Tom is 13 So Let's Do 13 Theme Parks This Year
Alton Towers Part 2 - Friday 13th April 2018
This post is a mini summary of our second visit of the year to Alton Towers. It's over 2 months since our visit at the end of Easter school holidays, and to be honest I didn't write any notes. I do have a few photos, so I'll try to piece together as much as I can from those...
The main purpose of today's visit was to ride The Wicker Man (aka SW8) - we'd given it a miss during our March visit due to a combination of long queues and unpredictable operations.
I'd had the 2nd week of the Easter holidays off work and Rich had booked the Friday, so that we could make the most of the pre-weekend crowds.
We'd planned to get on the road early (i.e. 6:30am) to avoid the traffic on the M5/M6, but for various reasons didn't get going until 7:30ish. By 8:20 we still hadn't made it onto the M5, so when we got to the junction we headed South instead of North and came off at the next junction to get a Maccy's for Tom (Bacon Roll with extra Bacon), and to wait out the rush hour. Rich and I just had hot drinks.
I think we got going again at around 9:15, going for the M42 / Litchfield / Uttoxeter route instead of attempting the M6, and arrived at about 10:45, parking in D (I think).
As we had our annual passes, we could go straight through the turnstyles, and even though Wicker Man was showing a 120 min wait, we sucked it up to get it out of the way early. It was drizzling but we weren't going to let that spoil our day...
The queue actually went quite quickly and was around 90 mins in the end, and the rain stopped too. We filled time by mooching on our phones, taking photos of the track and eating our packed lunch of ham cobs, Walkers French Fries and cereal / protein bars...
You know they are expecting long queen when there is a shop in the queue line...
Eventually we made it to the bag drop and pre-show area. We thought this was very well done, and "Take heed" was stuck in our heads for quite a while afterwards.
The ride itself was very good, but if I'm honest didn't blow me away. It's nice and smooth, but Tom and I much prefer Stampida at PortAventura. It's probably my favourite Woody in the UK though, and I'd put it just ahead of White Lightening at Fun Spot Orlando.
After the ride, Rich pootled off for a much needed visit to the smoking area, and I grabbed a Mocha (approx. £3.50) from the Costa stand just outside the ride. By the time I'd got my drink (which took ages), Rich was back and Tom was queuing at the Waffle stand (approx. £4.50 I think).
If my memory serves me, we headed around to Catanga Canyon next, and as it wasn't too cold today, made a spur of the moment decision to go on the Rubber Dinghy Rapids (Four Lions reference there). We had a fairly tame ride and didn't get too wet at all.
We ay have gone on the Mine Train next, and we definitely did Duel as it was a walk on and was probably the worst shooting dark ride we've ever done!
Round to Nemesis next, which was about a 15 min wait...
I know Nemesis is regarded as one of the best coasters in the UK, but I actually prefer Infusion at Blackpool. The boys really love it though, and it's still a fantastic ride.
Galactica had been either a combination of long queues or being out of operation so far this morning, so we skipped it and headed over to the Cable Cars to head over to Rita...
We timed this just right to avoid a short drizzly spell...
We'd missed out on Rita last month, so this was a new credit for all of us. We waited about 20 minutes and we all thought it was really good.
We walked around past the Tower ruins to the X-Sector next. Smiler was down all day, so that one it still on our to-do list (although not Tom's just yet). Oblivion was only 20 minutes so that was our next stop.
Going up the lift hill, my restraint was really loose but I couldn't get it push down into the next click. Going down the drop I had a fair bit of airtime until the forces clicked me in, and then it was really tight for the rest of the ride.
We had a slow stroll back across the grounds towards Mutiny Bay next...
But the Wicker Man queue was too long for us to bother again, so we just watched for a few minutes.
By this time (4pm) there wasn't really enough time to do any other rides, so we just had 20 minutes mooching around the Sea Life area...
We had a mooch around the main gift shop on Towers Street on the way out, mainly checking out t-shirts and hoodies as we all want to get a hoody at some point as we are visiting so many parks thins year. Nothing stood out today though.
Finally, we headed for the exit and back to the car by around 5:20, just as it started to drizzle again - we'd been quite lucky with the weather overall
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Despite the dodgy start and a few bits of drizzle, it had been a great day
PS - We racked up 16,199 steps (7.04 miles)