Alton Towers Resort Reviews 

Me and my family took a 3.5 hour trip (7 in total) to Alton Towers during the summer holidays and spent in excess of £300 for a family of 6 including tickets / food/ travel. The rides were all closed at numerous points of the day due to an “incoming electrical storm” which never came cutting our visit by around 2 hours in total and increasing the queues. We had the most appalling member of staff who made himself known as Lewis Thompson try to bully me and my daughter in front of other guests, picking on a 7 year old and then trying to argue and belittle me when he was pulled up on his behaviour. He was like a performing monkey, trying to show off and was overly happy to give his name when I asked to make a complaint, pulling his name badge like a trophy to make sure I got it. Her then refused to check our lap bar once on tbe ride out of spite. He shouldnt be around kids or vulnerable people if he cant act in a professional or safe manner. Reported this to the CEO and was told that I cant have access to the cctv they supposedly used to check the incident which is how I know they are lying, and have offered me to return but I once again have to make the 7 hour round trip and they want me to actually repurchase tickets too which is a sheer disgrace. We come every year and I’ll never return again or expose my children to such disgraceful staff members. Utter pits of a company

Well well well. This is only the half of one hell of a horrific experience at Alton Towers and there staff .

Ile keep it short as I have no more time to waste on this place

We booked to go here and the first scare was the parking. Just payed into triple figures for a few tickets and now there scraping another £15 to park in there land. Do recognise that they hold upto 3800 vehicles, thats £57,000 they claw extra per day
And for fugures whilst were here upto 28,000 people a day at full capacity. Thats 1.85 million a day ( tickets sold at full price to add some transparency)

We came, got in on the 1st day. Spent 2h in the 1st que and 1.5 in the further 2 ques. 3 rides ,and at 3:30 and electrical storm was forecast ,ime all up for safety, especially at a place like this . They stopped all riders witch is totally understandable.

Apparently the theme park didn't reopen that day, I thought as much and by 4:30 after paying an extortionate amount for some low-level microwave food ( do not buy ) we decided to leave.

I read that if you get continuous hours of rain you can reschedule to return on a better day ( remember this wasnt only rain the park literally closed for the day after 3:30)

Went home, a bit disappointed after 3 rides...again costing over £100 we went on the side and it let me reschedule for 4 later. So, I boed the day of work . Bought my son a ticket, even bought my sons friend a ticket and off we went. Got there to be greeted by " ticket invalid " . After travelling another 90 miles they tell me I can do that, even tho the system " there system " let me.

So we've got 2 invalid tickets and 2 ive further paid for. I send my son and his friend in so they can't TRY and get on more rides than we did earlier in the week. Went to customer service and WOW, boy o boy was i in for a horrible half hour. I explained my problem and the dull looking woman ( to many years here ) couldn't really help so i asked to speak to someone else, manager hopefully. I explained my problem again. A large que forming before us we were becoming quite anxious. The manager went of to ask someone above her , she returned looking sadder than she did before and turned us down for entry. A bit of an argument kicked off and with the que growing an people can hear whats going on i kept cool, put my head in the kiosk out of embarrassment and said. ILE PAY ILE PAY , to our horror the lady cringing said " I will warn you its £136 on the day.....shocked. my daughter of 11 years said " Dad, don't pay that . I apologised to my daughter and said sorry. We just carnt afford that.
Wait for it. We had to wait for 8hours in the carpark whilst we waited for my son and friend ide payed for. They basically said, not our problem.

Fuming, I send a complaint via email . Explained this horror story and explaining there is no way a worthless set of tickets could ever compensate the experience for not me but my daughter

Lots of health and safety jargon. Lots of explaining and would you believe...we won't be offering you and refund, 2 tickets. Ha, i told them to keep the tickets there worthless to me, my family and whoever ever brings ALTON TOWERS up to me ever again

I asked for the parking back as a joke and got told no aswell .

