ALTON FREAKIN' TOWERS!

Oooh man!

Alton Towers!

I can't even describe it, like... truly one of the greatest amusement parks I've ever visited.

Not to say it doesn't have its flaws (outside of being 4,300 miles from my house) but there aren't many parks I'd rather be at than Alton. Having had the chance to visit the place for a few days back in 2006, it was pretty devastating leaving the park knowing I may never get to return, or if I did, it may be a long way down the road... Never would I have thought I'd be back in less than 10 years, let alone 8! Ok, uh, here we go.

Alton was one of the biggest temptations Joey was tossing out as far as getting me to visit England although at the time it may have been by terrible bus/train routes that would end up wasting a lot of time... Scarlet saved the day and offered to drive. (<3) Ok so... the day before having a semi-disastrous car issue but getting it resolved in an almost timely manner we got to bed sometime after midnight... Just in time to get maybe four hours of sleep before hitting the road to Staffordshire.

Getting closer and closer to the park my excitement was pretty much out of control and while I was ready to just get to the parking lot and be there... we made a stop for breakfast (and seeing is how the park was still over an hour away from opening...... haha, it didn't really matter.)

We ended up at this little Café /Gift Shope /uh, farm place.

I had some yummy breads

And I waved at the cows out front.

(also enjoyed some free WiFi)

Once at the car park we got in line for the Monorail :D

but ended up riding this disgusting STRAWBERRY themed train.

Just, awful....

 I'd rather have been on this one...

 Or the jellybean train.

All nine trains have a different look, one even looks like a Cow! (MOO-Norail?!)

Stepping off the train you pass the remnants of Corkscrew marking the main entrance to the park.

Corkscrew was the first coaster built in the park and one of the first rides at Alton despite the grounds being from 1860, it wasn't until 1980 when it became an amusement park.

(Luckily, or maybe unfortunately... 

I did get to ride it on my first visit.)

Yeeeesssssssss!!!!!

Alton Towers!

At £49.20 or.... $81 for a single day... Alton is pretty expensive... but thanks to Joey being AMAZING, I got in for

freeeeeee!!!!!

I guess I just can't even explain. Seeing it on TV back in 1994 as they built Nemesis thinking I'd never get to go there but wanting to go more than anything, it was pretty surreal stepping inside the parks gate. And while at this point I'd already been, it was still pretty amazing knowing what lie in store for the day.

LIKE THIS AWESOME DUCK!

(Quack Quack!!)

 Oh yeah, and this badass CASTLE!

Hey look. Sonic Spinball got a new name and paint since my last trip... But we didn't get a chance to ride it (but seeing is how it was the worst of the custom MS Spinners, I wasn't that upset)

((and by worst I mean, not as good as the rest))

But I had more important things to ride.... like get to X-Sector

 for.....

THE SMILER!

This deathly looking coaster that's a world record holder for the number of inversions... an amazing FOURTEEN! (damn!)

Oh man!

Having just opened in 2013 its still the newest major ride in the park and the line shows. This terrible caged cattle pen... it was pretty awful but the ending of the queue is a pretty neat fun house-like walk.

Most of the queue is built under the coaster, so you can entertain yourself watching it pass by as you wait. 

(and wait, and wait)

Having ridden a bunch of other Gerstlauer coasters and other record loopers.... I wasn't sure what to think of the ride before riding it.. Mostly I was just hoping it wouldn't suck and that I hadn't pretty much traveled half way around the world for a garbage ride.

Luckily, it was amazing.

I was truly surprised how well it ran and how much I liked it! Had we had the time, I would have gladly ridden it again. (someday) 

(Photos don't really do the ride any sort of justice, so I added an on-ride video at the bottom of this post)

After The Smiler, we made our way over to Oblivion

When opened, the worlds first Dive Machine and while others have opened that are longer, taller, and feature inversions, there's still something about this ride that makes me happy.

<3 Don't Look Down (and such) <3

Took a ride on the Enterprise afterwards for Jeff, since he couldn't be here :P

Haha, Submission! Where'd you go?! what a joke.... Guess "green space" is more popular. 

For what it's worth Submission's tagline was "Hang in There" and when used as an abbreviation online it was often called SHIT (get it!!! S ubmission H ang I n T here) and it was.

Strolling along the pathways up toward the Towers itself we headed over to Hex

Oh man, Hex – The Legend of the Towers!

The absolute coolest haunt-swing (mad house) EVER. Themed around a local legend and the towers itself you really can't get themed any better.... How many other rides have a queue built in a real castle!

Ugh, two for two....

Maybe next time I'll finally be able to ride the Sky Ride

One of the few attractions that predates the park as a park. 

Making our way into UG Land... uh, now named Dark Forest we ended up at....

Ugh, stupid Rita (no longer the "Queen of Speed" I guess)

I didn't even wanna ride it.... but since one of our group hadn't been on it I took a pity ride.

(ZzZzz)

Looks like garbage... and is the worst of the Intamin launches I've ridden, but its insanely popular with the park goers and that's what matters in the end.

