Alton Towers Resort Reviews 

To give some background, I have been coming to Alton Towers Hotel pretty much every year since it opened. Year on year, I still give it a chance, staying in each of the hotels and lodges available, hoping it will change my mind and give me/us the experience we used to have. My overall feeling is that Merlin have become greedy and want as many people in as possible to make as much money as possible, with price increases year on year, but are delivering less and less. This is evident by the horrendous queues for rides, the monorail and sky ride. This year we thought we would book the ‘luxury’ treehouse for 4 days, costing a small fortune of just under £3500 with park tickets. Some small perks of the treehouse is the express parking (helpful for tired little legs), fast tracks for 4 rides, and a friendly assistant for the length of your stay. But…. The ‘luxury’ treehouse is filthy! Kids feet were brown and dirty from walking on the floor and tired rug, the decking area hadn’t been swept and was plagued by wasps so relaxing in the hot tub was out of the question. The bathrooms were covered in cobwebs and spiders. Every light and wall was covered in thick grey dust. Corners and behind doors certainly aren’t hoovered. The whole place needs a paint. The windows are covered in cobwebs and bird poop. But also, the layout of the Oak Wood is thoughtless- a very steep narrow staircase with 2 twin rooms at the top (meant to be suitable for children) and 2 double beds on the ground floor. There is a stair gate available at the top, however for kids that wake in the night, this leaves you with the constant dread of wondering whether they’ll make it down the stairs, fly down them, or wake up the whole house by screaming at the top to come down and sleep in your bed. Eventually I had a choice, the child or the husband. I stayed upstairs with our child in a creaky single bed waiting for the night to pass. It was the same for the other couple who stayed with us, separated as they were too worried about the kids being upstairs alone. I would advise Alton Towers to display the layout of the accommodation clearly on their website so that people are fully aware of what they are booking.
I have given this review 1 star as I subsequently had a conversation with the team at the Alton towers hotel to see if they could help, and they agreed to transfer us to rooms instead as I explained that we just wanted one decent nights sleep for our last evening. Generally, I think they handled this well and were understanding of our situation so accommodated the move.
On to the rooms, of which we had 3. When we checked in, 1 room had someone’s fake eyelashes stuck to the top bunk bed. Another room had 2 bottles of half drunk water left in the room and the last had light bulbs not working on the bunk bed and kids interactive play board, and the bath was covered in hair…. Lovely! @AltonTowers, you should be getting at least the cleaning basics right!!
The hotel itself is also plagued by seagulls, meaning every window & pane of glass is covered in excrement. Strangely I saw the window cleaner cleaning some bottom floor windows whilst we were there, but they must think that anything above the ground floor is not worth it as none of the others, including the secret garden restaurant roof, have been cleaned in a very very long time. The bar & seating area carpet is filthy, the tables & chairs sticky, the ceilings are covered in cobwebs and bugs. Glasses are cloudy, plates smell of wet dog and the cutlery has bits of food stuck to them from the previous use.
The magic feels like it’s disappeared- What happened to the talking tree in the Secret Garden Restaurant? The tweeting bird ambient music? The music and lights in Splash Landing lifts making you dance along to Spongebob? The fish from the tank in reception have disappeared and all that is left is an empty, dirty, dry tank with pictures underneath of previous fish that swam there. The hunt for the chocolate treasure in the room is no longer…. And the early ride time woodland walk with the dressed up characters doesn’t happen anymore.
I always remember feeling special when I used to visit as a child, that all staff were very much in character with the magic of the Alton Towers story. Now you’ve pretty much got young people wandering around hoping their shift would be over.
Some prices- £4.50 for a bottle of sprite. £14.50 for a refillable flask, £8 for a slush drink, £7.75 for 3 bags of crisps, £11 face paint, pizza/pasta buffet £26 per person.
The waterpark- 1 hotdog at £13.50. And on the subject of cleanliness, the locker rooms/toilets had an overwhelming stench of urine! Overcrowded and at £24 a person, surely they can afford cleaning products.
Alton Towers/Merlin- Please clean up your act and go back to basics! Sometimes bigger isn’t better!

Got in the park queue for nemesis it's only running one carriage, then they decided to add another ,then it broke down for an hour us in mid que !
Galactica was the next queue similar experience as above .
Rita shut all day but run test carriages !
Smiler qué yet again and guess what it broke down .
The qué times advertised are a good 30 to 45 Minutes less than the actual wait times .
Merlin what is going on ,why are you not doing your pre safety and test checks before the public arrive .The park opens at 10am if engineers start at 8am that gives you 2 hours to test and check .The place is a joke in fact it's a rip off !! Turnover 100 million a year you need to invest back into the business.

