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Nitefly eats too much at Alton Towers (and more!)

Nitefly

Hyper Poster
Just back from a two day trip at ‘The Towers’. The thread title reflects the aftermath, as I’m currently lying on my bed in a sad, fat man carb-coma from abusing the freestyle machines, hogs roasts and churros. But, aside from my gastronomic regret, I had a rather swell time.

As has been a long established tradition (based on my one other trip report thread), I shall start with my accommodation - the Whiston Hotel. This soulless golf-course offering is merely ten minutes (and ten thousand pot-holes) away from the main gates of the destination, which felt worth a punt at £109 a night for a room with a king sized bed. Overall, it was OK. The staff was friendly and the cooked breakfast/coffee was above average. Balancing this out, the room was retro and the bed would have made Fred Flintstone blush. Most notably, privacy is not really a thing at the Whiston. You want a shower, but don't want people from the adjacent building to see? Well, "**** that!", exclaims the Whiston - "no Velux blind for you, Sir!" Fortunately, I was able to summon my inner Bear Grylls and delicately balance my hoodie over the offending window.

Matters became more alarming in the morning as, after a night of intense passion with my wife, I was somewhat mortified to realise that I could hear my neighbours talking rather clearly in the neighbouring room. They could have totted-up our scrabble scores in real time!! *blush*

Day One at the towers was a late afternoon / evening affair. I have never been to Alton Towers at night. The spooky vibe with the beautiful autumn colours was really, really good. Lovely, even. I can say straight up that I do hope to attend this event next year. I was not particularly interested in hooning the rides and it was more of a jolly jaunt, so we went straight into the aquarium so I could show-off my elasmobranch knowledge, followed by a solid mine train. The latter was advertised as a 25 minute wait, but really it was more like 10, if that. From my limited experiences over the two days, I think they tended to overestimate the queue times.

As short as the queue was, it did flag the problem I would have to overcome on this trip, which was the presence of idiots. The sheer abundance of morons perpetually flouting the very limited and unimposing social distancing rules was staggering. The worst rage-inducing culprit must be the mask over the mouth but not the nose. It does make me question how these people are able to walk through open doors on a daily basis without missing the doorway(s) and ploughing into the adjacent wall(s) with injury-inducing force.

Next up was Duel. Oooo new music? Well, to my ears, yes it was new music, which was really good. They had updated the queue with some CGI moving pictures that were quite fun... although the video in the doll house was nowhere to be seen.... maybe they removed that ages ago? The rest of the ride was a bit patchy. A couple of sections had no lights, no targets... nothing? The spinning tunnel thing wasn't working. Wife came off it a bit miffed, but I absolutely SMASHED her score which from my perspective was all that mattered.

Up to Nemesis. Ooo I do love me a Nemmy. I was giving it the full "duuuuuh, duuuuuuuh, duuuuuuuuuuuuuu nuh nuh nuhhhHHHHHhhhH" as we approached, much to my wife's disapproval, which only encouraged me. Excitingly, the queue line was open pretty much all the way, right up back and behind the lift hill. Wow! Never before have I had those views. It was very exciting. Dusk was now approaching as we boarded and the ride looked absolutely fantastic. It rode fantastically too, cementing itself as the number one ride at the park. But, turns out it was not the best 'single ride' of the visit...... *dum dum dummmm - suspense*

Back down the Haunted Hollow walk to Wicker Man, which had a 70 minute queue. For peasants, anyway. I whipped out my fast pass and laughed loudly at the enclosed pen of sad, teary-eyed children, walking straight onto the front row.

Just to make it really obvious, I am of course making light of the perceived villainy of using fast passes. On one hand, the system must be a major irritation for people that cannot afford them and it would obviously be far fairer for everyone if the system didn't exist (especially as it obviously punishes those with children more than those simply paying their own way for themselves alone). So I do always feel a bit of a dick for doing it. But, nevertheless, I am really surprised how few people seemed to be willing to pay for them? I think it was only the two of us who used it when we were on the ride. The way I see it, unless you cannot afford it, it is often an entirely sensible thing to do if you value your free time as a financial commodity. For example, let's say it took me 10 minutes to get on Wicker Man and took 70 minutes in the standard queue as advertised. Not only am I avoiding a whole hour of queuing by paying £10 for the fast pass, I'm also gaining an additional hour in the park to do whatever else I want to do. So I crudely equate the £10 spent as saving me 2 hours of time (£5 a hour). Queuing to save £5 an hour is substantially worse than working minimum wage, so to me getting a fast pass in such circumstances an absolute no brainer decision. What the acceptable threshold of value is will understandably differ from person to person. Again, nevertheless, I am surprised that clearly I'm in the vast minority of people that see the fast pass as offering value. Ultimately, I see the convenience as grossly outweighing the moral high ground of opting for the standard queue on the basis of 'good park-goer principles', but I accept there will be a wide range of opinions on this and most of those opinions will be reasonably held. I'm interested to see what others think of this on this subject.

