American reacts to Alton Towers (AMAZING UK amusement park)

Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to Alton Towers

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[fishfingers]

The smiler is the world record holder!!! Absolute insanity and the theming is out of this world.

[jaysoncowan]

The park is only open till 4pm during the week, it closed at 6pm on weekend and 7pm during holidays and 9pm during Halloween. Which is good for a park in the UK they don’t stay open that late unlike in America. Also being from Britain, every person who lives in the UK goes to Alton towers so it’s quite funny watching someone find out about it

[thepersonnextdoor]

It’s nice to see someone so far away from your local theme park react and say nice things about it, definitely worth a trip.

[Cephlin]

You most certainly can skip the monorail and walk it

[staceywarner]

"It was my nemesis"
*laughs in Towers enthusiast*

[jamesmnaylor]

Alton Towers is a great experience.

For a brief history the house itself was owned by the Earl of Shrewsbury and was sold in 1924. During the Second World War is was repurposed as a training school for officers before then being sold in the 70s where the first rollercoaster was built in the 80s, although, the grounds were open for people to visit before the coaster was built, which is where the gardens come into it. The blue track you see, is a piece of track from the cork screw which was one of the first roller coasters in the park and was taken out when Rita was built.

The reason why the park doesn’t open to late is because the park itself has a noise abatement notice on it. Which means they have to keep the noise down below a particular level and close at a particular time. There are clauses in the notice though. Such as, they can be open later during the summer months and on particular dates at the end of its season. As mentioned the tree line issues has been worked into the planning permission of every ride they have ever built. It’s the councils way of making sure the park doesn’t spoil the look of the area. To get around that, as was mentioned, instead of going up, Alton Towers ride designers go down and dig drops and tunnels into the earth instead of into the sky.

The Towers itself isn’t actually a Castle. However, the village of Alton does have a castle, it’s just not in the grounds of Alton Towers. The castle which was part of the Shrewsbury estate was sold separately from the towers in 1924 to the Catholic Church as a convent, then a girls school and is now a retreat for young people. But, it is still owned by the Catholic Church.

Many young people (and those who are slightly older) from nearby towns such as Cheadle, Leek and Uttoxeter, see it as a right of passages to work at least one season on park or the hotel. I myself did three years one on park and then worked 2 years in the hotel as a lifeguard in the water park.

[PWdeBB]

Oooh, the pronunciation of CBeebies land was way off. Pronounced See-bee-bees. It’s the pre-school brand owned by the BBC.

[rogoththemasterwizard]

fun story, when i was younger as a thankyou for my dads 25 years of service with the company he worked for at the time, the company completely reserved the entire park for a single weekend and all those employees with 25 years service chose a day and were given full free access for themselves and their families, and not only did they completely hire out the full theme park (not as big then as it is now but still pretty massive), the company also hired some very well known singers and bands (madness/status quo/diana ross) to perform a concert on the evening in a specially constructed big stage in one of the open fields on the edge of the park, due to it still being during school time my dad chose the saturday as his chosen day to go we had to get up at a ridiculous time to drive down in the car, spent the entire day there and didn't get back home until close to midnight, which meant i could spend sunday recovering before going back to school on the monday, it was one of the best childhood experiences i have and certainly well worth the time if you can afford it today, a very lovely place and even if you don't want to go on the rollercoasters you can still enjoy the scenic park/castle/grounds and whatnot.

[linnettsamuel]

Went there before big rides, just the house, lake and gardens with a tiny courtyard of funfair games and kids rides.Inside the house is ornate with fine stone carvings and stained glass windows.
On a later visit, my grandmother who was 78 bent to pick a daisy, tripped and rolled down a hillside.We rushed thinking she'd been badly hurt because she lay so still. Then she started laughing and told us she hadn't done that since she was 6 years old .

[kimmyJayne]

I was there over bonfire night and they opened till 10pm, I think they do have late openings for special events. It is an amazing park though, I walked 16 miles that day it’s massive 😂

[chloered]

So many misleading things in this video- 1) you can walk from the carpark to the entrance 2) the park doesn’t close at 4. The standard close time is 6. The park closes at 4 on week days out of main season but these days are so quiet you could ride everything twice. The latest close time during the year is at 9. And it’s pretty standard for all uk theme parks. 3) the tree height was put in place due to restrictions on them being in the countryside, to get around this a lot of coasters are built into the ground, ect: tnt was used to build the pits in nemesis. 4) a lot of theming is built with backstory so you kinda need to know some of the story’s to fully understand it. 5) SPINBALL WIZZER IS THEMED. RITA IS THEMED. 6) if you’re new to the park, please use the app for the map so you don’t get lost. Okay rant over this place is practically my home I had to fix some misconceptions.

[ltrtg]

The blue roller coaster by the entrance is only a small section. It was called the Corkscrew. If was yellow when it was in use. It's length was 750 metres, height 23 metres, speed 40 mph and had a capacity of 1400 people per hour. I have been on it several times. As I live less than a 25 minute drive from Alton Towers Resort. I haven't been there for several years. So it's interesting to see the changes.

[Mrtnnxy]

The purple one at the start is an memorial of an old ride called the corkscrew

[LvMagikarp]

Absolutely love Alton Towers, even when I was younger and wasn't a fan of coasters (To this day I blame my dad for tricking me onto Space Mountain) there was still plenty to see and do. The video is spot on about how big and beautiful the place is. Fast forward a few years and now having a coaster addiction, it has some superb iconic coasters. The Smiler is hands down one of my all time faves, to anyone going make sure you hit it up first! Hex is great too, I just love all the story / theme in there.

Bring on the next Secret Weapon!

[RFMGamng]

4:05 uugh it was my "NEMISIS" tyler. Little did he know

[wuxing]

I grew up near alton towers and must have been 4-5 times a year, the whole park is themed on the story of the traveler and the witch which has a load of evidence of it being a true story based hundreds of years ago, just the story is well worth checking out.

[robwarner]

That earns a follow! Parks in the U.K. tend to be daytime only except for special events. Blackpool Pleasure Beach used to be pay-per-ride and would stay open as long as there were enough people riding. When The Big One opened, we would ride into the early hours. The park would play a special song over the tannoy system to let the ride ops know they could start shutting up shop. When you heard “Every day’s a fun day at the Pleasure Beach” being sung, you knew you had to pick your last ride pronto.

Stay in the on-site hotels and you’ll get early admission, and most parks have upcharge queue-skipping schemes.

I’m looking forward to delving into your back catalogue - good concept!

[ThatPancakeCat]

Every October me and my family go to Alton Towers.
During Scarefest, which happens in October, they leave the park open until 9. It is so atmospheric being in the park with so little people there. The lines are almost non-existent, the park looks so amazing at night when you're at the top of Oblivion. It's just incredible.

[liamcollinson]

I love the old towers other theme parks would have to build something to look old but the towers and the land truly are. The reason why they are not allowed above the tree line is because of the now infamous Alton locals. It's the reason why oblivion goes underground. If you want night rides you need to go for the scare fest the features a maze in the towers themselves or bonfire night for the fireworks. Wicker Man looks so epic for night rides particularly the real fire.

[Chris_GY]

There is no castle at Alton Towers it is a stately home. The queues are enormous at Alton Towers for the roller coasters.