Good, but no postman pat ):

Attended on the 13/07/25. Paid for fast pass, some of the rides were shut. Wasps run riot, no deterrents at all, paid £25 to POMVOM for all of our digital photos and we still haven’t received un watermarked versions. Emailed in to both Alton towers and my partner emailed POMVOM who both initially replied but now we get no replies from either of these companies with no resolution. We have contacted the bank to perform a charge back. Clearly the customer service from both of these companies is awful. It’s been weeks and we’ve had no resolution. AVOID spend your money else where.

Okay I was seriously worried having read all the negatives reviews on here. Especially over queues and food.

We just spent two days here staying in the woodland lodges.
We ate at the rollercoaster restaurant, which for thrills is awesome! Okay the food was mediocre core but the place and the fact it sends food from the sky on robots down to your table more than makes up for it! Dinner in the crooked spoon was nice too around 120 for 5 of us.
Next night we went to the restaurant inside splash landings hotel , Jambo something and it was actually really good quality! We also during the day are in the pizza / pasta restaurant by the water rapids and that was also really good. Instantly bringing out hot food.
We really didn’t experience many long queues at all. This was the peak of summer too.
Kids age 15,14 and 9 loved it, we were given a chance to upgrade from woodland lodge to splash landings and I regret not doing it, as third bed in woodland lodges was on the floor but in a themed room in the hotel it would have been an actual bed. Overall I don’t get the negatives reviews, the gold by then prisms is also a highlight bad free if you stay at the hotel!
We had two games over two nights on the two courses, it really was a great trip. Don’t be put off by the bad reviews. Only negative my son has ADHD and could have been given a pass but this takes 5 days to process, I applied 5 days before the visit and it hadn’t worked but saw lots of others picking up their passes. Next time!

Rides closed down after queueing for 40 plus minutes.
No expernation , just told to leave .
Walk back to entrance. People queuing.
Ride reopens . Despite just walking all the way back .
Told to join back of queue .
Err . We just been made to come out .
You now want us to join back of queue 😡😡😡
Rapid water rides tub takes 8 .
Leaving with just 2 in it .
Time & time again .
Total thou out the site .
Lack of communication people operating the rides & people filtering guest in .
Board with waiting time .
Total given false incorrect waiting times .
Says 30 minutes . Queue for well over a hour plus .
Try to talk to someone in charge .
Absolutely no chance .
There got your money & now not interested.

Bought the I-Magic photo add on but was left disappointed when Galactica didn't capture a photo of me at all. I sat at the back right corner seat twice in a row. Was a shame because it was my favourite ride. Left with no media to show.

I visited today with friends and our children- the worse experience you could honestly ever imagine.

1st, queued for 10 mins for mono rail to he told it broke.

2. Went to Costa to get drinks and few treats, the machine kept saying error so was told ‘well we only take cash at till so you can’t order’. The staff then just stared straight though us like we we ghosts.

3. We bough photo passes - to he told by some staff that we’d have to pay extra because they don’t know how to add it to the pass, despite their kiosk advertising the photo pass and website confirming they include the digital photo passes. I was forced to pay an extra £14 of her child in the Gangsta Granny area.

4. The burger restaurant stated they cant do any burger whatsoever without cheese, they all come with cheese - and no way they can do any without

5 all rides closed all day - it had a 5 minute light shower! It was hot and sunny

6 majority of staff clueless, clearly doesn’t want to be there and quite rude

7 zero atmosphere anymore

Went today (21st July 2025) and they closed pretty much all rides from 13:15 due to “adverse weather” and didn't open them again for the remainder of the day!! The weather was sunny and hot for most of this time with a short shower and bit of thunder for 15 minutes at about 3pm! No real updates given and no apologies when exiting the park. We wasted over £200 and a 7 hour round trip in the car and made it on 3 rides, will never go back after this.

Went on a sunny Monday and all but about 2 rides were closed all day for ‘adverse weather conditions’. No communication as to what that meant or why.

No communication most frustrating, no care at all about the paying customers.

No refunds.

Avoid.

Such a bad experience.
Queues are too long because too many people are admitted. Just pure greed. Don't go!!!

What totally ruins the day. Is the ridiculous waiting times for some of the rides
Just look at the reviews. If that was my business I'd genuinely be disappointed with myself.

Genuinely disappointed at the team. Raised a query by calling the Merlin pass team with a view to upgrading our tickets to Merlin annual passes for 5 people on the 19th of June. They logged a case and promised someone will get back into touch. Got an automated email response acknowledging the case created. Have had two non-committal emails back since.

It’s been a month now and I have been passed from Pillar to post and now they have even stopped replying. Really disappointed at the level of service. Genuinely expected better from an organisation of this size.