The ride itself was dandy. A front row night ride! Being objective, it was certainly rather rough and jolty for how forceful (forceless?) and speedy (speedless?) it was but I didn't really care. It was big smiles all round in row one.

Next, over to the Smiler, where there was a 60 minute queue... which I avoided with another fast pass. I was really looking forward to this. Yeah.... it wasn't great. Way too rough. I found myself perpetually embracing for the inversions to the extent that it seemed a bit of an endurance. I also thought it was, from memory, a better ride in the day where you can be mesmerised by the dueling aspect and the maze of track. This is going down in my rankings.

Next, Oblivion. Yup, it's Oblivion - not much to say. I love the music although this time it really reminded me of the era in which Oblivion came out in - that late 90s, chav British drum and bass that went away and eventually got replaced in pop-culture with 'grime'. For an example of a good song from this genre (seriously!), check out Move Your Body by Mark Ryder and MC Vapour, awww yeah what a classic!! ?


We finished off our evening with a wonderful walk through the lit up gardens, which is absolutely worth your time and was probably the highlight of our day once we got some free space. We did have to make our way passed a couple of teenage selfie-squads that were taking inconsiderate liberties with the walkways, but once passed them and the slightly obnoxious sound effects in the orangery area, it was great. We took our time and enjoyed the sights.

Day 2 to follow (including my thoughts on the scare mazes).
 
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Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
Just back from a two day trip at ‘The Towers’. The thread title reflects the aftermath, as I’m currently lying on my bed in a sad, fat man carb-coma from abusing the freestyle machines, hogs roasts and churros. But, aside from my gastronomic regret, I had a rather swell time.

As has been a long established tradition (based on my one other trip report thread), I shall start with my accommodation - the Whiston Hotel. This soulless golf-course offering is merely ten minutes (and ten thousand pot-holes) away from the main gates of the destination, which felt worth a punt at £109 a night for a room with a king sized bed. Overall, it was OK. The staff was friendly and the cooked breakfast/coffee was above average. Balancing this out, the room was retro and the bed would have made Fred Flintstone blush. Most notably, privacy is not really a thing at the Whiston. You want a shower, but don't want people from the adjacent building to see? Well, "**** that!", exclaims the Whiston - "no Velux blind for you, Sir!" Fortunately, I was able to summon my inner Bear Grylls and delicately balance my hoodie over the offending window.

Matters became more alarming in the morning as, after a night of intense passion with my wife, I was somewhat mortified to realise that I could hear my neighbours talking rather clearly in the neighbouring room. They could have totted-up our scrabble scores in real time!! *blush*

Day One at the towers was a late afternoon / evening affair. I have never been to Alton Towers at night. The spooky vibe with the beautiful autumn colours was really, really good. Lovely, even. I can say straight up that I do hope to attend this event next year. I was not particularly interested in hooning the rides and it was more of a jolly jaunt, so we went straight into the aquarium so I could show-off my elasmobranch knowledge, followed by a solid mine train. The latter was advertised as a 25 minute wait, but really it was more like 10, if that. From my limited experiences over the two days, I think they tended to overestimate the queue times.

As short as the queue was, it did flag the problem I would have to overcome on this trip, which was the presence of idiots. The sheer abundance of morons perpetually flouting the very limited and unimposing social distancing rules was staggering. The worst rage-inducing culprit must be the mask over the mouth but not the nose. It does make me question how these people are able to walk through open doors on a daily basis without missing the doorway(s) and ploughing into the adjacent wall(s) with injury-inducing force.

Next up was Duel. Oooo new music? Well, to my ears, yes it was new music, which was really good. They had updated the queue with some CGI moving pictures that were quite fun... although the video in the doll house was nowhere to be seen.... maybe they removed that ages ago? The rest of the ride was a bit patchy. A couple of sections had no lights, no targets... nothing? The spinning tunnel thing wasn't working. Wife came off it a bit miffed, but I absolutely SMASHED her score which from my perspective was all that mattered.

