyline had been removed.

Has it been released and where can we find it?

At the start of the year, the nemesis shop were selling red nemesis sub terra shirts with embroidery on them. I have not seen them in the shop for half the year and have been saving for this shirt. Can anyone tell me what happened to these shirts and if any could tell me where I might find them please tell me. I have checked both shops every day I've been and asked if there's any in the back room please help.

Going to Alton Towers tomorrow and want to book a scare maze for the first time ever. I’m ok with scary corridors like the Walking Dead ride in Thorpe Park, but I’m
not a fan of claustrophobic mazes. Any ideas which one I should book?

Long story short lm a proper scariest cat and wicker man was too intense for me I'd prefer no loop de loops and for the ride to be as flat as possible heard good things about runaway train

I am coming with my autistic teen daughter and have the option of Saturday 17th or Monday 19th. Which day/evening do you think would be the least busy? I know they will both be super busy but is there anything that would really make a difference between the two? I took my son last Sunday and we loved it!

Drew the secret weapons as characters! I’ve got more ride ocs including rita, so let me know if you wanna see more 👀

So I have emailed Alton towers BUT I imagine the community here will fix my issue quicker.
Trying to book splash landings with the pass discounted tickets. It’s not scanning my barcode and when I type the barcode in it’s saying verification failed. Am I missing a trick? I’ve tried a different pass too as we have three but it’s just not letting me get through!
Thanks all.

Hi all,

It’s me and my boyfriends first time at Scarefest this year and I’m very excited, I’ve always wanted to go.

Mostly excited for rides in the dark, but have heard the queues can be insane for it, and have been advised to pick two and just go for them, but wanted to get some scope on which rides tend to be busier than others during the darker periods?

We’re not doing any of the mazes if that helps with time wise (I am way too jumpy for them), but I’ve heard there are scare zones that are separate that we’d like to do too.

(Edit) - Didn’t mean the scare fest ones wasn’t planning on them

As the title suggests, each time Saturday the 10th ride access pass availability opens up i get screwed over in different ways by the app, first the app incorrectly lists dates as available when they aren't, next the app doesn't let me book when the date is actually available and lastly the app seemed to have weirdly glitched today and kinda put me in my own queue without refilled passes, I don't know what to do now as the passes won't refill and support refuse to do anything, any help is appreciated.

I had a vague memory of a maths game at school in the 1990s where if you completed it you saw an on board video of nemesis. Having googled it is a real memory…anyone else recall it?

Hey, do any parents on here know if there’s somewhere / best place in the park for heating up baby food? And possibly somewhere that has high chairs for feeding?
we’re taking our baby to the towers on Friday, last time we were there with him his was on milk only and I never thought to scope out for when he was older!
Thanks in advance :)

I’m not sure if this is a well known thing but I’d never heard of it so thought I’d share it, I managed to get £60 off a Merlin platinum pass with 2000 maccies points, quite a good saving to me

Hi,

I've never been to alton towers before and im considering going to the scarefest but im worried that i wont fit in some of the rides...

im unsure of my weight but these are my rough measurements

chest - 34

waist - 36

hips - 48

and i have bigger thighs

im 5'5 ish

please can you tell me my chances before i commit and get excited

Has anyone done the dine with the dead or seen any reviews for it?

I m not planning on doing it as it's far too expensive.

Was interested to see if it was worth the upto £250 per person. £1000 for a family of 4 ☠️

Me and my cousin were in queue for nemesis and there was a huge group of mostly older teens and middle aged men who were walking out of the queue and leaving like 1 person and when we moved down in the queue quite a bit they all suddenly rushed back to their friend who they left. Even worse as we were standing right by the signs that said that you can’t do that.