Definetly wouldn’t do yous any harm to hire security companies to help improve customer experiences especially with the queues for rides due to the amount of queue jumping

This is specifically about the coffee offering on the main street by the entrance. There are thousands of coffee shops all over the UK with successful models, so I am curious about how they managed to get this so wrong. First, there are ordering screens by the door. This means the doors are clogged with people, and there is no obvious queuing system (a stressor for Brits). Then, once you have navigated the screens, you wait in a huddle in a very cramped area for your number to be shouted out by the baristas. There is a screen showing what's ready, but this wasn't being used. The baristas have to shout due to the excessively loud music being played in the cafe. The seating is also inadequate for the number of visitors. Another problem is that if you require plant milk, this has to be ordered at the counter as it's not on the screens. To order a tea, for example, with plant milk, you have to order a black tea from the screens, then ask for plant milk at the counter. If you don't know this, it means a trip back to the screens. I was not the first person to just walk away from this chaos.

The queues were way too long, 2 hours for one ride is ridiculous. Too many people admitted to the park and it was completely overrun by school parties. Fast Track tickets extortionate and not an option when there are 6 of you. The rides are amazing but so frustrating to be taking home disappointed teenagers who only got on 3 big rides because of the queue times. Rides kept randomly being closed down which was also annoying. This could have been such a fantastic day but I don’t feel we got value for money at all. Yes there are a few other rides/ experiences but our teens were only interested in the big ones - isn’t that what everyone wants .. to ride the rides you have seen advertised and heard so much about?? Goodness knows what the place would be like peak season in summer holidays?? Don’t think we will be back just too expensive and no fun at all spending most of the time stuck in queues in the heat.

I only got on 3 rides with ride access! A new stupid rule, 11/2 hours after a ride! Joke. stuck in the smiler queue for 40 mins because it broke down went up to the gate and it was shut on us finaly let us out of the queue and went to spin ball wizzer went to the queue and wouldn’t let us in due to the 1 and 30 mins rule and said it had to be crossed out by the person that did it who wasn’t there. You need to get your act together. When we entered the park half my schools passes didn’t even work. I usually love this park as I love roller coasters

Honeslty id love to ask who is actually managing this place and when will they move on to pass the place to a company or individual that actually cares about the park and most importantly guest experience? We only live 25 mins away from the resort and as such brought a season pass as we have done so for a few years now however I do question as to why we bother even more so after today's visit to the themepark (12th July). There's no magic around the place what so ever! You walk up to the main gates and your greated by tents of security which yes there needs to be some safety etc but when not implement built in metal detectors etc and should they activate may e conduct a bag search but this really is the start of the it.

The park used to be buzzing with interaction from the minute you entered the park, staff used to smile etc but that appears to be long gone. Staff appeared to be very unhappy granted it was a hot day but still leafing and joking with each other just not with guests. What happened to if you see a guest taking a photo offer to take it for them or something as basic as that like they used to? What happened to the entertainment? The park feels very dead and feels worse than a travelling fair that actually has more going on than Alton Towers did today.

This park used to be amazing but its very clear to see that its struggling and being run into the ground and its very much feels thats its a money grabbing exercise right now rather than a magical experience like it used to be.

I would like to also point out that we did experience some discrimination today from a host called George from the Smile ride team. The way in which he spoke to my 14 year old daughter as she attempted to join the queue with her RAP pass was appalling! My daughter has underlying neuro-diverse conditions and the way in which he spoke to her in front of other guests was triggering for her and very much upset her quite visibly. This is under no circumstances acceptable and clearly the ride staff need some training on disability and how to behave around those not so clear disabilities.

Honeslty Merlin / vice president this was by far my worst visit in recent years to the resort. No doubt no one will actually care but hey its worth sharing this. My advise to families is visit else where such as Blackpool Pleasure Beach who don't discriminate toward disability and they still have entertainment!

Customer service poor. Charged twice for a meal due to their card machine going down. No appolgy to begin with. Spent that evening and the next morning to try to resolve the issue. Promised their first transaction had not been charged and would fall off pending transactions. They then decided to issue a refund as a gesture of goodwill - to which has not went through and both charges for meal have now been full charged to my bank.
Terrible lasting impression of a holiday. I have emailed this morning to follow up to be told it will be up to 14 days for a reply. I'm frustrated that this business does not see it as a priority that your customers have been left out of pocket due to your systems and lack of team training - with no resolution and them having to waste more of their time pushing to get their well earned money back.

I go there 2–3 times a year and every time it is worse. We felt the staff had to make a fake crowd so it looked like many people were waiting. On rides they sent empty seats so we had to wait 110 minutes for our turn. The food was bad: £11 for hot dogs or dry burgers. Rides were closing and opening because of “problems” (people were still in line but you could not join). The place wants to get money for fast track more than give good fun. Sad, but maybe it is time to find another place for a family trip because it will only get worse here.