Up to Nemesis. Ooo I do love me a Nemmy. I was giving it the full "duuuuuh, duuuuuuuh, duuuuuuuuuuuuuu nuh nuh nuhhhHHHHHhhhH" as we approached, much to my wife's disapproval, which only encouraged me. Excitingly, the queue line was open pretty much all the way, right up back and behind the lift hill. Wow! Never before have I had those views. It was very exciting. Dusk was now approaching as we boarded and the ride looked absolutely fantastic. It rode fantastically too, cementing itself as the number one ride at the park. But, turns out it was not the best 'single ride' of the visit...... *dum dum dummmm - suspense*

Back down the Haunted Hollow walk to Wicker Man, which had a 70 minute queue. For peasants, anyway. I whipped out my fast pass and laughed loudly at the enclosed pen of sad, teary-eyed children, walking straight onto the front row.

Just to make it really obvious, I am of course making light of the perceived villainy of using fast passes. On one hand, the system must be a major irritation for people that cannot afford them and it would obviously be far fairer for everyone if the system didn't exist (especially as it obviously punishes those with children more than those simply paying their own way for themselves alone). So I do always feel a bit of a dick for doing it. But, nevertheless, I am really surprised how few people seemed to be willing to pay for them? I think it was only the two of us who used it when we were on the ride. The way I see it, unless you cannot afford it, it is often an entirely sensible thing to do if you value your free time as a financial commodity. For example, let's say it took me 10 minutes to get on Wicker Man and took 70 minutes in the standard queue as advertised. Not only am I avoiding a whole hour of queuing by paying £10 for the fast pass, I'm also gaining an additional hour in the park to do whatever else I want to do. So I crudely equate the £10 spent as saving me 2 hours of time (£5 a hour). Queuing to save £5 an hour is substantially worse than working minimum wage, so to me getting a fast pass in such circumstances an absolute no brainer decision. What the acceptable threshold of value is will understandably differ from person to person. Again, nevertheless, I am surprised that clearly I'm in the vast minority of people that see the fast pass as offering value. Ultimately, I see the convenience as grossly outweighing the moral high ground of opting for the standard queue on the basis of 'good park-goer principles', but I accept there will be a wide range of opinions on this and most of those opinions will be reasonably held. I'm interested to see what others think of this on this subject.

The ride itself was dandy. A front row night ride! Being objective, it was certainly rather rough and jolty for how forceful (forceless?) and speedy (speedless?) it was but I didn't really care. It was big smiles all round in row one.

Next, over to the Smiler, where there was a 60 minute queue... which I avoided with another fast pass. I was really looking forward to this. Yeah.... it wasn't great. Way too rough. I found myself perpetually embracing for the inversions to the extent that it seemed a bit of an endurance. I also thought it was, from memory, a better ride in the day where you can be mesmerised by the dueling aspect and the maze of track. This is going down in my rankings.

Next, Oblivion. Yup, it's Oblivion - not much to say. I love the music although this time it really reminded me of the era in which Oblivion came out in - that late 90s, chav British drum and bass that went away and eventually got replaced in pop-culture with 'grime'. For an example of a good song from this genre (seriously!), check out Move Your Body by Mark Ryder and MC Vapour, awww yeah what a classic!! ?


We finished off our evening with a wonderful walk through the lit up gardens, which is absolutely worth your time and was probably the highlight of our day once we got some free space. We did have to make our way passed a couple of teenage selfie-squads that were taking inconsiderate liberties with the walkways, but once passed them and the slightly obnoxious sound effects in the orangery area, it was great. We took our time and enjoyed the sights.

Day 2 to follow (including my thoughts on the scare mazes).
Great report, had one of my best ever days there yesterday!!!

As somebody who visits this park way too often, I have a rule when it comes to fast track. My simple rule is this... I have a max queue threshold for each ride there... If visiting with friends who visit less often, and want to ride a ride over my threshold, we buy FT, if not I skip it for another time.

The projection in the dolls house was on yesterday. Haven’t seen the head in the fire for years though, don’t know what happened to that :/

As a fan of 90’s D&B (and more recent stuff too...) I’m pretty sure the oblivion music samples Roni Size Brown Paper Bag... Sounds like it to me!!

