Alton Towers Resort Reviews 

Don’t bother,
We went yesterday for my sons birthday,
The queue time for the monorail was 1 hour and 30 mins!

90 minutes plus for every ride!
We managed 4 rides!
Total waste of money and time!
They are letting far too many people into the park!
We most definitely will not be going back!

A completely rubbish day for my son and I.

There were so many rides going offline and whilst I appreciate some precautionary weather delays due to possible electrical storms, the number of times rides went down, everyone seemed to pretty much try and aim for the rides that were running and you guessed it, longer queues and the opposite side of the park!!! I emailed in the following day to provide negative feedback and see what they could do, but the response was 'oh sorry for this and by the way, the email address you sent this from isn't the booking email address' A week later from replying back from the correct email address and still nothing. Their way of holding out I suspect till the park closes for the season.

Other gripe was the absolute crazy food costs. 2 donuts and a coffee, £21 and two chicken meals £34.

Needless to say, driving home in the peak district was better than the 4 rides we got to go on.

We booked a short break at Alton Towers for 29–30 October, spending over £500. This was not just any trip – it was the only chance we had to see our grandchildren before next summer, as we live and work overseas. We have not seen them since Easter, and this was meant to be a very special occasion.

Our autistic grandson, who holds both a Merlin Pass and a Ride Access Pass, chose Scarefest as his “special place.” Because of his condition, he is medically unable to queue. Standing in long lines could cause him to collapse. This is exactly why he was granted an Access Pass in the first place. Last year, with the pass, everything worked brilliantly – it allowed him to enjoy the park safely and without distress.

This year, however, we were told that no Ride Access Passes were available for our dates. The result? He is effectively excluded from the park entirely. Without the pass, he cannot go on the rides, cannot take part, and cannot experience the special day he has been excited about for weeks.

What makes this even more outrageous is that while disabled guests were being told “no,” Fast Track tickets were still available for purchase. In other words, paying guests were prioritised while a disabled child was denied access. This is indefensible. It is not only deeply unfair – it is blatant disability discrimination.

We contacted Merlin and Alton Towers directly, hoping for compassion, understanding, or at the very least a reasonable adjustment. Instead, we were met with a flat refusal to help. There was no flexibility, no willingness to make accommodations, and no recognition of the impact this decision had on a disabled child and his family.

The consequences of this are devastating. We now face the heartbreaking task of telling our grandson that the trip he has looked forward to for months is not possible. He will not understand why. He will only feel disappointment and exclusion – something no child should have to endure, and certainly not at the hands of a company that claims to welcome families and prides itself on accessibility.

Let me be clear: to issue an Access Pass but then refuse to honour it when needed, while simultaneously selling Fast Track tickets, is not just poor customer service – it is a systemic failure and a discriminatory practice. It undermines the very purpose of disability access schemes and highlights that revenue is being placed above inclusion.

We will be escalating this further through the Equality and Human Rights Commission and through disability advocacy groups, as well as seeking legal advice under the Equality Act 2010, which clearly states that service providers must make reasonable adjustments for disabled guests. What Merlin and Alton Towers have done here is the opposite – they have made active choices that place disabled guests at a substantial disadvantage.

I am writing this review not just out of personal frustration, but as a warning to other families of disabled guests. Do not assume that because your child has an Access Pass, they will be accommodated. As our family has learned in the most painful way, Merlin and Alton Towers may refuse to honour it, regardless of the consequences for your child.

For us, a long-awaited, once-in-a-year family reunion has been overshadowed by disappointment, exclusion, and discrimination. Merlin have not only ruined our holiday – they have broken a little boy’s heart.

Highly uninclusive for disabled visitors.
Trip cost in excess of £600 with a stay overnight. All external rides closed for 2 hours.

I have come here twice first time was perfect if it wasn't for the food costing twenty quid for a drink and the rides shutting down whilst I was in the queue and smiler shutting down 20 minutes before the ark closed a lot wrong still the seconds time was awful I only got on three rides a woman cleaner was cleaning with no sign of her being in there and being in the cleaning cupboard whilst I was peeing and the wickerman and rita where shut doing for the entire day pretty much and I personally think you should put a limit of like 150 people in your park at once a day only not like 1000.

the best feem park ever splashlandings is realy good to my fravrit feem park ever

There was no access to the outside area . Only 2 slides available inside and at £50
For me and my sun I think it’s definitely over priced and to top it off .. food pricing is ridiculous £12 for a £3 hotdog and nachos £10 bad experience

I'd love score higher as my kids had fun, but as a parent I simply can't. The eventual smiles from my kids by the days end is the only reason you're getting two, not one.

Both of my children require special access due to ASD related issues. The booking process for red passes was easy enough so I wasn't too worried, but then we arrived.

We got there around 10:30 to see zero queues at the gates, and this initially made us happy. It was a Tuesday so some kids were back already and we thought this meant we'd lucked out with a low attendance day.

