This week is my “big trip” to Alton Towers, this time with Paul, Bob & Charlie. Paul & Bob are just joining us for the Monday.
A 7:45 pickup at Parkgate tram stop started the whole event (quickly followed by Starbucks – it was early!).
After a cross country drive out through the back of Sheffield and out to Unstone, then through Bakewell and and Hartington (a very unusual route due to very heavy traffic) we made it to Alton Towers just before 9:30, and we were at the entrance for about 10.
Apart from a minor ticketing issue, we entered the park and headed off (via coffee, again) to The Smiler first, then to the Wicker Man, Spinball, River Rapids, Runaway Mine Train & Nemesis. A very odd order to do the rides, and we totally missed the Dark Forest – both because of the crowds (most of the kids are back at school but I’m led to believe quite a few had inset days) and because it was closed until 12 noon.
The weather was gorgeous for most of the day but in the late afternoon it began to change for the worse, with a few spots of rain, and by 8pm it was starting to rain.
The evening’s food was at the Rollercoaster Restaurant. It’s a gimmick. Food comes on tracks. It’s not great. The food was only lukewarm and other people don’t get the concept of how a Lazy Susan works – you take what you need, use it, and put it back. A particularly obnoxious family with an obvious “man of the house” dad kept turning the top one delivering the food to everyone and thus removing part of what makes it fun. Luckily they were almost finished when we arrived so we didn’t have to suffer this behaviour for very long.
The trip back to the hotel was in a thunderstorm. I did capture a superb image of it with some of Galactica’s track!
Anyhow. We’re about to head for breakfast, so here’s the full set of day 1 photos.
incredible photos. I am so jealous. I wish I was there.