DO NOT GO HERE .
to be fair I won't let my children see the staff here , if you understand. Great

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Ridiculous that you pay all that money for the tickets and now they charge you £13 for parking and the food and drinks are over priced, will never go again

Absolutely don't care about people who's got proper disability like me with learning difficulties can't get ride access because people were in the queue were not disabled and using it as a easy get in access

On the day of our visit most of the rides were shut. Genuinely for anyone above the age of 6, there was nothing to do. After a 4 hour drive. Customer service didn't want to help. Emailed...no reply after 1+ month! Spoke to online chat...they don't care either! DO NOT GO TO ALTON TOWERS! Waste of time and money.

Would not recommend this theme park paid nearly £2000 pound for 3 nights with my kids hardly any gluten free options bought fast track tickets you don’t get any incentive as a paying customer paid £35 each on Friday then paid £55 each as they said it a Saturday cos it busy what has that got to do with paying guest staying on there resort breakfast is terrible cheap food if you rather spend that sort of money going to Greece uk is a joke to be honest thanks a lot for a terrible stay

The Alton Towers mobile app does not allow booking a visit for season pass holders. As a member every time I try and book I have to find a link via Google. This is a hopeless system.

Have been going to Alton Towers for 20+ years and have spent a small fortune with them. Booked a stay with Alton Towers for my family. Unfortunately, my son has a complicated hand injury and needed surgery. A second surgery is needed in 4-6 months followed by recovery which can take a further 6 months. I tried to cancel my booking but as I have not paid for their cancellation policy they will not help. They are happy to charge me £24.95 to change the date but I have no idea when we can visit. So, bear this in mind if you book with Alton Towers. If something unexpected comes up they will not help you.

We booked an Alton Towers hotel for our 3yo son for his birthday as short break costing £606.02. On the day we were due to arrive, our car suffered a serious breakdown in France, making it physically impossible for us to reach Alton Towers as planned.

We were not asking for a refund. We explained the situation immediately and 24 h before checking in time and simply asked them to move our booking to alternative dates so that we would not lose the entire £606.02.

They refused.

We escalated the matter and explained the exceptional circumstances, but a manager has now confirmed their “final standpoint”: no date change and no refund. Their solution was effectively that we should claim through travel insurance.

This was particularly upsetting because this was a family trip with our young child. We were not cancelling because we changed our minds. A vehicle breakdown abroad prevented us from getting there, and all we asked for was some flexibility to use the money we had already paid on different dates.

Companies are entitled to have terms and conditions. But they are also entitled to exercise discretion and show goodwill when genuine emergencies happen. Alton Towers explicitly chose not to do so.

£606.02 retained, no alternative dates offered, no meaningful solution, and absolutely no goodwill or compassion towards a family facing circumstances completely beyond their control whatsoever.

Extremely disappointing customer service from a company whose entire business is supposedly built around families.

Customer service is appalling.
On checking in to the hotel 2 days ago, I was advised by a member of staff that there would be a £5 debit card security transaction placed on my file, but not to wory as no funds would be withdrawn from my account.

I checked my account today and saw that the £5 transaction had been made. Another example of bad customer service from Alton Towers, I'm still waiting for my complaint to be addressed for an another issue from 2 weeks ago. They have not responded and my visit to Alton Towers has actually now completed...

NOW THATS WHAT I 'DONT CALL' CUSTOMER SERVICE...

Nice rides, customer support staff pathetic, management even worse for allowing 1.5 stars on Trust pilot with people obtaining no responses to their complaints as stated in other peoples Trust Pilot reviews...

Complacent management....

Part way throught a good day (on a school trip) at the park my son's bag was (I hope) mistakenly taken from one of the rides, with his phone/wallet etc inside.
After i located the items outside one of the restaurants via 'google location' and then contacted the park to explain where is was, they refused to help to find the items insisting I would have to wait for the formal procedure to be followed. I was told to use the useless Boomerang system and wait. 48hours later the phones battery has now died and I am left waiting for a reply about an item that I located 48 hours ago.
Dreadful support.
**UPDATE**
10 days later, Alton Towers have made no progress in locating the items I gave them the GPS location of.
Staffordshire Police now believe it has been stolen by a member of staff so we are now waiting on Alton Towers ti supply CCTV images to them.

Filthy water park. Wanted to charge me £10 to watch relatives in water park !! 70 minute queues in water park for master blaster

Paid nearly £300 for gold fast passes on top of all other costs.