Hidden behind Rita is TH13TEEN (IE: doo doo)

Merlin, the parks operator have an incredibly bad habit of over-hyping rides (such as ""being haunted by dead monks"") 13's hype was some bull along the lines of "having to be thirteen or older to ride, because its so scary" and "riders needing to sign waivers of liability to ride" what a joke.

At least there was barely a wait... And honestly the ride wasn't too bad but its key element ended up being its weakest feature.

Uh, CREDIT!

And... at least I got my front seat ride :)

With the Sky Ride closed we opted for a lovely walk hike down into the gardens themselves to get over to the Forbidden Valley area of the park, my favorite.

Lets just go ahead and put this on the "things you'd never find in an American Amusement Park list"

Back in 06 Jay and I got pretty lost down in here.. So I was glad to have a few seasoned visitors with me this go around :P

(Also, its really pretty)

After tooling around the gardens and making the fun climb back out of the gardens we made it to one of the "Holy Grails" of Coaster-dom

N E M E S I S!

One of the greatest coasters ever built and a personal favorite of mine as well.

This ride truly deserves all the fame and notoriety it receives.

As far as steel coasters go, there are maybe 5 I'd rather ride.

My first ride back in 06 pretty much made me wanna cry it was so good. Thankfully I was able to keep myself together this time! (barely)

And damn good for a 20 year old coaster World Class Coaster.

Given the opportunity, I'd have ridden it 20 more times but due to time issues, I had to settle for just...one. :'(

We all gave Air a ride as well, while the on the tame side, I still enjoy the ride and would take it over the 3 Superman Flyer's

Quack quack?

Making our way out of the Forbidden Valley we had to stop so I could try out a ride I was extremely interested, uh, make that curious about.

Trying to mooch off of the coasters fame, Nemesis: Sub-Terra

A "highly" themed dark ride / drop ride / walk-through combo attraction.... thing

And while fun (for what it is) it falls short and fails. It could have been great, should have been great, can be great... but it just isn't. I really wanted to love it but couldn't. That being said, given the chance I'd have re-ridden it.

Walking into the park I had mentioned that I wanted to ride the parks Raft Ride, being one of the few things I didn't get to do my first visit. I was surprised everyone else wanted to ride as well.. but first... Pizza Buffet!

GROSS

How did they know three of us were foreign??

(but oh man, it had been way to long since I had eaten the amazingness that is... CORN PIZZA! :D )

Yaayyy, Congo River Rapids! And since it ended up getting pretty hot, all five of us rode it

OH....crap.

After our memorable ride we headed into the Mutiny Bay area of the park, added since my last visit. (re-themed? I don't remember this area at all!)

I wasn't up to riding the Splash Battle, neatly themed.

(In fact, I've only ridden two in all of my travels)

But I highly enjoyed Sharkbait Reef Aquarium by Sea Life

I had no idea this was even here until Joey pointed it out to me (and its included with admission)

Yaayyy! Animals and stuff.

This was my second time at a Sea Life 

(I visited a third on this trip as well) and in the next year or so one will be opening in Orlando

Honk honk honk.

Ugh, and now were at the biggest flaw Alton has (and the same goes for most of the UK parks) with a pretty full/busy park... and hours of sunlight left in the day, the park just closes... super early for such a massive park. The grounds stay open for a while longer so you can still walk around but the rides all pointlessly stop. WHY! (an issue I also remember from my last trip. I happened to be staying at one of the parks on-site hotels that included access to the resorts indoor water park.... that also fails to operate outside of stranded park hours meaning one has to choose visiting the water park or the amusement park itself!)

With a lovely four plus hour car ride back to Metro-London that we were all so excited for looming over us we still took the time to explore the Towers itself.

An incredibly neat feature.... Guests can walk inside and even climb up on top of the castle!

Semi-Culture Credit!

And something I really failed to take in my last visit.

From the pseudo observation deck you can look out over the park and get some pretty good views of the coasters in the X-Sector area.

 Like Oblivion, cycling down its line for the night.

 And The Smiler as well.

Bah! Ugh, and this is also where I saw where the park had moved (and re-themed) its Wave Swinger! An area we never even made it to. (I'd ridden it before... but still)

So I could ramble and ramble on the park and how great it is even with its shortcomings but I'm sleepy so uh... 

here's my ending.

Um, yup. That's it. Alton Towers.

Can't wait to visit again, still.

With an extreme sense of amusement park euphoria it was a real shame knowing the next day would bring us to Thorpe. (the highest of highs to the lowest of lows? or so I thought)

And thanks to the park having WiFi, I was able to use my phone along the way and stuff.

Bonus photos and thoughts via twitter!

 Not even caring! - tweet

Stepping off 13 - tweet

Nemesis! -  photo

The Smiler (and a comment from the park itself!) - photo

And a super bonus Vine of The Smiler  - video

On ride video of The Smiler via YouTube

Click play, yo.

And a super nerdy (yet awesome) thing I discovered later...

My phones "Location History" feature that plots where you are via GSP when you use your phone and plots it onto Google Maps!

A feature I was unaware of and also unaware it was enabled. (but I'm glad it was!)

  Cool.