Alton Towers Resort Reviews 

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]

We booked to stay two nights at CBeebies hotel with my 2 year old grandson, only staying one night. The accommodation was fine, breakfast ok, entertainment for kids very disappointing, it was the same show both nights. Not much to do. We visited the theme park Friday, my grandson only got on two rides costing us £70! The queuing time In CBeebies land was over half an hour a young child won’t wait in a queue all this time. I went to purchase some food from the snack meal pod, no children’s meals available so purchased two sub rolls, two small packets of quavers, the rude girl charged me £21.50!!!
When opening the rolls, the rolls were stale, horrible, I went back for a refund, the rude girl told me to see the manager in the snack restaurant, when I spoke to this young man he said he’d refunded me for the sub rolls £13! So I said I’ve paid £8.50 for two standard packet of crisps! He reply YES! They’re over £3.75… no it makes them £4.25 each! Anyway he was only going to give me £13 knowing full well the girl had well over charged me! The card machine wasn’t working so we had to walked to costa coffee for me refund when I said how come the lady in front of me purchased the same food and quavers and paid £16 to which he said OK I’ll refund you the lot £21.50 not an apology nothing, just rude! DONT buy food there take your own it’s a rip off, we paid £10.50 for 3 bottle waters, massive rip off.
We visited the park the next day early with staying in the hotel you get to go in at 9… my grandson got on all the ride a for his size. We were finish by half 10 so went back and had a drive out. Coming back to the hotel we sat and watch the same entertainment and decided to go home. This cost £570 for two nights in the hotel, £70 for the theme park on Friday, £24 the next day, had a meal Friday night in the garden room restaurant, it’s very run down needs updating… food mediocre, Childs meal £9.50 certainly over priced and definitely not worth it! Another £70.
In total for one night and two visits to the theme park it’s cost us over £800 for nothing special. Felt very ripped off, will never go again or stay or recommend the CBeebies hotel, very average hotel, need more to do other than the theme park, maybe a play area! Looked at splash park way too busy! Was offered 9 hole golf not with a two year old. Overall very disappointing

1 day out of 2 days park tickets. Seems like a pattern to previous reviews. 4 rides were closed due to maintenance issues today, Smiler, Rita, Nemesis and Wicker Man ( basically all the big rides) Also the Sky Ride was shut? So you have to walk everywhere? We are to have our 2nd day tomorrow and God knows what's open. It's been a waste of money. I spoke to the guest services on site when leaving and offered 50% which would cost me another £30, no thanks, not chancing when some rides might be shut tomorrow. Feel sorry for people paying all that money for, weeks, weekends away and not getting their moneys worth. Don't do it!

-1000000000

-1000000000000 stars
absolutely dog dookie theme park

We went to alton towers for my grandsons 18th birthday on the 1st of August 2025, we had a nice time but as a few others have said rides suddenly closed for no reason, after waiting for 25 minutes only to be told it was closed this happened a lot in the two days we were there,also the food in the hotel was not the best, we also went to the rollercoasta cafe and even though there were not many people in there we waited over an hour for are food,we have been on many occasions but this was not one of the best times.

If queuing is your thing then this is the place for you.Been a few times over the years but it seems in need of a spruce up ! The cable car wasn't working and some of the rides were out of action, all in all seems on the slide.

I can’t give them -10 stars so I have given them one but they do not even deserve this.
They allow you to pay to go in, spend a fortune for fast passes and then close all the rides. 2 rides in the whole day.
Customer service is non existent. They take over 7 days to respond to an email. They tell you a different excuse in each email as to why they can’t deal with the matter and finally a month later they offer to give the remaining 4 rides for one of the fast passes but only if we pay to travel over 2 hours again, pay for entry again. So the last visit cost in total £150 per person to go in 2 rides and to get the remaining 4 rides from the fast pass because they sold something and did not provide a service they want to fleece us out of hundreds of pounds again.
There business is only about ripping people off and charging them for a service they don’t provide.
You deserve to go out of business Alton Towers, you certainly do not deserve people hard earned money.
Please everyone vote with your feet and don’t give theses scammers your money.