Complete rip off. Ridiculous answers when made complaint.

I went to the water park yesterday, the park itself is ok, it doesn’t have a lot to do but it’s enough for a few hours. The issue starts when you get inside, the staff (lifeguards) are for the most part very young and have no authority, seemingly prefer to be chatting to each other rather than doing their job. I witnessed numerous queue jumps that went ignored and people doing flips in the outdoor area while there was 2 staff in eye shot, the cafe was closed and just a snack hut to purchase from. It was 12:30 midday and there was 1 sandwich available to purchase.

A complete and utter failure of reasonable adjustments for disabled guests.
Our family spent over £400 for a night at Splash Landings Hotel, relying on the waterpark access and early entry perks to accommodate my Lymphedema, EUPD, and agoraphobia.
Instead, we were turned away from our pre-booked waterpark slot due to overcrowding, ruining the trip for my children.
Management offered no immediate resolution.
On top of this, their mobility hire policy forces disabled hotel guests to walk the entire length of the park to collect a scooter.

When I physically couldn't return it to Towers Street at the end of the day due to severe pain and medical risk, security staff flatly told me I had no choice and refused to accommodate my agoraphobia regarding crowded public transit links. I had to abandon the scooter keys at Galactica and walk back in agony.Appalling customer service, shocking lack of staff training, and a clear breach of their anticipatory duty under the Equality Act 2010.

Very disappointing experience, particularly for what was supposed to be a special family trip.

I booked the CBeebies Land Hotel through the Blue Light Card offer and paid £257.20. I genuinely believed park admission was included. I arrived at the park confident that I had tickets, only to discover at the gates that I didn’t. I then had to purchase three tickets for a further £150.

I raised this with the team because the booking journey had not made it clear to me that park admission was excluded.

Alton Towers’ response was that the terms and conditions were present further down the landing page, and that this was sufficient. However, I did not scroll down because the landing page had a very clear “Book Now” button prominently displayed at the top, which took me directly into the booking process. On my device, the terms were not visible without scrolling, and there was no indication that I needed to scroll down to find them.

I was also told that the absence of tickets from my booking confirmation was sufficient to show they weren’t included, and that I should have phoned to check. I had no reason to do this. I genuinely believed I had booked the short break I intended to book.

I was subsequently told that I should have booked the park tickets separately and could have used Blue Light Card to receive a discount on those tickets too. However, nowhere in the booking journey was I prompted or directed to purchase park tickets separately, and none of the subsequent information I received told me that I needed to do so.

The pricing also contributed to my understanding. The price shown on the main Alton Towers website was the same as the discounted price I was being offered through the Blue Light booking journey. Importantly, the main website was advertising the CBeebies Land Hotel short break with a park ticket included, plus a second day free.

The booking journey didn’t make such a significant exclusion sufficiently clear.

The final outcome was that there was nothing further they could do.

I have to say that I’m quite disappointed with the experience so far.

The Merlin Pass is a significant expense, yet booking some of the additional benefits and extras can be surprisingly difficult. The Passholder Hub also still feels very much like a work in progress, which makes the overall experience more frustrating than it needs to be.

Once you are inside Alton Towers, it also feels as though almost everything beyond the basic entry ticket and car parking comes at an additional and fairly expensive cost. I appreciate that running a theme park is expensive, but as a pass holder, the overall value starts to feel questionable when so many things require further spending.

The biggest disappointment today, however, has been the reliability of the attractions in the children’s area. We queued for three different children’s attractions — Octonauts, Go Jetters and Bluey The Ride — and all three experienced difficulties and had to stop while we were waiting.

I completely understand that attractions can break down and that safety has to come first. I have absolutely no issue with a ride being stopped if there is a genuine safety concern. However, experiencing problems on three different children’s attractions during the same visit is extremely disappointing, particularly when you have young children who have spent a significant amount of time waiting in the queues.

It honestly got to the point where I started wondering whether the frequency of the stoppages was contributing to the pressure to purchase the various “skip the queue” options. I’m not suggesting that this is actually happening, but when you are already paying a considerable amount for the pass and then repeatedly spend time standing in queues only for the attraction to stop, it certainly leaves that impression.

