How To Beat the Queues at Alton Towers

On a busy weekend at the park we give you some tips for how to beat the queues at Alton Towers no matter what year it is! Check the full description for even more Alton Towers tips!

Alton Towers Oktoberfest is in full swing and just over 4 hours in the park had us in double figures for how many rides we had been on and we'd already finished the big 6 challenge. Our goal was to only do the big 6 but we had time to fit others in along the way too.

With the park being open until 8pm during Oktoberfest Fri-Sun there was plenty more time to rack up those ride totals.

We hope these Alton Towers tips will help and whilst this weekend was certainly not as busy as Alton Towers Scarefest for example it's still fairly easy enough to get the big 6 done in one day (even on the busiest days) as we have done all of the 70+ times we've been to the park over the last few years.

Other Alton Towers Top Tips

1. Forbidden Valley and Dark Forest are usually dead within the last hour of the parks opening times. Use this to your advantage and rack up some extra laps!

2. During lunch hours the queues are usually smaller on Smiler / Wicker Man so take advantage of this and have your lunch early or late or even within the queue line as stated in the video.

3. Flat rides such as Marauders Mayhem, Blade and Battle Galleons always have short queues. Make the most of them.

4. Fast shots are currently available for £10 for Wicker Man, The Smiler and Nemesis and crazy queue times will be a thing of the past. When fast track bundles return in 2021 it's certainly worth the money if you want to get the most out of your day. Ideally suited to first time visitors at the park or just impatient people who hate queues like myself.

5. Make sure you have the Alton Towers app installed on your phone to keep track of queue times and other handy functions.

Beat those Alton Towers covid queues and hit that subscribe button for more content to come on Lift Hills and Thrills.

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[LiftHillsandThrills]

Do you have any Alton Towers top tips to beat the queues? Leave them in the comments below!

[Whencowsmelt]

I'm quite lucky I get a disabled pass and i always feel quite guilty walking past people, especially on the smiler when everyone is pushed into the tiny cages like animals. We always manage to get on the big rides luckily. I also was quite naughty and when i visited the park a year or two ago there was a child crying because his dad wasn't willing to queue for wicker man as it had just opened. He was heart broken bless him and we even had a little wicker man hat on so he clearly loved the ride, i approached him and asked if he wanted to "skip" the queue with me (due to my disabled pass and the fact that it was only me and my friend and we're allowed two extra people). I know it was rubbish on the rest of the people in the park but i couldn't see that little boy so upset. He got off smiling and his dad offered to buy us lunch which i denied. I felt good for the rest of the day then!

[FamilyDayTrippersUk]

Can’t argue with your ride count but generally we head for thirteen and Rita at the start of the day. But good advice anyway. 👍🏻

[xxsilentxx]

The best way to go is left. Nobody ever goes left first, so if you're going at opening - 9ish, go left. It doesn't work after a few hours since everyone is coming back around, but it's good for things like school trips. Also, ALWAYS GO IN THE SINGLE RIDER QUEUE. Although some of you and your friends might be a little separated, most rides will have enough seats to sit next to eachother. I'd also recommend going on a few rides before going on things like Smiler or Oblivion. Galactica and Nemesis don't really have long queues most of the time, so going on those might cut down the time a bit, even for the single rider queue.

[hattylntamin]

I have a disabled pass but sometimes I'm unable to get it, but this video really helped me as they have time restrictions, thank you can't wait to visit Towers again!

[timruss]

We traveled up from London and followed the advice in this video. Mid-week visit but we smashed it and got in 10 rides. All the big ones and a couple of smaller walk ons. Had a great time thanks to your advice. Thank you guys!!!!

[mattgc]

Some of this is similar to what I do and thinks along the same lines. The main rule is, think about what everyone else is doing. Most people will be used to having lunch at lunch time, dinner at dinner time, ride the rides in the order they pass them and avoid having to add extra walking to their route. You also need to have a sacrifice area, where you accept you'll be queueing when the park is at its busiest. So with that in mind I would suggest:

Dark forest first, far enough away from the entrance to not get busy in the first half hour and should be done before Forbidden Valley as that doesn't get busy until mid day.
1. Rita (as most people walk in to DF from fountain Square so it gets busier earlier)
2. Thirteen.
Take the lakeside walk or the conservatory garden walk to Forbidden Valley.
3. Galactica (Low throughput and has longer queues that Nemesis so do this first)
4. Multiple rides on Nemesis until a queue forms.
Lunch before 12. Lakeside walk to X Sector whilst most visitors are now in the park and those in early start to go for lunch.
5. Oblivion
6. The Smiler (will probably be first big queue, try to hit in the middle of lunch time and after most the morning crowds have now gone past it)
7. Spinball (Most guests would have already ridden on the way in).
7. Wickerman (will be the biggest queue of the day).
8. Hex.

Then head to Katanga and Gloomy Wood and knock those 3 on the head. Then you can either choose re rides of your choice, pick up family attractions or Dungeons.