3 nights at Alton Towers hotel and two park days.
We had a nice time but many of the attractions were breaking down regularly and the newly refurbished skyride wasn't running at all because they claimed it was too warm. Orlando Disney run theirs without any problems..

We had a terrible meal at CBEEBIES Lunch box. Receiving beans with a thick skin on tells you the food had been sitting under a hot lamp for ages, along with dried out fries. My chicken advertised as crispy was damp. The service was extremely confusing as well. The greeter was avoiding communication at all times. She didn't seem stressed, just completely disconnected.

Parts of the park are in dire need of some refurbishment, especially brick pathways which are falling apart and unsafe.

Staff made little effort to enhance anyone's day. Many seemed quite dejected.

The Alton Towers hotel was nice. We looked round the splash landings hotel as well but it smelt of chlorine and damp. We were glad we didn't stay there.

Infrastructure and quality is expensive, and it's a big resort. I wonder how much of the profit is being skimmed off the top by Merlin.

Alton Towers does seem to get more tired each year we visit, but it's inline with the rest of the UK.

Sorry for my negative reviews.
I did LOVE "13" Great ride. ☺️

It's worth a visit but don't expect it to be top of its class.

We went to Alton towers and when we went on nemesis reborn my phone dropped out of my pocket and they said my pockets were ok to put my phone in and when we flipped it fell out and I have a find my phone alert did that when I went back the next day (missing a day of work) he showed them it but they have a strict policy so now I’m phone less and keep in mind it’s an iPhone 15 so expensive and I know we’re it is but I’m not allowed to go on it so the technicians do but they ‘apparently’ can’t find anything when it’s making a loud noise and no rides are going yet and no one is allowed in the park I just had an exception. To be honest I think it was found and taken by one of the technicians but I can say the rides are fun but not worth losing and iPhone 15.

as disabled group we found tickets expensive even with my carerer free, all this booking ride before attending , disapointed ,we went elswhere.

What a waste of time trip!!!
My son went to Alton Towers with school and as it was a fun day out he decided to spend his hard earned money on a Gold fast track pass. What a waste of money that was, due to constant ride closure he only managed to get on 6 rides in the whole day. To say that my son was disappointed was an understatement but my disappointment with how Alton Towers and a big company like Merlin deals with issues like this is to be honest appalling.
His poor friends that didn’t have fast track managed 2 rides due to the queues but almost passed out as they did not have time for any food or drink.
Following my complaint I was offered a Silver fast track pass for one person (he bough Gold) but as it was to be used by early September that was no use and to be honest it would have cost us even more money as we would have had to travel there, pay for at least another person as he’s not old enough to go on his own so who is benefiting here.
The resort is lovely but the queues are terrible, the staff rude and unhelpful and my son has stated that he will definitely choose another activity for the end of school trip next year.

Had booked the hotel, was expecting separate car parking, tried to explain to car park Marshalls but they was not interested and just said park there !
The theme park, was good, couple of rides didn’t open till after 11am, we got on most rides. However Rita and 13 closed! Also stayed at the hotel, not worth the money!! No privacy, meaning on ground floor looking out to a main walk way, no net curtain or blind, open the curtains and everyone can see in!! Noise from upstairs , elephants springs to mind, can even tell you they had a shower at 7am as that was so loud!! Next door, walls thin, kid needs to stop banging his toy I don’t need drums at that time of the morning, or it’s constant screaming .. The bed was like a slab, bad back for rest of the day. Ps: shower is extremely hot, be very careful not to burn yourself. I like a cuppa, with milk, enough for on arrival but morning ran out!
We had booked the secret garden , but menu was not to our taste , so we went to the bar and ordered pizza and went back to the room. Hopefully breakfast will be ok! Would I stay again, NO!!
Overpriced for a less than standard room, lack of menu choices, no privacy , Disappointing!

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.