Alton Towers - currently avoid

fat-tony_4

I am writing to warn people about taking up any of the offers to go to Alton Towers at the moment. They had serious issues at the start of the week with power cuts and they have still not been resolved.

Yesterday in 9 hours at the park (they extended opening in hope they could overcome the problems) half the park was without power for 6 of those hours, the whole park (except for the music) for about 4 of the hours. The rides that were "working" broke down regularly and in the whole day we managed 4 rides.

The compensation offered was an open ticket to return this season... not great if you live a long way away.

So I'm just warning people who are tempted with the offers to keep an eye out on forums and the parks own website to see if they're having issues. If they've had them recently avoid the park until they've been trouble free for a week.

If you do still go definitely avoid the cable cars unless you fancy being stuck in them for an hour or 2.

fat-tony

Joelleski

Thanks for the warning - my husband is due to take his daughter up there for a day out on Monday, and it's not a short journey for them. I'll let him know, so he's prepared!

wordsearch

Actually, AT have announced that the power problem has now been sorted. They are also offering free tickets to everyone, reimbursing parking, and I've heard from a few people that they've had their petrol paid for, so very good customer service imo.

jaydeeuk1

wordsearch wrote: »

Actually, AT have announced that the power problem has now been sorted. They are also offering free tickets to everyone, reimbursing parking, and I've heard from a few people that they've had their petrol paid for, so very good customer service imo.

Can't fault them for that. They even give free tickets if theres something beyond their control such as weather. Superb service imo, just never go during the school summer hols or bank holiday on a standard ticket

fat-tony_4

Who has got petrol paid and how did they get it?

They weren't offering that yesterday, just the free ticket and parking.

They had said on Tuesday that they'd sorted all the issues and hadn't on Wednesday. So I'd still stick to my advice on the Cable Cars.

Freddie_Snowbits

It is disgusting that theme parks can operate like this. We should get trading standards involved and get the police down there to give them a lesson. A week in the slammer will do.

wordsearch

Freddie_Snowbits wrote: »

It is disgusting that theme parks can operate like this. We should get trading standards involved and get the police down there to give them a lesson. A week in the slammer will do.

It's a sad thing that I genuinely have no idea whether or not you're joking. I'm sure Alton Towers REALLY wanted all of Alton's power grid to go off. I don't see how it's their fault that people doing the road works for the village hit the power, to be honest.

fat-tony wrote: »

Who has got petrol paid and how did they get it?

They weren't offering that yesterday, just the free ticket and parking.

They had said on Tuesday that they'd sorted all the issues and hadn't on Wednesday. So I'd still stick to my advice on the Cable Cars.

Lots of people seem to be saying it on all the forums. A large group of friends of mine were reimbursed for it; I'm afraid I can't give you any more details on that just yet as they're not coming back until tomorrow morning. Also I could be wrong but I believe the generators would kick in for the cable cars, bringing them safely back down. At least that's what happened a couple of years ago when we got stuck in them Again I could be a bit off there, it was about eight years ago that it happened when we were on them.

fat-tony_4

I can only comment on the rather frantic phonecall a couple in the queue in front of us received from their friends who were stuck in the cars (I didn't know it was powercuts to begin with, as 13 stopped working every half an hour for the time it had power, and I was in said queue) and the cars seemed to stop at once and the cars only started moving again when everything else in the old Ugland a few hours later (except for 13) started.

I've tried the Alton Towers webiste for the petrol thing but no joy.

thanks for your help.

fat-tony