Ensure you spend the end of your day in Forbidden Valley and as far away from Mutiny Bay and X sector as possible, whatever you do. It's always dead in FV the last hour of the day and you'll get tonnes of Nemesis rerides. The Galactica gate usually opens at closing time saving you the walk from the entrance all the way back to the cat park.

If you really hate queues, final tip is (not during Covid obviously), have a drink in one of the hotels before heading off (non alcoholic if driving of course). The car park will empty out, you won't be queuing to get out, Alton Village will be a clear run through and the Uttoxer McDonald's queue will also have gone. Job done.

[Mattia_Genuardi]

5:43 lol that guy in the front row headbanging to the Oblivion soundtrack

[subt-series]

The reason Rita has an enormous queue is because it has a small ride capacity and it doesn’t get through a large amount of people per hour. Also, thirteen is the most busy ride in the park(as soon as wicker man calms down) because it attracts smaller kids and families.

[yourrandomneighbourhoodche]

This has made my day at Alton Towers better now! I could go on more rides because of this!!

[Paolo]

Thanks for the advice. I'd go on a non busy day. Also: I learned the hard way that spending 100 pounds for a skip the line pass isn't just expensive, but as a lone rider I can use the single rider line on Smiler which is my favourite coaster in the park and possibly all of England, with Icon being the only contender for best coaster in England. Great video, Thanks for posting!

[themeparkegghead]

This was very convenient for me and my friend because we are going to Alton Towers today and tomorrow

[tattie.b]

I made a spreadsheet to work out the best time to ride everything.
We’d get to the park at 9:10, then get straight to smilier by 9:30 (as walking through the gardens hotel route)

Would get into the ride building and onto the ride by 10:30
Meaning we only queued for 60 mins
Which is the shortest length that the smiler would ever be in average

Then walk onto oblivion, then straight to dark forest, do 13 first then Rita.
You do these straight away as they can fetch Upto 120 minutes, but at this time of the day 11:30, the queue is still short as people haven’t got there yet

Then we’d either stop for lunch or keep going and do some smaller rides
Such as duel and Congo river rapids (opens at 12, so the queue is walk on more or less)
Look back
Lunchtime is best for the wickerman reaching the lowest advertised queue line of an hour,
Then you head back either via haunted hollow or sky ride to the back of the park for galactica and nemmy
Which fluctuate greatly queue length ride times, but when we went we only waited 5-45 mins for nemmy and then 20-60 mins for galactica

(We did this route everyday for a 3 day trip)

The spinball whizzer shortest queue time is at 2-3ish being 20 mins long, but that means a 5 min wait

Then the rest of they day we just repeated favourite rides

On our trip we rode about 11 rides a day and we left the park early everyday and it was in the peak of covid summer.

Fair to say like these guys in this video it is very possible to do it all!
Thanks for reading

[spacebug]

I went to alton towers a couple of days ago it was very good. The ride queues were quite long but not too long. Me and my sister kept going on oblivion because the smiler queue was like 100 minutes until it got to like 80 mins but it was the first time I saw oblivion with a queue over 20 minutes

[lillooney]

This is gonna be good for me when I go to Alton cause the park closes at 4 now! Thanks for the tips

[twiistaaaa]

Went on Monday, park had a decent amount of people but queues were pretty quick. Longest wait was maybe 20 mins for Rita, other than that it was nearly walk on for everything. Hit Nemesis and Galactica first, then over to Thirteen and Rita. Then SkyRide to work our way around Wicker Man, Spinball, Oblivion and The Smiler. Managed to get on everything twice and some even 3 times. First time back at the park since before The Smiler was built, was such a sick day!

[benxyb]

My tips:
1: Try to arrive at the park around 8.45, this is really useful at the moment, especially since there's no Early Ride Time. The park gates open around 9am, so you can get in super quickly if you arrive at this time
2: Go straight to The Smiler, if you're early you'll barely have to queue once the ride opens at 10am.
3: Head to Dark Forest after The Smiler before the queues there build up. Do Th13teen before Rita.
4: Then head to Forbidden Valley: Both coasters tend to have fairly similar wait time, so you can do them in either order, but you should be able to get them both done before lunch.
After this, just plan the rest of your day out according to the queue times :)

[mr_perfectly_fine]

I've only been here twice but I always start with nemesis and galactica before this video. Also the queues are better with the rides being able to be full capacity

[arcticbari]

Just a thought (Haven't actually tried this). If possible, may be a good idea to go from Dark Forest first to Forbidden Valley via skyride or gardens to get some shorter queues on them as well earlier on in the day, then walk down for Duel and Katanga rides, then spinball, oblivion, and smiler last? May then catch a bit of an end of day lull for the big smiler queue

[mistercal]

Obviously off-peak but we were there yesterday, we managed to do the following (in order)

Oblivion
Smiler
Thirteen
Hex
Galactica
Nemisis (twice)
Mine Train
Spinball Whizzer (3 times)
Oblivion
Smiler
Rita
Galactica
Nemisis
Wicker Man