Alton Towers is a popular theme park located in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire with many rides and attractions.
As schools will soon shut for the six-week summer holiday, parents will be looking for ways to entertain their children. Theme parks are popular for family days out but can get very busy around this time of year.
A rollercoaster enthusiast, known as Coastertog on social media, has shared a video on TikTok giving viewers a candid look at the long queues for some rides at Alton Towers. The clip has amassed an impressive 1.1 million views, 50,100 likes and more than 1,300 comments in just two days.
Speaking in the video, Coastertog said: “Alton Towers is absolute chaos right now so let me show you what it’s like and you are not ready for these crazy queue times.” The rollercoaster-lover first showed that the wait time for The Smiler was 140 minutes and it was 90 minutes for Thirteen even though it was only 11am.
The footage shows crowds of visitors at the theme park and queue after queue of people waiting for different rides. The TikTok content creator estimated that there were 16,500 guests on that rainy day.
He continued to show lengthy queue times for rides, including Wicker Man which was on 110 minutes, Nemesis where the approximate wait time was 100 minutes and 105 minutes for Galactica. Coastertog also spotted a ride access pass queue that was “hanging out of the gate.”
The theme park fan noted that Rita and Spinball Whizzer were closed, which he believed didn’t help the long queues. He added: “We’ve seen a lot of triple digit queue times today and fast track isn’t going to save you either.
“Look at how long that queue is.” Coastertog predicted that Alton Towers will be “busy pretty much every day” throughout the school summer holidays but he mentioned that queues “do die down nearer the end of the day” so he recommended not leaving the theme park early.
The caption of the TikTok post reads: “Alton Towers queue times right now. Queues do calm down later in the day but if you’re looking for a chilled day at Alton right now, just wait until September!”
A spokesperson for Alton Towers Resort said: “At this time of year, the Resort welcomes a high volume of school groups from across the country, many of whom are eager to experience our most thrilling rollercoasters. As the UK’s number one theme park, we’re proud to offer unforgettable experiences but during peak periods, queue times can naturally be longer.
“We continue to work hard to manage guest flow and provide real-time updates via our app to help guests plan their day.” One viewer in the comments section of the TikTok post suggested: “Alton Towers need to place daily guest limits.
“If [a] certain amount of tickets for the day have already been sold, no more can be purchased.” Although Coastertog showed many long wait times for rides, one person who visited the theme park last week shared: “Went on Sunday and walked onto Nemesis twice and [the] maximum we waited was 30 mins.”