Alton Towers Resort Reviews 

My family are here today and irs an absolute shit show. The queue times are not only huge - to be expected in school holidays- but the rides are closing and opening and the queue times displayed are completely inaccurate. My daughter is only 1.3 and expected to stand for 100 minutes for one of only 2 decent rides she can go on after waiting 90 minutes for wicker man. It’s raining they’re all miserable and they don’t even do the rainy day guarantee anymore. Tried to buy a fast pass for spin ball whizzer, all sold out for today. shock. £120 and a two hour drive for a sub standard version of what they advertise, it’s absolutely criminal to take peoples hard earnt money in this climate for a piss poor day out at best. We’ve visited for 40 plus years and will never ever give them our money after this. Do yourself a favour and go to Thorpe park or Paultons.
The fact they don’t reply to any of the feedback on here speaks volumes of how they see their customers

We wandered into the park and wandered into Andy's Adventure enterence. We were greeted by a VERY condescending, passive aggressive vile "Andy" character who shouted at us loudly and cocky "GUYS CAN WE NOT ENTER PLACES THAT ARE CLOSED PLEASE" I replied there's no closed sign anywhere we didn't know and there was no need to speak to us like that. He didn't even listen to what I was saying he just talked louder over the top of me. I felt dehumanised and humiliated by him for NO valid reason. Great start to the holiday.

Paid for a skip the queue pass for the kids - doesn't apply to any of the kids rides - stupid. But they DONT DO REFUNDS despite it being mis-sold.

Must rides don't work. Expect to only be able to access only half the rides at the park, but still pay full price.

Driving school: we paid for son who was 100cm exactly. Couldnt go onto anything. Waited on queues to be turned away - they should be measured on entering the queue - not after waiting for an hour for a kid to build up excitement. Girls the same height as him got in, but because he didn't have a pony tail on his head was turned away in tears.

The rides he was tall enough to go on consisted of like 5 rides. One was hex. So took him on it as appropriate for him apparently. (I put his height and AGE in the app). It was TERRIFYING and scarring for him. He came out shaking. He couldn't go on a little car ride - but could go on this makes NO SENSE whatsoever.

Hotel Waterpark splash landingings contains slides my son couldn't go on. 2 my son couldn't go on and the little one I couldn't go on??? So we left after 30 mins. COST £80. We couldn't go on any slides together and I'm not letting my 4 and 6 year old wander round water without my support. Only saw on exit there was life vests. Very little slides for a water park, more of a glorified splash park. Lazy river was naff, no wave pool.

The food alone at the flamingo place cost £80 for 2 adults and 2 young kids for buffet at splashlandings. A coke on top was £5 each! The buffet was DISGUSTING. People were sat eating McDonald's at the front of the hotel and at this point we realised why. They had barely any choice and was GRIM! Everything is stale, tasteless and just disgusting - literally inedible. The bread breaks your teeth. The soup tasted like watered down tomato puree. No one asks how your food is because they already know the answer.

We went to little lunch in cbeebies land and it was also disgusting. The £15 pizza I bought for my 4 year old looked like it was Asda price, and came charred and black. I don't want to sound rude but the staff looked like they didn't have a brain cell to rub between them. They were sending food towering tables constantly. There was one girl walking round who a lady had asked to speak to and she was practically shaking, cowering behind a chair. She was not equipped to deal with customers - not the constant flow of complaints that the kitchen were causing. The only way this place survives is because every customer is a new one. There's NO WAY anyone would return here if it was any other food establishment.

No dairy free pancake options at breakfast. It Wouldnt of been much hardship to whip up an oatmilk option. So we had to deal with tears and more disappointment from my kid.

Window didn't lock on our GROUND floor room, openable from outside. I'm just glad my children didn't get obducted.

Everything comes at an expensive charge. The drinks were so expensive - and no other option but HAD to pay for it.

Spent £100 at the arcade in the hotel. Which got my son a track racing car that costs £5.99 at b&m.

Expect to pay £40 a time for a family of 4 anytime you need basic refreshments. £40 for some ice-cream for the 4 of us at the park.

Internet laggy and rubbish.

90% of staff were snappy, rude.

Hotel is dated and FILTHY. Carpet was all wrinkled and I stretched, everywhere full of dust. Again, ran by kids or sponsored workers. Perhaps this is why the food quality and cleanliness is so diabolical.

NEVER. AGAIN.

Absolutely horrendous experience and totally devastated son who was supposed to be celebrating his 9th birthday.
The park do absolutely nothing to accommodate disabilities and the Ride Access Pass system is absolute joke! Complete insult to people who actually require support. TWO rides were all we managed and not a single member of staff was helpful or understanding.

We are going on Sunday and already noticed its £12.00 just to park, even for blue badge holders. So if its a family on a budget there's some of it gone just to park, Extortionate!