As for idiots, we had a relatively idiot free time yesterday, just one moment really annoyed me!!! And here seems like a good place to moan (sorry) I was visiting with 3 lovely ladies, we all observed the rules all day, as did all those around us, until queuing through the tunnel at night for the skincatchers maze. One large group of around 20 behind us (rule of 6?) decided to ignore the requests to put on masks, then pose for a picture in the tunnel, in doing so their none mask wearing photographer got so close to one of the girls he forced her to move so he could occupy the space on which she was stood to take the photo. In the heat of the moment I misjudged the situation, thought he’d actually knocked her out of the way (that’s what it looked like in realtime) and had to speak up... ? It wasn’t pretty, I usually just ignore or quietly mock rule breakers, but their blatant disregard for every rule whilst all around were following them, and then literally standing on the same square foot of space as us just made me see red.

Other than that, it was genuinely one of the best days ever at AT, the new scarefest format NEEDS to stay past covid, the new scarefest hub is amazing, the lights walk is beautiful with room to expand. All that is needed now is a couple of real scare zones and they’d easily have the best all round scare event in the country!

It was all run so well, other than that one group we felt incredibly safe at all times!!!
 

witchfinder

Hyper Poster
I'm going on Thursday (meeting a couple of other CF goons there) so it's good to know that they're putting a decent event on in these times. Is it right that they're closing the queues for the more popular creds (WM, 13, Smiler) at 8:30? That's how it looks from the queue times app. Hoping it'll be quiet enough that they won't need to do that but if they do then I guess it's Nemesis for the last half hour... ?
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
I'm going on Thursday (meeting a couple of other CF goons there) so it's good to know that they're putting a decent event on in these times. Is it right that they're closing the queues for the more popular creds (WM, 13, Smiler) at 8:30? That's how it looks from the queue times app. Hoping it'll be quiet enough that they won't need to do that but if they do then I guess it's Nemesis for the last half hour... ?
I ‘thought’ that all queues closed at 8:30 :/

So didn’t try any others despite them still showing a queue time on the app :/
 

witchfinder

Hyper Poster
I ‘thought’ that all queues closed at 8:30 :/

So didn’t try any others despite them still showing a queue time on the app :/
I'd assume they're just closing the ones with longer queues to ensure they can get everyone out by 10. So for stuff with 5-10 min queues it doesn't matter if they're still open at 9?
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
I'd assume they're just closing the ones with longer queues to ensure they can get everyone out by 10. So for stuff with 5-10 min queues it doesn't matter if they're still open at 9?
I think you’re right, this is a direct quote from the website...

Our attraction queue lines will begin to close from 8.30pm. This time may change depending on demand for individual rides. Latest information will be posted on the Alton Towers App and digital signage around the Park.

But remember, the latest they will close is 9pm :) as that’s the official closing time for scarefest.
 

witchfinder

Hyper Poster
I think you’re right, this is a direct quote from the website...
Good find! :) That does seem to confirm my theory. No issue with ending the day on Nemesis anyway as hopefully they're also opening the gate by Galactica for quick and easy access to the car park!
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
Good find! :) That does seem to confirm my theory. No issue with ending the day on Nemesis anyway as hopefully they're also opening the gate by Galactica for quick and easy access to the car park!
There was definitely a sign on that gate that read ‘Exclusive Hotel Guest Exit’ it’s also set up as an Entrance for hotel guests in the morning :/
 

Nitefly

Hyper Poster
I'm going on Thursday (meeting a couple of other CF goons there) so it's good to know that they're putting a decent event on in these times. Is it right that they're closing the queues for the more popular creds (WM, 13, Smiler) at 8:30? That's how it looks from the queue times app. Hoping it'll be quiet enough that they won't need to do that but if they do then I guess it's Nemesis for the last half hour... ?
In addition to the above comments, you may wish to factor in that the queue for the smiler was often closed for being 'at capacity'. You will probably be OK on a Thursday, but if you were visiting on a Saturday I'd recommend making sure you joined a queue before 8:30 to ensure the queue line doesn't close for capacity reasons before you arrive there.
Great report, had one of my best ever days there yesterday!!!

As somebody who visits this park way too often, I have a rule when it comes to fast track. My simple rule is this... I have a max queue threshold for each ride there... If visiting with friends who visit less often, and want to ride a ride over my threshold, we buy FT, if not I skip it for another time.

