After a pleasant drive along country roads and fortunately not encountering the long queues that are common for Alton Towers, we found ourselves a park and caught the Monorail to the main entrance. Since there were only five adults, Rob decided he would see if someone else would like to pay half with him to get in. He found a group of people in the same predicament that looked at him like he was a terrorist (which was fair enough) until they saw the rest of us. Alton Towers has a Fastpass system similar to Disneyland but you have to pay £10 each for it so we decided to go without it.
As soon as we were in, we made our way to Spinball Wizard. This was the first ride I went on last time and it is a good warm up ride for the rest of the park. It is like a normal roller coaster except the cars that you get in spin freely as you go around the track. There was a massive queue for it and it took a good hour for us to get through. Pete looked after Will and took him for a good run on the grass (he loves the grass) while the rest of us went. Just as our car was climbing the first slope, we waved at them and Will caught sight of us before promptly going bright red and bursting into tears. The ride was awesome fun but was over too quickly for the length of time we queued.
We reunited with Will who was so upset that he clung on to me like a koala bear and wouldn’t let go for about 10 minutes. We sat on the grass for a yummy lunch and admired the view of the castle-like mansion and the surrounding gardens.
We walked over to Oblivion where both Pete and Lynn offered to take Will for a walk as they had both been on it before and weren’t too keen to relive the experience. Lou, Rob and I decided to try the single rider queue and we jumped quite a long queue to get to the ride saving probably a good half an hour of standing around time. We all sat in different rows and made the long ascent to the top. The car chugged slowly around a corner before starting to go over the edge. It stopped and everyone screamed as it stopped with everyone looking straight down about 50 m above the ground. Without warning it dropped and the car plunged straight down into a dark hole before releasing us into the open air again. As my car came to rest I had a good view of Lou’s car about to drop and I was sure I could hear her screaming. We met up with Pete and Lynn and carried on feeling quite light on our feet.
We walked around the front of the mansion and I noted that the mansion is still at the same level of disrepair it was in when I was there last. Around the side was the entrance to Hex. Rob offered to look after Will while the rest of us went inside. The queues move quite quickly as the ride takes almost 80 people each time. There was quite a tale of an old woman who curses a man by saying that every branch of an old oak tree that falls to the ground, a member of his family would die. We sat in our seats looking at the only branch before the gravity in the room started changing. Before we knew it we were upside down and the scary wooden face of the curse had been under our seats!
We walked over to Rita: The Queen of Speed which was a new ride since I was there last. We had picked up a Parent Q Share Pass on the first ride and decided to use it here as we all wanted to go on it. Will had fallen asleep so Lynn and Rob looked after him while Lou, Pete and I queued. It was a long queue and it took us 45 minutes to get to the front. The ride is one long rollercoaster that starts with a long flat stretch and accelerating with a force of 4.7g’s before whirling around sharp twists and turns. We met Lynn and Rob at the end of the ride and swapped with them. They got on the ride straight away which was great.
We boarded the gondola bound for some more rides. Our queuing had taken a lot of time out of the day and we were running out of time. We had a nice view of the park as we soared over the garden valley to the other side. As we were walking towards Air, we saw short queues for the Ripsaw ride which was shut when I was here last. Pete and Lynn looked at the ride and decided they wouldn’t go on it so Lou, Rob and I queued for only 10 minutes before we were seated. It was like a giant circular saw that went in a large vertical loop with jets of water shooting up saturating everyone. It was a really fun ride but Pete and Lynn weren’t convinced to go on it!
Lou and I decided to take a walk around with Will while Pete, Lynn and Rob went on Air. They went down the single rider queue but it turned out that after waiting for a quarter of an hour they were told to go back out and down the main queue because it would be quicker. They ended up queuing for over an hour as one of the sets of chairs was out of action which they weren’t too happy about but they enjoyed the ride nonetheless. We used the Q Share to jump on the ride quickly and we were off. Air is a great ride where the seats tilt forward so you are hanging by your back.
We were running a bit late so we hobbled over to Nemesis where Lynn and Rob had already queued. They had forgotten to take the Q Share pass so we jumped in the single rider entrance which only just opened when we got there. Funnily enough, we ended up going on the ride just before them! Nemesis was one of my favourite rides last time and it was just as good this time. It is very fast and very close to some nasty pointy rocks.
We had just enough time to go down the Congo River Rapids ride – the ride Lynn got saturated on last time. Rob took Will for a walk so the rest of us could go down. Lynn was determined to not apply the same logic as before so instead of choosing the driest seat, she chose a seat of reasonable dampness. Fortunately this time the splash targets were Pete and Lou; Pete getting a decent lap full of water.
The park was closing as we climbed out of our circular boat and we walked out the exit. Rob and Will were nowhere to be found so we waited for a while and had a look in the shop. After half an hour there was still no sign of them but just as we were about to split up a puffing Rob pushing Will’s pram as fast as he could came into view. It turned out that he was waiting at the end of the Log Flume ride instead of ours. Will was happy because Rob had bought him a handheld spinning light toy which kept him hypnotised.
Lynn and Lou decided to head to ASDA to get some curries for dinner (oh yeah!) on the way back home so all the boys decided to take Will to McDonalds for a happy meal and stop for a quick pint for the rest of us. We got a call from Lucy to say that the girls were at home which surprised us so we quickly downed the refreshing beers and hightailed it back to Derby. Lucy was waiting outside looking rather embarrassed – the girls had pooped home before going out to ASDA so they weren’t at home when she arrived.
We enjoyed a yummy set of curries which went down very well indeed and we all stayed up talking and watching Flight of the Conchords and some other funny things on YouTube before retiring to bed quite late.