We had everything prebooked so go to the gate to be told no, we can't come in here due to our access needs, we need to go over there. To the one place with a queue. There were around 70-80 people easy, if not more, in the queue for ride access passes. Only ONE desk was open and each family was taking 5-10 minutes to be processed.

Three bored teens were manning the regular ticket desk (with zero customers), there were five or six members of staff on the main gate (with zero customers).

The place to get passes for people who can't manage queues without a panic attack? MASSIVE QUEUE WITH ONE PERSON ON IT.

Seriously Merlin, what on earth is going through your management minds. We asked about this and got told it was due to staffing issues, when you literally had ten or more staff bored and on their phones on the other desks and entrances doing NOTHING.

It took nearly 90 minutes to get in. There were kids breaking down, neurodivergent kids lashing out having to be walked away, it was a mess.

Nearly 150 quid, three week booking lead time for the red passes, two and a half hour drive, only to lose a third of our day getting to use our PREBOOKED TICKETS.

My family are here today and irs an absolute shit show. The queue times are not only huge - to be expected in school holidays- but the rides are closing and opening and the queue times displayed are completely inaccurate. My daughter is only 1.3 and expected to stand for 100 minutes for one of only 2 decent rides she can go on after waiting 90 minutes for wicker man. It’s raining they’re all miserable and they don’t even do the rainy day guarantee anymore. Tried to buy a fast pass for spin ball whizzer, all sold out for today. shock. £120 and a two hour drive for a sub standard version of what they advertise, it’s absolutely criminal to take peoples hard earnt money in this climate for a piss poor day out at best. We’ve visited for 40 plus years and will never ever give them our money after this. Do yourself a favour and go to Thorpe park or Paultons.
The fact they don’t reply to any of the feedback on here speaks volumes of how they see their customers

We wandered into the park and wandered into Andy's Adventure enterence. We were greeted by a VERY condescending, passive aggressive vile "Andy" character who shouted at us loudly and cocky "GUYS CAN WE NOT ENTER PLACES THAT ARE CLOSED PLEASE" I replied there's no closed sign anywhere we didn't know and there was no need to speak to us like that. He didn't even listen to what I was saying he just talked louder over the top of me. I felt dehumanised and humiliated by him for NO valid reason. Great start to the holiday.

Paid for a skip the queue pass for the kids - doesn't apply to any of the kids rides - stupid. But they DONT DO REFUNDS despite it being mis-sold.

Must rides don't work. Expect to only be able to access only half the rides at the park, but still pay full price.

Driving school: we paid for son who was 100cm exactly. Couldnt go onto anything. Waited on queues to be turned away - they should be measured on entering the queue - not after waiting for an hour for a kid to build up excitement. Girls the same height as him got in, but because he didn't have a pony tail on his head was turned away in tears.

The rides he was tall enough to go on consisted of like 5 rides. One was hex. So took him on it as appropriate for him apparently. (I put his height and AGE in the app). It was TERRIFYING and scarring for him. He came out shaking. He couldn't go on a little car ride - but could go on this makes NO SENSE whatsoever.

Hotel Waterpark splash landingings contains slides my son couldn't go on. 2 my son couldn't go on and the little one I couldn't go on??? So we left after 30 mins. COST £80. We couldn't go on any slides together and I'm not letting my 4 and 6 year old wander round water without my support. Only saw on exit there was life vests. Very little slides for a water park, more of a glorified splash park. Lazy river was naff, no wave pool.

The food alone at the flamingo place cost £80 for 2 adults and 2 young kids for buffet at splashlandings. A coke on top was £5 each! The buffet was DISGUSTING. People were sat eating McDonald's at the front of the hotel and at this point we realised why. They had barely any choice and was GRIM! Everything is stale, tasteless and just disgusting - literally inedible. The bread breaks your teeth. The soup tasted like watered down tomato puree. No one asks how your food is because they already know the answer.

We went to little lunch in cbeebies land and it was also disgusting. The £15 pizza I bought for my 4 year old looked like it was Asda price, and came charred and black. I don't want to sound rude but the staff looked like they didn't have a brain cell to rub between them. They were sending food towering tables constantly. There was one girl walking round who a lady had asked to speak to and she was practically shaking, cowering behind a chair. She was not equipped to deal with customers - not the constant flow of complaints that the kitchen were causing. The only way this place survives is because every customer is a new one. There's NO WAY anyone would return here if it was any other food establishment.

No dairy free pancake options at breakfast. It Wouldnt of been much hardship to whip up an oatmilk option. So we had to deal with tears and more disappointment from my kid.

Window didn't lock on our GROUND floor room, openable from outside. I'm just glad my children didn't get obducted.

Everything comes at an expensive charge. The drinks were so expensive - and no other option but HAD to pay for it.

Spent £100 at the arcade in the hotel. Which got my son a track racing car that costs £5.99 at b&m.

Expect to pay £40 a time for a family of 4 anytime you need basic refreshments. £40 for some ice-cream for the 4 of us at the park.

