Winter is incoming and November usually marks my final trip to Alton Towers. I generally like to go the very last Tuesday as the park is often very quiet and quite delightful to be in. Queues never get longer than 20 minutes, the kids are back in school, and the autumn colours light up the park.
Yesterday was no exception. After a few days of what can only be described as truly horrible weather, it finally brightened up and on a day of beautiful brittle sunlight I agreed to meet Prakash there.
The day started with coffee. It’s important to start a day right. The ducks weren’t really bothering us at this point but we sat on the wall in the early November sun and enjoyed a Costa.
With the day started correctly we then headed down to X-Sector and caught a ride on Oblivion. There’s no Smiler at the moment because it’s been offline for a few weeks due to a technical issue, but Oblivion was a walk on, and it was also Prakash’s first ever ride on the coaster even though he’d been and seen it as a kid.
A gentle walk over to the dark forest netted us Rita and Th13teen breaking his virginity on those two coasters too. Last time he’d been the area was probably Ug Land and contained the Corkscrew.
Now the skyride was closed all day, probably being decommissioned for the winter, so instead of the usual ride across the valley to Forbidden Valley we decided to walk to Wicker Man. A 30 minute queue on the sign board turned out to be more like 15 but on the way across we caught this beauty of a photo.
Finally we headed down the gloomy woods path to Forbidden and wrapped up the big six (not 7 as Smiler was closed, and that’s not counting the family coasters) with rides on the classic Nemesis and my least favourite coaster Galactica. You’ll be pleased to know that Nemesis Ladder and Nemesis Bulb are both still there.
After completing the big rides, dinner called – hotdogs – and unfortunately the hotdog stall in Forbidden Valley was closed so we had to walk back up to Wicker Man for those. I don’t mind Alton Towers hotdogs, but ffs, would it kill them to do onions?
Afterwards I took Prakash and showed him the gardens. We got some great photo opportunities!