We arrived yesterday and queued for The Smiler first. The ride didn’t even start until about 10:20, wasting about 20 minutes. Then, just as we got into the building, the queue was suspended due to technical problems. This took about 20 minutes to sort. We then went to Oblivion. Just as we got to the front, the same thing happened and we had to wait for about 15 mins. Then we went to Rita. Exactly the same thing happened again, but this time we waited a good half hour.

Today, although we weren’t caught in any of the closed rides, because several were closed (Rita, 13, Nemesis sub Terra ) there were extremely long queues for Galáctica and Smiler (100 minutes) , which we then had to decide not to do due to our daughter not being able to stand for this long.

This afternoon, the threat of a storm kept us waiting in line for an additional hour for Nemesis (although i appreciate that safety is key and it wasn’t their fault). We therefore had no time to then queue for another ride with a long queue after this so decided to queue for Intoxicator. Just as we got to the seat, we were sent back due to technical issues. That was when we gave up and decided to leave.

We visited today for a family treat, our first time back in several years, hoping our daughters could enjoy more rides now they’re older. Unfortunately, it was a very disappointing experience.

We arrived at 10:30am and left at 6pm, yet only managed 4 rides in that time. Queue times were consistently 60–90 minutes, and several times we waited 40 minutes or more only for the ride to break down, leaving us stuck in line even longer. We couldn’t use the monorail due to a 45-minute wait just to get into the park, and the cable cars weren’t working either. Many rides were closed at different points throughout the day.

Considering the high cost of tickets, parking, and food, the value for money was extremely poor. Alton Towers used to feel like a special day out, but now it feels like corners are being cut, with little focus on customer experience. Sadly, what should have been a fun bank holiday treat ended up being frustrating and disappointing.

Really terrible experience. Rides kept breaking down. Very long wait times. Just really unpleasant experience. Just today itself, 7 rides are closed for maintenance, cable car not working and I’ve queued for two rides for more than 40 mins only to be announced that it has broken down.

A big thanks to the VIP team for making a memorable day for our son. We saved hard for this summer treat for him, and it was money well spent. The team were friendly and patient pre-booking while we covered our bases. On the day Nathan was great with us, letting us sneak in to do some Christmas shopping, while our son set off to enjoy his day with Kiera. Both were very engaging and happy to chat. Kiera watched out for Nathan all day, kept him company (except for her lunch), rode many rides with him and chatted about the park, her favorite rides, other parks.....Nathan also gave us some tips on our son finding career options to be a ride engineer, which is one of his ambitions....Our son received exclusive merch, a meal, refill drinks all day, and most exciting cleared more than 30(!) rides (including re-rides) in just shy of eight hours, which on a typical day (sometimes as few as five-ten rides) would have taken multiple visits, even with fast passes. So we'll likely treat our son to this again next year, with a track walk. One big one-off day, rather than several (potentially disappointing) family visits totalling a much greater cost with much more travelling. It seems like a big sum of money, but our son loved it, and ride-for-ride it was much better value than multiple visits for us. Thanks again, guys!

Had an absolutely amazing weekend at Alton Towers. We had booked to stay at the Alton towers resort in a family room. Got a call when we arrived offering us a complimentary upgrade to a treehouse with a few fast passes for park. I was absolutely amazed and felt very lucky. I would like to say a big thank you to Maisie our treehouse host who made this weekend extra special for us.
Adam’s party

We are Merlin gold members and cannot go! Tickets are available but no ride access pass! We cannot go without a ride access pass. Then ride access passes are available but no tickets for that day! Its an absolute joke! What a waste of money. Will be cancelling membership! Honestly, don't bother. Total waste of time too. Terrible!

I contacted the customer support and no one replied to me until now.

We bought Silver Fastrack tickets at Alton Towers, advertised as including rides like Rita and Th13teen. On arrival, we discovered both were closed — Rita had been out of action for some time, yet this wasn’t disclosed when booking. Staff communication was poor, and we only learned about possible substitutions at the end of the day, when it was too late. Very misleading and disappointing experience, and we are now escalating this with Trading Standards. Complaining to Alton Towers is useless because they don't care....if the Alton Towers team is reading this then this is Complaint Reference No: [12717521]

