Going to the UK - Need some Theme Park advice :)

[skinnyguy]

Hi everyone,

 

Long time theme park fanatic here - first time poster on this forum. I know a lot of you have traveled a bunch so I thought this forum would be a good source of info.

 

I'm going to be in the United Kingdom (Crawley to be specific) in July this year, and I've got Saturday available to do whatever I want. I really want to hit up a theme park and get some good credits in. Which one would you recommend? I'm thinking Alton Towers (since that's the one I know the most about), but is that the best one? Is there another place that would be more worth it?

 

Thanks in advance for any help/advice you can provide.

[caffeine_demon]

If you're south of london, it has to be thorpe - alton would take about 4 hours to get too (assuming you're using public transport)

[jmgpannal]

In Crawley you're only 45 minutes or so at the most away from Thorpe Park. Which is an excellent park and if it's busy as it usually is on a weekend it's a good idea to get FastTrack

 

Alton Towers would take probably 5 hours from Crawley.

[skinnyguy]

Thanks for the info - I did see Thorpe Park as well and that it is much closer.

 

Can you tell me more info about both of these parks? What are the pros/cons of each (other than the distance they will be from where I'm staying)? Just would like to get a better idea of what each one has to offer (other than what i can see on RCDB of course).

 

Thanks again - very helpful info indeed.

[jmgpannal]

Alton Towers is a much larger site and very spread out it takes a good 25 minutes to walk from one side to the other through some beautiful landscaped gardens. The range of rides are more varied too with rides for the whole family.

 

Thorpe Park is small and very concentrated, probably only takes 5 minutes to walk round. Thorpe Park is described as the "Thrill Capital of the UK" and is aimed more at a teen/young adult market. Apart from the Smiler the biggest rides in the UK are at Thorpe. Some very good and unique flat rides too, such as Slammer the only remaining SkySwat!

 

I love both parks and always have a good time at either but if you're staying in Crawley and have to pick one I'd go with Thorpe purely down to travel times. You'd probably manage to get more out of your day in the summer as its not a big walk between rides.

 

Any questions feel free to ask

[Werner]

2 Months ago i visited both Alton and Thorpe, and both parks are great in their owm way. If you need to use oublic transport i would choose to go to Thorpe over Alton, just because of the location. If you have a (rental?) car, then the drive up to Alton would be worth the it!

 

Alton has some very unique rides such as Nemesis, Air, Oblivion, The Smiler and many more... Thorpe on the other hand has Stealth, wich is just a 'mini' Kingda KA, but a great rush! The rest of the rides are more o.k. thrill rides, only Slammer really stands out.

 

 

...

 

 

You could maybe aven take a train Friday evening towards Stoke- on- Trent, and spend two nights in a hotel. There is one across from the train station and the bus to Alton stops there too But only do that if your able to travel on Friday evening and Sunday morning

 

Hope this maybe helps...

[caffeine_demon]

You could maybe aven take a train Friday evening towards Stoke- on- Trent, and spend two nights in a hotel. There is one across from the train station and the bus to Alton stops there too But only do that if your able to travel on Friday evening and Sunday morning

 

Hope this maybe helps...

 

nothing stopping you just staying one night in the hotel in stoke on trent - a couple of years ago the north stafford hotel (which is the one opposite the station) had an offer including towers tickets