The projection in the dolls house was on yesterday. Haven’t seen the head in the fire for years though, don’t know what happened to that :/

As a fan of 90’s D&B (and more recent stuff too...) I’m pretty sure the oblivion music samples Roni Size Brown Paper Bag... Sounds like it to me!!

As for idiots, we had a relatively idiot free time yesterday, just one moment really annoyed me!!! And here seems like a good place to moan (sorry) I was visiting with 3 lovely ladies, we all observed the rules all day, as did all those around us, until queuing through the tunnel at night for the skincatchers maze. One large group of around 20 behind us (rule of 6?) decided to ignore the requests to put on masks, then pose for a picture in the tunnel, in doing so their none mask wearing photographer got so close to one of the girls he forced her to move so he could occupy the space on which she was stood to take the photo. In the heat of the moment I misjudged the situation, thought he’d actually knocked her out of the way (that’s what it looked like in realtime) and had to speak up... ? It wasn’t pretty, I usually just ignore or quietly mock rule breakers, but their blatant disregard for every rule whilst all around were following them, and then literally standing on the same square foot of space as us just made me see red.

Other than that, it was genuinely one of the best days ever at AT, the new scarefest format NEEDS to stay past covid, the new scarefest hub is amazing, the lights walk is beautiful with room to expand. All that is needed now is a couple of real scare zones and they’d easily have the best all round scare event in the country!

It was all run so well, other than that one group we felt incredibly safe at all times!!!
Thanks for your comments, I enjoyed reading them!

I did have a listen to Brown Paper Bag today and must admit that I couldn't hear an obvious sample used in the Oblivion music, or rather it wasn't obvious to me, but it was a fun tune regardless.

I completely agree that their way of doing the scare mazes was excellent and by far away the most superior approach to scare mazes that I have seen. It would be a shame to do it any differently post-covid.
 

Nitefly

Hyper Poster
Sound the excitement alarm, it's time for Part 2 of the blog.

Be warned: today's episode contains alarmingly thick mucus, penis jokes and a challenging moral dilemma. It's also very long. I recommend clicking this for your background listening pleasure.

Having gone to see Grandma Nitefly in the morning (from a safe distance) we then arrived at The Towers at around 1pm. The day was in full swing and once again we entered the park with wide-eyed excitement. The scare mazes weren't yet open, but I got an early dose of intense horror by immediately witnessing a gentleman in the first set of toilets blow his nose onto the palm of his hand, emitting what easily have been mistaken as a full sized version of 'Slimer' from Ghostbusters. He washed Slimer down the sink without a care in the world. I emerged from the experience as if I had seen an actual ghost. It was haunting.

Desperate to rid myself of lingering queasiness, we headed straight for a ride that was sure to make me feel right as rain: Spinball Whizzer.

Poor Spinball Whizzer. Never picked first for five-a-side football. Always last to receive invites to the class-wide birthday party. I find myself thinking of this ride when I look in the mirror. But even I look better than this poorly kept piece of ****. It looks like it belongs in Thorpe Park these days, with its miserable faded paint and sad queue line 'entertainment stations' in obvious disrepair (aesthetic and otherwise), all throughout the ~20 minute queue. With that said, the cute 'modern retro' music was as pleasing as ever and, I must say, the ride does have a very fun layout. It is most pleasing to follow a car from start to finish. Soon, we were on board, huzzah! To my surprise and absolute delight, our ride on Spinball Whizzer was unanimously decided to be the best ride of the trip. What a wonderful time we had! Surprisingly forceful and long, we swirled and whirled along with shrieks and laughs in equal measure. With social distancing, it was only the two of us on one side of the car, so the spinning was merciless. When we hit the brake run we were still spinning on the spot for some time. Spinball Whizzer - you surpassed all expectations. If only others could see your true beauty and talent *tear runs down cheek - punches mirror*.

We then headed up for a first for a very excited Mrs. Nitefly, for she has always been spited by (and has never experienced) Hex. Sure, with the open doors in the pre-show areas for COVID reasons, the ambience was affected, but as a whole the ride and pre-shows make the other mad-houses we have been on this year (at Europa-Park and Phantasialand) feel embarrassing. Hex was excellent. To my surprise, it was actually quite disorientating if I allowed myself to be sucked-in to the illusion (which was not the case with the other two). I do love that theme music too. However, I'm sure that, as a younger Nitefly, the tree on the ceiling would make a more obviously angry face at the very end. It would go from grumpy to super grumpy. This time around, it was just a little grumpy. Perhaps I am simply "remembering it wrong".