We booked to stay two nights at CBeebies hotel with my 2 year old grandson, only staying one night. The accommodation was fine, breakfast ok, entertainment for kids very disappointing, it was the same show both nights. Not much to do. We visited the theme park Friday, my grandson only got on two rides costing us £70! The queuing time In CBeebies land was over half an hour a young child won’t wait in a queue all this time. I went to purchase some food from the snack meal pod, no children’s meals available so purchased two sub rolls, two small packets of quavers, the rude girl charged me £21.50!!!
When opening the rolls, the rolls were stale, horrible, I went back for a refund, the rude girl told me to see the manager in the snack restaurant, when I spoke to this young man he said he’d refunded me for the sub rolls £13! So I said I’ve paid £8.50 for two standard packet of crisps! He reply YES! They’re over £3.75… no it makes them £4.25 each! Anyway he was only going to give me £13 knowing full well the girl had well over charged me! The card machine wasn’t working so we had to walked to costa coffee for me refund when I said how come the lady in front of me purchased the same food and quavers and paid £16 to which he said OK I’ll refund you the lot £21.50 not an apology nothing, just rude! DONT buy food there take your own it’s a rip off, we paid £10.50 for 3 bottle waters, massive rip off.
We visited the park the next day early with staying in the hotel you get to go in at 9… my grandson got on all the ride a for his size. We were finish by half 10 so went back and had a drive out. Coming back to the hotel we sat and watch the same entertainment and decided to go home. This cost £570 for two nights in the hotel, £70 for the theme park on Friday, £24 the next day, had a meal Friday night in the garden room restaurant, it’s very run down needs updating… food mediocre, Childs meal £9.50 certainly over priced and definitely not worth it! Another £70.
In total for one night and two visits to the theme park it’s cost us over £800 for nothing special. Felt very ripped off, will never go again or stay or recommend the CBeebies hotel, very average hotel, need more to do other than the theme park, maybe a play area! Looked at splash park way too busy! Was offered 9 hole golf not with a two year old. Overall very disappointing

1 day out of 2 days park tickets. Seems like a pattern to previous reviews. 4 rides were closed due to maintenance issues today, Smiler, Rita, Nemesis and Wicker Man ( basically all the big rides) Also the Sky Ride was shut? So you have to walk everywhere? We are to have our 2nd day tomorrow and God knows what's open. It's been a waste of money. I spoke to the guest services on site when leaving and offered 50% which would cost me another £30, no thanks, not chancing when some rides might be shut tomorrow. Feel sorry for people paying all that money for, weeks, weekends away and not getting their moneys worth. Don't do it!

-1000000000

-1000000000000 stars
absolutely dog dookie theme park

We went to alton towers for my grandsons 18th birthday on the 1st of August 2025, we had a nice time but as a few others have said rides suddenly closed for no reason, after waiting for 25 minutes only to be told it was closed this happened a lot in the two days we were there,also the food in the hotel was not the best, we also went to the rollercoasta cafe and even though there were not many people in there we waited over an hour for are food,we have been on many occasions but this was not one of the best times.

If queuing is your thing then this is the place for you.Been a few times over the years but it seems in need of a spruce up ! The cable car wasn't working and some of the rides were out of action, all in all seems on the slide.

I can’t give them -10 stars so I have given them one but they do not even deserve this.
They allow you to pay to go in, spend a fortune for fast passes and then close all the rides. 2 rides in the whole day.
Customer service is non existent. They take over 7 days to respond to an email. They tell you a different excuse in each email as to why they can’t deal with the matter and finally a month later they offer to give the remaining 4 rides for one of the fast passes but only if we pay to travel over 2 hours again, pay for entry again. So the last visit cost in total £150 per person to go in 2 rides and to get the remaining 4 rides from the fast pass because they sold something and did not provide a service they want to fleece us out of hundreds of pounds again.
There business is only about ripping people off and charging them for a service they don’t provide.
You deserve to go out of business Alton Towers, you certainly do not deserve people hard earned money.
Please everyone vote with your feet and don’t give theses scammers your money.

3 nights at Alton Towers hotel and two park days.
We had a nice time but many of the attractions were breaking down regularly and the newly refurbished skyride wasn't running at all because they claimed it was too warm. Orlando Disney run theirs without any problems..

We had a terrible meal at CBEEBIES Lunch box. Receiving beans with a thick skin on tells you the food had been sitting under a hot lamp for ages, along with dried out fries. My chicken advertised as crispy was damp. The service was extremely confusing as well. The greeter was avoiding communication at all times. She didn't seem stressed, just completely disconnected.

Parts of the park are in dire need of some refurbishment, especially brick pathways which are falling apart and unsafe.

Staff made little effort to enhance anyone's day. Many seemed quite dejected.

The Alton Towers hotel was nice. We looked round the splash landings hotel as well but it smelt of chlorine and damp. We were glad we didn't stay there.

Infrastructure and quality is expensive, and it's a big resort. I wonder how much of the profit is being skimmed off the top by Merlin.

Alton Towers does seem to get more tired each year we visit, but it's inline with the rest of the UK.

Sorry for my negative reviews.
I did LOVE "13" Great ride. ☺️

It's worth a visit but don't expect it to be top of its class.