Alton Towers

Yesterday we left the IOW very early to head north up to Alton Towers. We had a 9 am ferry crossing and then picked up James' sister Sam up at 10 am on the other side on her way back from a side-trip to Hamburg, Germany. It was then a very pleasant trip of about 4 hours including lunch up to the Travelodge Crewe Bathomley just north of Alton.  We were all pretty tired, especially Sam who hadn't had much sleep before her flight and train, but we managed to get ourselves to the cinema and to Pizza Hut for dinner. It wasn't one of the newly renovated Travelodges like the one in Bath so we had a slightly odd smelling room and a very lumpy and sloping bed but were so tired we honestly didn't have time to really care that much.

Today was an even earlier start to get out to the Theme Park but it was totally worth it. The ride highlights were:

The Nemesis:

Your typical upside-down seat roller-coaster

The Air:

Like the nemesis but the seats winch up so you're parallel to the track and get all the wind in your face (pretty awesome)

The Sonic Spinball:

The ultimate stomach dropper - the individual carts also spun round as you moved!

Thirteen:

A more traditional rollercoaster with a twist where the floor dropped and you went backwards at the end!

In fact the whole day was going amazingly until I got absolutely saturated from the waste down by the log flume...I have seriously never got so wet on a ride in my life. We even hired a haystack drier session which made absolutely no difference - I looked like I had wet my pants and my shoes were squelching and gross too!! Never again will I take one for the team and sit in the front of a log flume!

But I cheered up a bit after we managed to get a bunch of people removed by security guards for queue jumping on the Rita. That did kinda make up for being ridiculously wet and having a headache, James especially enjoyed it after the guy called his bluff and said "what are you gonna do?" when James tried to stop them pushing in front. Unfortunately the guys got a  bit aggressive with the ride attendants and the ride had to be shut down for about 20 minutes, but we got some good entertainment while we waited! 

The Rita:

This was definitely the fastest ride we went on - you're shot out like a bullet!

We decided jointly that the Rita would be our last ride - the Oblivion was the only ride that we had a fast track ticket for that we didn't go on, and Smiler was the only other ride that James was really keen on, but by 4 pm we both had headaches, and having your head battered from side-to-side on more rides was not an appealing thought! So we had ice-cream and waffles and had a bit of a wander round the grassy garden areas, and then waited near the entrance for Sam and Mel to finish up for the day.

Alton Castle

Close up of the towers :)

 It was quite amusing watching droves of people leave the park at the end of the day to the sound of the Alton Towers music being played. James likened it to watching the closing credits of a movie. 

We drove south for about an hour after leaving the park, to cut some time off the trip down to Cornwall tomorrow, and stayed at another Travelodge just outside of Birmingham, which had been refurnished and was a lot nicer but unfortunately didn't have a lot of time to enjoy it as we were up the earliest yet for a 6 am start to Cornwall to beat any traffic or accidents that may happen on the way. 

Alton Towers was a wonderful fun-filled day and I'm sure we will be back another time for the rides we missed, EXTRAORDINARY golf, and the nearby water park :)

N.B. The photos of the rides are not mine.