Then, a first for both of us: The Alton Towers Dungeon. To my absolute ****ing horror, the final person to walk around the corner to join our cohort was Slimer-man. NOOOO! He and his young daughter then had great difficulty standing on their square for the duration of the experience. My eyes were swirling and whirling like our car on Spinball Whizzer when he decided it was an acceptable time to drink from his thermos flask when an actor was speaking. **** me.

I have mixed thoughts on The Alton Towers Dungeon. At times, I found myself wishing it to be over. At other times, I was quite entertained - particularly by a series of dumb penis jokes when the 'dungeon lady' imitated snipping off Slimer-man's rooster with what looked like a medieval cigar-cutter. "Take that!" - I said, a bit too loudly. Overall, I would say it was worth doing in the context of a Halloween event, but certainly never again.

Then, our first scare maze - Darkest Depths. My expectations were extremely low, because this was England and not Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Orlando. Well, my snobbery was quickly put in its place. We had a very fun time indeed. The scares were not particularly intense but there was an obvious STORY - woah!! The was an INTRO - shock!! Best of all... we were sent into the maze just the two of us - golly gosh!! With Scaremazes, I always like following Mrs. Nitefly. The entertainment is akin to watching a Jigglypuff trying to find an emergency escape pod on the Nostromo. The 'final scare' of the maze got both of us pretty good, I must say.

We then decided to walk around the gardens in the day. This was actually the highlight of the whole trip for me. It was really very special with the autumnal colours. We had been to Westonbirt Arboretum the previous weekend, which FYI is an absolute MUST at this time of year if you haven't been, but this was a similar experience albeit truncated (or should that be trunk-ated - NARF!!). I always hated the gardens as a child and now I stood there delighted. How times change, hmm?

Two more scare-mazes, back to back - first, the.... "mining one". Mrs. Nitefly had clearly had enough of my bull**** so this time I was being sent in first. A mistake really, because I am a glasses wearer and now also a mask wearer. Which meant really couldn't see where I was going for a lot of the maze. I thought I had to crawl through an inaccessible cage at one point, bumping my head painfully before searching around with my hands for the correct path. It must have been a right hoot for the actors to jump in my face with an almighty "boo" just to be told "arrrrrrrrrrrrr I can't see" like some sort of pathetic, pirate-like Alan Partridge. Otherwise, It was very good. Now though, I realised what these mazes were lacking compared to their Universal Studio's counterparts: elaborate "monsters". Here we just had lots of "boo men" and "boo ladies". It was still fun though.

Finally, The Attic (we opted to pass the outdoor maze). This was by far away the most startling and creepy of the three. Unlike the other mazes I was assaulted from the rear quite ferociously and I did get serious heebie-jeebies from the lady that decided to follow me room to room at distance, calling out to me every so often (usually when Mrs. Nitefly was leaving for the next room) for the most uncomfortably long time - she must have correctly identified that she was really freaking me out. Things then dramatically escalated at the end in a sort of 'crescendo'. We left the maze thoroughly entertained but perhaps quietly glad to get to the end of it... which is really a double thumbs-up as far as these sorts of things go. Super spooky. I am rather hard to please at the best of times but I really do feel I must say this: well done, Alton Towers!

Now, my first of two 'weird' social observations. At the entrance to The Attic, a middle-aged man was talking to the young woman attendant about, I think, Thorpe Park, for quite some time - causing a bit of a pile-up. The man was obviously enjoying the conversation, leaving his young ignored son (possibly an aspiring 'goon') looking rather embarrassed and awkward. The woman looked like she was trying to end the conversation and shuffle them into the maze. They entered the maze before us. After the maze, we left to find almost the exact same scene. The man was again talking to the young woman, accompanied by his awkward looking son looking sheepish and as if he wanted it all to end, but this time the man was really cross and complaining about something that had happened in the maze. The woman was directing them towards customer services. I don't know why I'm mentioning this, but it was just the strangest / odd thing - this man seemingly hell bent on talking to this woman and disregarding his poor son.

We decided to end the day with a couple of rides on Nemesis. Nothing really to report on the ride itself other than our best ride of the weekend (out of rows 3, 7 and 8) was actually, unanimously, row 3. Huh. This goes against my inner coaster-boy knowhow, but it was definitely the smoothest time with the most pleasing forces. Who would have thought?

