Alton Travel Guides (Updated September 2026)

I went to the opening day of Alton towers scarefest with a few of my mates and honestly what a day I had ! Despite how busy it was there was so much we can do and watch ! The mazes was fantastic with my personal favourite being Alton ville mine tours and I just loved how fresh everything felt . The staff was so lovely and there was this young staff member who I spoke to called Kieran near edge of the forest scaremaze and honestly he made our day . He took time to speak to us ask how our day was and you could tell he was passionate about his job and loved what he was doing and honestly need more people like him he was fantastic ! He made our day 10x better so we can’t thank him enough for the time he took to speak to us . Can’t recommend this event enough we had a truly magical day !

Absolutely amazing. Was not expecting the hotel, hotel food and entertainment to be as brilliant as it was. Very impressed. Great weekend

Lovely weekend away with the family!

Absolutely amazing time once again at Alton Towers. First time at the ScareFest and was brilliant to ride in the dark especially The Wicker Man as a family. We booked the trick n treat in the town - good costumes, friendly - was NOT worth £10 each for a family of 4 - music very loud inside so you couldn't hear any the actors speaking, was in about 10 minutes!Very busy, queuing was long as some rides were closed during the day but we still had a very good time .The Crakes

Very nice water park, we enjoyed so much

We stayed with the 'kids swim free' offer from 18th - 19th August which included an overnight stay, park access and breakfast. We paid about £478 which included bronze fast track for 2 people. This is the 6th time we have done an overnight trip with our children and they are now 5 years old and 9 years old. Over the years we have stayed in the Cbeebies Hotel and now that they are older the last couple of times the Splash Landings Hotel and we absolutely love it. It's not cheap but it does make wonderful memories! We got to the theme park on the first day for when it opened. The boys went to The Smiler first as this isn't included in the bronze package and they got on it within 20 minutes. Then used their fast track for Oblivion, Thirteen, Rita, Nemesis and Galactica. Meanwhile my little girl and I took at trip to Cbeebies and we bought the fastrack option for £10 each which gave you 3 rides. We queued up for Bluey straight away which meant we could then go on it again and use our Fast track to skip the queue the second time. We got on the Go Jetters in 5 minutes, then Peter Rabbit within 20 minutes then used the fast track for In the Night Garden and the Tree Top Ride. We then met up for lunch and went to the restaurant Oak in Chains by Hex, the food was lovely.... but it was very expensive especially the drinks. As a family of 4 we then went on Hex, The Runaway Mine Train and River Rapids and we queued for these rides which was fine as they boys had already done most of the bigger rides before lunch! Fast Track is a game changer... If you can save up to treat yourself I would 100% recommend it. We did the Spinball Whizzer and the Smiler again later on in the afternoon and queued for about 40 minutes each for these rides. We left the park at 7pm but we took a trip in the car to go and pick up some snacks from a local Spar for the children. I don't rate the evening meal at the Splash Landings hotel and after a big lunch they didn't need much to eat. Then we made out way back to the hotel and chilled out ready for the next day at the waterpark. The children and Mum and Dad love the waterpark, there are plenty of slides to choose from 'Master Blaster' is our fave, lazy river and we love being able to enjoy the outdoor section too! After a morning in the Waterpark we made use of the free mini golf which we have done a couple of times over the years. It can get busy but this time we went at about 12:30pm and it was quite quiet which was a nice surprise. The course does look a little tired so it could use a little attention and care as it's a great benefit with it being included in the price! Hopefully Alton Towers will spruce it up a little and keep it as an added extra for hotel bookings. Overall we had a lovely time and we will be back to do it all over again next year :)

Great experience this scarefeast great actors and amazing friendly staff team its great to see that they have made the scare mazes more thrilling, overall great experience and definitely worth the price.

