OK, so from that email questionnaire thingy I discovered something very very scary.
None of you know what Alton Towers is. I don't care that you've never heard of Thorpe Park, but that you don't know about ALTON TOWERS... that's just CRIMINAL!!!!!
Alton Towers is our BEST theme park. It's absolutely FANTASTIC!!
I used to live half an hour away from it, so I've been quite a lot (though it's very expensive - but SO worth it!). I know my way around there as well as I know my way around my own house. I know the way to beat the queues (I don't mean queue jumping, lol, i mean timing it). I know the best rides. I know the rides that are worth the 2 hour queue. I know the rides that i MUST go on every visit. I know the rides I'm not bothered whether I do or not. I know what to eat, where and when. I know what rides to go on after I eat so I don't feel sick. I know when to catch the cable car and when to walk through the grounds. I know the short cuts. I know the theme music off by heart. I just... well... KNOW it. And love it. It's like home. Just with lots of big rollercoasters and a castle in it.
It was originally... well.. Alton Towers. Towers as in castle thing... Alton as in the town its in. In HUGE grounds. And I dunno, something happened - possibly death or divorce - and anyways, for some reason they turned it into a theme park. The castle is in ruins now - but (kate and I discovered this only this summer!) you can still go in it! and look all around it! it's SO spooky - especially coz we were the only people in it and it's HUGE. And has those spiral staircases so we were so expecting someone to be hiding up there... waiting for us.... lol But there wasn't. But yeah, you can go up to the roof too. Which we did, then yelled and waved at all the people below and they were all confused as to how we got up there. lol. We felt like we were being bad, being there, but it was totally allowed. Other people just don't realise.
And yeah, they built a new ride last winter - it's called Air and it's AWWWWWEESSSOOOMMMME. Me and Kate had to queue for 2 hours, but it was the first time we'd have a chance to go on it, and we couldn't pass up the opportunity. It's FANTASTIC. TOTALLY WORTH THE WAIT. You sit on the seat and your legs are kinda hanging down (sit straight now.... yes, like that just no floor) but then you get all clamped in - and TILTED so you're facing the ground. Then it WHIZZES you off at insanely fast speeds and you turn upside and it's soooooooooooooooo lovely!!!!!! You're like 'oooooh the ground!! ooooooh the sky!!!!! ooooooooh the ground!!!' hehhehe. SO MUCH FUN.
Even better than Nemesis where you sit in the same way except upright (and your legs are free to dangle coz they don't need to hold them in order to tip you down). I love that ride - soooooo relaxing. And also worth the hour (ish) wait.
The Runaway Mine Train is another MUST. It doesn't go upside down, BUT it has a few VERY cool features.
1. it goes round the track TWICE (don't you love that??)
2. it goes through a tunnel which it shares with the river rapids. SO, if you're lucky you go through at the same time as some people on the rapids (coming the other way, not very rapidly) and you all wave at each other and you come off with a sense of REAL achievement (it's even better when you're the ones in the rapids and the train goes by)
3. on one corner if you reach out you can grab hold of tree leaves. LOL dunno why i love that so much, but i do. My friend thinks its scary when i do it coz she thinks i might fall out (there's only a lap bar) but i know i won't.
The log flume is much better than the rapids. The rapids isn't really worth the long queue. The log flume definitely is.
In my opinion the RipSaw isn't worth the HUGE queue.
I prefer the haunted house when there IS a huge queue coz you queue up in this big forested 'grave yard' with fake gravestones with funny epitaphs on it. And spooky music playing. Love it.
They also have a REALLY nice ice-cream place - AND it's sooooo cunning coz it's right opposite the BEST RIDE OF ALL!! And a ride that DOESN'T make you sick....
TOYLAND TOURS!!!!
it's FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!! You go on this wooden boat thing that could seat about... 15 ppl but no one ever goes on it except me and kate (we LOVE it) and the occasional 5yr old and their parents so you get a whole boat to yourself. And then you set off around this track (that's on water but we're much too interested in other stuff to bother splashing each other... much...) and then it's in this HUGE building with HUGE toys in that move and dance and one of the theme tunes (the fun one) is played at deafening volume. And it's our fave tune ever so we sing along as loudly as we can. And then there's a "Bathtime Play" bit - and it has two fish. One's a few feet in front of the other one, on different sides of the track. And they spit out water at intervals. And so LOL me and kate clamber all over the boat with our hands out coz if you get your hand in front of the thing of water it drenches you and makes your trip TOTALLY worthwhile!! If you miss the first fish while at the front of the boat, you have to clamber over to the back (over about 3 rows of bench seating) to get the other one! LOL!!!! It's a mad rush, but SO satisfying if you get hit
We went on that ride 5 times last summer. I think we went on twice in a row (when we got back to the beginning the guy looked at us and we were like 'can we go again?' and he laughed and sent us through. LOL! so we were all happy when we got off and were like THANK YOU and he thought we were crazy, but in a loveable way obviously! LOL!) and then we went on another time a while later but a different person was running it. Then we went on this other ride (The Frog Hopper) which is for 6yr olds and we're probably too big to go on but it's sooooooooooooo much fun that we always go on. Sometimes the guy running it thinks its funny, sometimes they think we're weird and pathetic. lol. Then we went on the carousel (and put our black afro wigs on our giraffe/tiger (no horses - they're too normal for us) instead of on our heads) Then we went back to Toyland Tours. And went round twice. and LOL as we finished going round the second time, the ORIGINAL guy was back and he laughed at us so as we left we yelled 'FIVE TIMES!! WOOHOOO!!' (in case he thought we were slackers and only went on 3 times! lol)
There's also HUGE pretty grounds that my brother once got lost in when he was little.
There's loads of other stuff I've not mentioned, but i think this post is QUITE long enough for now!!!
When you guys come to the UK, go to Alton Towers with me. I'll take you there. We'll have lots of fun!!!
And now go to www.altontowers.com for a really cool site and a little look at what it's like
(my brother used to work at the hotel. he hated it, but the hotel is cool as!!)