Internet laggy and rubbish.

90% of staff were snappy, rude.

Hotel is dated and FILTHY. Carpet was all wrinkled and I stretched, everywhere full of dust. Again, ran by kids or sponsored workers. Perhaps this is why the food quality and cleanliness is so diabolical.

NEVER. AGAIN.

Absolutely horrendous experience and totally devastated son who was supposed to be celebrating his 9th birthday.
The park do absolutely nothing to accommodate disabilities and the Ride Access Pass system is absolute joke! Complete insult to people who actually require support. TWO rides were all we managed and not a single member of staff was helpful or understanding.

We are going on Sunday and already noticed its £12.00 just to park, even for blue badge holders. So if its a family on a budget there's some of it gone just to park, Extortionate!

We arrived yesterday and queued for The Smiler first. The ride didn’t even start until about 10:20, wasting about 20 minutes. Then, just as we got into the building, the queue was suspended due to technical problems. This took about 20 minutes to sort. We then went to Oblivion. Just as we got to the front, the same thing happened and we had to wait for about 15 mins. Then we went to Rita. Exactly the same thing happened again, but this time we waited a good half hour.

Today, although we weren’t caught in any of the closed rides, because several were closed (Rita, 13, Nemesis sub Terra ) there were extremely long queues for Galáctica and Smiler (100 minutes) , which we then had to decide not to do due to our daughter not being able to stand for this long.

This afternoon, the threat of a storm kept us waiting in line for an additional hour for Nemesis (although i appreciate that safety is key and it wasn’t their fault). We therefore had no time to then queue for another ride with a long queue after this so decided to queue for Intoxicator. Just as we got to the seat, we were sent back due to technical issues. That was when we gave up and decided to leave.

We visited today for a family treat, our first time back in several years, hoping our daughters could enjoy more rides now they’re older. Unfortunately, it was a very disappointing experience.

We arrived at 10:30am and left at 6pm, yet only managed 4 rides in that time. Queue times were consistently 60–90 minutes, and several times we waited 40 minutes or more only for the ride to break down, leaving us stuck in line even longer. We couldn’t use the monorail due to a 45-minute wait just to get into the park, and the cable cars weren’t working either. Many rides were closed at different points throughout the day.

Considering the high cost of tickets, parking, and food, the value for money was extremely poor. Alton Towers used to feel like a special day out, but now it feels like corners are being cut, with little focus on customer experience. Sadly, what should have been a fun bank holiday treat ended up being frustrating and disappointing.

Really terrible experience. Rides kept breaking down. Very long wait times. Just really unpleasant experience. Just today itself, 7 rides are closed for maintenance, cable car not working and I’ve queued for two rides for more than 40 mins only to be announced that it has broken down.

A big thanks to the VIP team for making a memorable day for our son. We saved hard for this summer treat for him, and it was money well spent. The team were friendly and patient pre-booking while we covered our bases. On the day Nathan was great with us, letting us sneak in to do some Christmas shopping, while our son set off to enjoy his day with Kiera. Both were very engaging and happy to chat. Kiera watched out for Nathan all day, kept him company (except for her lunch), rode many rides with him and chatted about the park, her favorite rides, other parks.....Nathan also gave us some tips on our son finding career options to be a ride engineer, which is one of his ambitions....Our son received exclusive merch, a meal, refill drinks all day, and most exciting cleared more than 30(!) rides (including re-rides) in just shy of eight hours, which on a typical day (sometimes as few as five-ten rides) would have taken multiple visits, even with fast passes. So we'll likely treat our son to this again next year, with a track walk. One big one-off day, rather than several (potentially disappointing) family visits totalling a much greater cost with much more travelling. It seems like a big sum of money, but our son loved it, and ride-for-ride it was much better value than multiple visits for us. Thanks again, guys!

Had an absolutely amazing weekend at Alton Towers. We had booked to stay at the Alton towers resort in a family room. Got a call when we arrived offering us a complimentary upgrade to a treehouse with a few fast passes for park. I was absolutely amazed and felt very lucky. I would like to say a big thank you to Maisie our treehouse host who made this weekend extra special for us.
Adam’s party

We are Merlin gold members and cannot go! Tickets are available but no ride access pass! We cannot go without a ride access pass. Then ride access passes are available but no tickets for that day! Its an absolute joke! What a waste of money. Will be cancelling membership! Honestly, don't bother. Total waste of time too. Terrible!

I contacted the customer support and no one replied to me until now.

We bought Silver Fastrack tickets at Alton Towers, advertised as including rides like Rita and Th13teen. On arrival, we discovered both were closed — Rita had been out of action for some time, yet this wasn’t disclosed when booking. Staff communication was poor, and we only learned about possible substitutions at the end of the day, when it was too late. Very misleading and disappointing experience, and we are now escalating this with Trading Standards. Complaining to Alton Towers is useless because they don't care....if the Alton Towers team is reading this then this is Complaint Reference No: [12717521]