My second 'weird' social observation: on one of the rides, an operator (Op1), who had just checked the entirety of the row in-front of ours, shouted across our row to his colleague (also a teenage male - Op2) that he needed to re-check a seat in the previous row. Op2 expressed confusion as to why that was necessary (with Op1 having just checked those seats). Op1 insisted. Op2 then re-checked the previous row. Op2 then returned to our row and the two then exchanged thumbs-ups with dumb grins. Mrs. Nitefly was a little confused, but as a fellow male I knew exactly what had just happened without needing any more details: Op1 had discretely told Op2 to go and 'check out' a lady on the previous row. I spent my ride deciding how I felt about this situation. My immediate thought was that this was highly inappropriate and that they should be told that this was highly inappropriate. I then realised my passion for social justice was being matched and possibly exceeded by my own excitement towards the beauty that may be sat immediately in front of me. She left the ride completely oblivious. I've been chewing this over for the best part of a day and I've now concluded that the inappropriate behaviour was merely inappropriate and it would have been misplaced (and highly hypocritical of me) to have said anything - my do-gooder wrath is perhaps best saved for inhuman acts, rather than those that are merely human. I would hate to think how we would all be sentenced if we were judged solely on our lesser, albeit non-malicious, moments. Let he who be free from sin cast the first stone... and all that. You'll be pleased to know that Mrs. Nitefly has had the last laugh, ruffling my (singular) hair as I've needlessly tortured myself over this highly irrelevant and forgettable event, long after it will have been forgotten by all others involved.

Other things of note, fleetingly:

- Food offerings on the lawn were good. Churros and hog roasts were great. Marshmallow pit at night was also fun.
- Entertainment on the lawn was mixed. I felt a little sorry for the singer tasked with covering the Muse version of "Feeling Good" which was completely unfair on him.
- We absolutely hooned our coke freestyle flask. We also got a hot drink flask - essential in the colder weather.
- There was an absolutely excellent projection mapping thing in the towers main window at night of a skeleton band and a few other ghouls. Loved that.
- There was a similar projection mapping trio of ghosts on the way to Mutiny Bay that looked cool, although I didn't stop to watch.
- I paid express parking to avoid the monorail, which wasn't running anyway. I did enjoy the one minute walk to the front gate.
- I bought two day tickets for £48 each, I think, which is clearly the best way of experiencing Alton Towers in a relaxed manner.
- I ****ing love that massive creepy robot statue at the JCB headquarters.

Overall, the best trip I've ever had to Alton Towers <3

Thanks for reading!
 
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witchfinder

Hyper Poster
In addition to the above comments, you may wish to factor in that the queue for the smiler was often closed for being 'at capacity'.
Thanks for the tip but I have no particular desire to ride The Smiler anyway so if it closes then I won't be shedding any tears :D

Thanks for the trip report, really enjoyed reading it, especially all the pop culture references! You also answered my question about whether the monorail is open so that will help me with my parking decision. :)
 

Nitefly

Hyper Poster
Thanks for the tip but I have no particular desire to ride The Smiler anyway so if it closes then I won't be shedding any tears :D

Thanks for the trip report, really enjoyed reading it, especially all the pop culture references! You also answered my question about whether the monorail is open so that will help me with my parking decision. :)
You’re welcome. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
 

Benenen

Hyper Poster
Great report, you're a funny bloke Nitefly. Enjoyed all the analogies and observations.

From my experience working at a theme park men love complaining about things to female staff as an excuse to have their attention. I reckon this guy exhausted all his chat before the maze and the subsequent complaining was just his excuse to be around her again.
 

Nitefly

Hyper Poster
Great report, you're a funny bloke Nitefly. Enjoyed all the analogies and observations.

From my experience working at a theme park men love complaining about things to female staff as an excuse to have their attention. I reckon this guy exhausted all his chat before the maze and the subsequent complaining was just his excuse to be around her again.
Cheers!

Yes, I had this thought also and although I didn’t expressly mention it, I was inferring the same.

There was just something really interesting to me about it which I can’t eloquently put my finger on... along the lines of the tragedy of the human condition and how, despite our best efforts to be gods, our animal-selves always triumph even when amongst our most loved and treasured human companions.

..... BUT that’s all a bit depressing SOOOO here’s a photo of that JCB statue that I took! Phwoar!!! Here he comes to nibble your toes - omnomnomnom.

lEjZpSM.jpg


I love roller coasters.
 
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