Our TOP 5 Rides At Alton Towers Resort!
Our TOP 5 rides at Alton Towers Resort – what are they we hear you ask? Well, since you’re interested it’d be rude of us not to indulge you all right?
Alton Towers Resort located in Staffordshire, UK plays host to well over 40 different rides and attractions (when they’re all working that is haha).
This much loved theme park resort hailed as “The UK’s most magical escape” features such icons as Oblivion, Nemesis Reborn (okay, Nemesis haha) and Wicker Man to name but a few, but which rides do we love most, and why?
Throughout the following article we’ll be ranking our favourites rides in order of how much we enjoy them with 5 being the least and 1 being, well, the most.
Therefore, let’s begin with number 5!…..
5 - Wicker Man.
Kicking off our top 5 Alton Towers rides and attractions here on TPI with Wicker Man – Alton Towers Resort’s 2018 GCI (Great Coasters International) wooden roller coaster.
This fantastic family wooden roller coaster first opened at the park back in March of 2018 and was the first new wooden roller coaster to open here in the UK in well over a decade!
Wicker Man reaches speeds of up to 44 mph, heights of up to 72 ft and lasts a total of 3 minutes and 30 seconds from beginning to end.
Although not the most thrilling roller coaster at the park, Wicker Man provides some fantastic lateral G’s and always feels faster towards the end of the day due to how the ride warms up throughout the day.
Wicker Man always makes a fantastic night ride too with Big Bob’s shoulders (the name given to the ride’s main theming structure during the planning process) igniting the night skies and the park surrounding it.
4 - The Smiler.
The Smiler is always a MUST when visiting Alton Towers Resort and despite it’s colourful history has become a firm favourite with all who visit gaining average wait times of between 60 and 90 minutes all day.
This record breaking roller coaster (which still holds the world record to this day for the most inversions on any roller coaster worldwide) features two lift hills, reaches speeds of up to 53 mph & of course, 14 inversions.
The Smiler whilst incredibly fun has however become incredibly rough in recent years with the final three inversions feeling like you’re being pushed down a hill in a shopping trolley.
Regardless of this though we still love at least one ride on this beast of a coaster each and every time we visit and with one of the longest ride times on park this 2013 Gerstlauer Rides Infinity Coaster remains a must for all who visit.
3 - HEX: The Legend of the Towers.
HEX: The Legend of the Towers – when it FINALLY reopen right? Well, regardless of the fact this beloved dark ride is currently closed we still rank it as one of our favourite rides at the park.
This immersive and uniquely themed Vekoma Rides Madhouse first opened at the park back in the year 2000 and has since become one of the most iconic rides at Alton Towers Resort.
The attraction tells the tale of the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury and his misguided reaction to an elderly beggar during his return home to Alton Towers.
HEX to this day remains the largest attraction of it’s kind anywhere worldwide, however the first Vekoma Madhouse actually opened at Efteling in the form of Villa Volta in 1996.
Over the past 12 months the ride has remained closed to the public as Alton Towers prepare to reopen the ride with a whole new look and upgrade later this season.
2 - The Curse At Alton Manor.
If there’s one attraction that could rival our chosen number one (we’ll reveal that shortly) for first place it’s this – The Curse At Alton Manor.
Now, in all honesty we might be bias but we absolutely LOVE a well themed haunted house or ghost train and this spooktacular dark ride is exactly that!
The Curse at Alton Manor opened at the park back in 2023 and is the third iteration of Alton Towers Resort’s classic Haunted House.
In late 2022 Duel: The Haunted House Strikes Back (arguably the worst version of this ride) closed to the public for the last time as it prepared for a truly creepy make over removing the incredibly controversial laser guns and reverting it back to it’s former haunted dark ride glory.
The Curse at Alton Manor tells the tale of Emily Alton – the neglected daughter of Mr & Mrs Alton, a Victorian social climbing couple who abandon their daughter in the attic with a dolls house. Emily finally reaches breaking point and exacts a terrible revenge on New Years Eve 1892.
This incredibly immersive ride mixes the old with the new to create a chilling yet enchanting journey through a haunted manor filled with terrifying surprises at every turn.
1 - Nemesis Reborn (Aka. Nemesis).
Okay, so you probably guessed this from beginning didn’t you? Unless you just skipped straight to the end in which case – go back and read the rest of the article first!
Nemesis Reborn (or as we call it, Nemesis) first opened at Alton Towers Resort back in 1994 and started what we have come to know as the ‘Secret Weapon’ saga.
Nemesis (or Secret Weapon 3 as it was known) began the resort down it’s current path to becoming the park it is today and this year (2024) saw the ride celebrate it’s 30th anniversary with one of the BIGGEST transformations any ride has ever received at Alton Towers.
Receiving a major retrack as well as upgrades to the ride’s station building, the overall operating systems for the ride and more Nemesis Reborn has completely re-imagined this classic roller coaster for a whole new generation.
It has also become the starting point for many visiting the resort since it’s reopening earlier this year and remains an absolute MUST for every visit we make (at least once anyway haha).
Overall, Nemesis Reborn feels a worthy contender for the title of best ride at Alton Towers and for that reason we have placed it here, at Number 1!!
So, there you have it, those are our TOP 5 rides at Alton Towers Resort ranked from least favourite to favourite, however there are of course many, MANY other great rides and attractions at the park.
Although ride reliability hasn’t been great of late (trust us, we know, we’ve fallen victim to it many times ourselves) Alton Towers Resort still features what are in our opinion, some of the most unique and imaginative rides and roller coasters here in the UK.
This is of course down to the park’s setting and the planning restrictions placed upon it, but over the past three years we have seen the park as a whole go from strength to strength and this is of course down to one significant contributing factor – Bianca Sammut’s arrival at the resort.
We definitely feel like the park has a very bright future ahead though and once the park have ironed out all of the reliability issues and have reopened HEX & the Sky Ride we definitely expect to see things improve drastically.
What are your TOP 5 favourite rides and attractions at Alton Towers Resort? We’d love to hear all about them in the comments below!