Amazing very good rides, highly recommend nemesis reborn and galacticor

Two day park stay No ride longer than 20 mins wait - most were 5-10 mins - every ride open Open 10-4 its the best time of year to go its very quiet Stayed in enchanted village its quite far from park that was adequate but all hotels as well have to use monorail Ate at Secret Garden in main hotel just dont its expensive and poor quality Recommend coming here late September before fright night

Had a great day. It was relatively quiet so got on 16 rides, including a dinner break. Rides where staggered openings and thirteen shut early (4pm) but we got on it first thing so wanted to re ride but understandable maintenance happens so can't complain. Que times where 10/15 mins on average except for Rita 40mins and toxicator and sub terror (pretty much walk on) food was good from just chicken but on the primum price side. I'd advice biting the bullet and getting the refill cup for £18. We had 10 drinks on our day and each paid drink would be 3.50+ so if u don't mind sharing a drink it's a good investment. All in all a good solid day out as long as you don't compare weekends with this as it was a Monday we went. Weekends over 2hours some times for ques so may be lucky for 4 or 5 rides so take note.

We will visit again. There are lots of fun experiences. My toddlers really had lots of fun and didn't want to leave😩😂

Very nice. However, the ques were massive; which was the only downside of it.

Had a really enjoyable few hours here, out of season so park only open for 6 hours😢 but all the same on the positive side it was quiet and so queueing for rides was not a real problem. Hex was weird, Oblivion was really good, smiler was awesome, so many upside down moments!! Downside of the park, as expected was the cost of things when there and captured, £14 for 4 pieces of battered chicken with chips, and £20 for 4 coffees, felt mugged, but I suppose this banditry is standard from this kind of venue worldwide?

Apart from the toilets being an absolute disgrace when the park wasn't that busy it was a good day out Food is over priced

We went for two days during the opening weekend of scarefest and overall had a nice time and would come back, but there are some things they need to improve on. We arrived on a sunny day and this made it horrendous for queue times. Thankfully, the next day was rainy and so there weren’t as many people in the park and we could get a bit more value for money, but they really need to think of their guests and limit numbers on those nicer days so that queues are not approaching 2 hours for one ride. The rides themselves are brilliant and very well themed. We loved the rides in the dark and the scarefest decor was done really well.I also found the staff to be very friendly- much more so than Thorpe park! Shout out to Ash in particular who did us a huge favour!Food choices aren’t great- it’s all junk food and very overpriced so we got bored of this quickly. £3.50 for a bottle of water is not acceptable- I brought my own water bottle in but couldn’t find anywhere to fill up. They also ran out of most of the food by the evening.Park security was quick and it is very helpful to have a hotel guest entrance to the park as it’s so convenient.Overall, would definitely come back but would try to pick a day with bad weather!

We went to Alton towers for the weekend for birthday celebrations. We went to the theme park on the Saturday- which does have some amazing rollercoasters. Large and small. However, there were so many broken down rides for part of the day which made the queues for the open rides really long. On 3 occasions we made it close to the front, to be told the ride had broken down and they had called for support but didn’t know how long or if it would reopen. There were a few rides we missed out on due to long queues, rides being closed, the sky line transport was closed and it takes a long time to walk to different areas of the park. Smiler was one because it closed for the afternoon which was disappointing for the birthday girls. We also had to pay for a fast track for oblivion because there was an hour and half queue and there was not enough time left until closing. This was £120 on top of the weekend cost. We stayed in the enchanted village which was a lovely pod and had lots for children to do outside. We parked there in the morning but did have to walk to and back from the theme park as the monorail was broken. For the evening we booked the rollercoaster restaurant which was a really nice and different experience to eat out. It is a small menu but very tasty and good portion size. Delivery of food on the rollercoaster made it a different and fun experience for the kids. It’s only around a 15 minute walk which was great. They made the kids feel special with a birthday song delivering the pudding. The Sunday we booked mini golf which is good value for money -18 holes with the parks theme through out. Followed by splash landings which is also very good value we had 3 hours which was plenty of time to get all the slides in and enjoy the outdoor part too. Overall lovely and fun weekend, just disappointing technical issues at the park.