For families with young children, this is particularly frustrating. The whole point of visiting is to give them an enjoyable day, and spending a large proportion of that day waiting in queues for attractions that then stop makes the experience considerably less enjoyable.

I really want to like the Merlin Pass and Alton Towers, and there are obviously some great attractions and experiences here. However, based on this visit, the combination of the cost, additional charges, difficulty booking pass-holder benefits, the unfinished feel of the Passholder Hub, and the reliability issues with the children’s attractions means that the overall experience has not felt like good value.

I hope Merlin and Alton Towers take this feedback seriously, particularly from the perspective of families with young children. The experience needs to feel like good value for pass holders, rather than leaving people feeling that they have to keep paying extra to get the most out of their visit.

Our visit on August 11th was a complete waste of time. You would expect a weekday to be manageable, but the park was overcrowded and absolutely not worth the high ticket prices. The most infuriating part of the day was wasting more than 3.5 hours standing in queues for nothing. Three of the main rides went out of order right as we finally reached the front of the line. My two kids were left incredibly disappointed and frustrated by the constant breakdowns.

Let’s start with the website, very hard to navigate if looking for Mobility scooter hire, easy to book tickets and parking but that’s it. PARKING is expensive and people are left to park how they want so when busy can be chaos. SECURITY checks upon entering park are a simple open your bag, thank you, away you go, very lax leaving us feeling unsafe. While they are friendly, checks are insufficient. Security inside the park seems non existent, after several visits this year I’ve only ever seen 2 guards in the food area on one occasion. If anything kicked off it would be too late by the time help arrived. RIDES are always closing down, I believe it’s done to filter footfall around the park, smiler, oblivion, Rita to name 3 seem to go down at least once a day, even just after pre day checks, frustrating for customers who have queued for an hour or so. Each ride has a clock showing queue times which is helpful if the ride is actually working. FOOD is very overpriced, baked potatoes with a filling £12.50, fish n chips £12, eastern wraps around £9, even chocolate bars, ice cream from vending machines are expensive, bottle pops £2.50, my advice take your own food and drinks. SHOPS are well stocked and have varied gifts to be fair, clothing is expensive but you can buy nice little gifts for a decent price. RIDE QUEUE JUMP TICKETS are extortionate, over £100, no thank you. FACILITIES like toilets are generally clean with staff ever present cleaning them, STAFF on the whole are pleasant, I was served recently by a young lady in customer care when collecting a scooter who was most helpful, cheerful and polite, I saw her in the park later in the day and she recognised me and asked how I was, very good young lady, unfortunately I did not get her name. CONDITION OF PARK is generally good, as a disabled scooter user some paths are treacherous and dangerous for scooters but generally the park is well maintained. TICKET PRICE is expensive when you consider rides not working, queues for rides and prices for refreshments inside. Your lucky to get 8/10 rides in during a visit and considering parking is extra it can be a very expensive family day out. We purchased a annual pass but have since found out this does not include scare fest or the special days. Still worth it if you visit over 3/4 times a year.

Never, ever again. I treated my family of 14 for a day out here. Paid for tickets and £13 x 3 for the carpark. We arrived near to opening time, but the queue to park in a field (not a car park) 20 minutes walk away, took about one hour and ten minutes to park. It was far too packed out! Stupidly and greedily so. A foreign woman attempted to take my baby grandson pram out of my hands in the tight hustle and bustle, but I challenged her and yelled out loud to alert others. Family got on two or three rides, no more. Two hour queues!!! Food expensive for what it was. By the time, we got to the car, my phone had died, so I couldn’t show proof of payment after another queue to get out. Had to wait 7 minutes holding the queue up behind me, whilst she made checks and was finally allowed to go. Rip off. Greedy corporation allowing thousand of people in snf unable to go on rides with one main one closed.

Travelled all the way from Edinburgh to have a day here and they shut everything down after waiting over an hour for one ride (didn't even get on) not even an apology to anyone, not just us. Not exactly cheap either. As a person who disabled, they have no way to help when the entry train has broke down.
All in all, one star is being kind. App is useless too.