Toms View of the World

Springfield/Fantasy World/X-Sector

This area started off as home to a restaurant, miniature golf, Pirate Ship (1980), Cine 2000 (180 degree cine-dome) and the Alpine Bobsled slide (1980). Over the years this area has seen probably the most change, becoming Fantasy World with the construction of the Black Hole, the original artwork for which is to the right, clearly showing an “Arrow style” train corkscrewing into a black hole. This did make the ride out to be somewhat more intense than it actually was, and probably kept the queues down a little in the first few years.

In fact, at the time this picture was published, the Black Hole was running single 6 seat cars. This was later altered to allow 2 of these cars to run as a train, increasing the capacity of the ride considerably.

Contrary to some beliefs, the Black Hole was never a Jet Star 3, although it’s revamp to 2 car trains co-incided with the arrival at Alton Towers of the Beast rollercoaster, which was a Jet Star 3! The Black Hole always had been a Jet Star 2.

Currently the “tent” which housed the ride stands empty - no doubt awaiting a new dark-ride to take it’s place.

The same year, also saw the addition of a Turbo Star (shown), later replaced with a Gravitron ride, which was itself removed at a later time (to Pleasure Island in Clethorpes). The alpine slide was removed, although until the whole area was redeveloped for the 1998 season, the course of the slide could still be seen cutting through the middle of the site. The cinedome was later replaced with a Huss Breakdance, and the pirate ship was moved to Forbidden Valley in 1997 to make way for the construction work for X-Sector. X-Sector opened in 1998 with Oblivion, and two rides moved from Festival Park, the Energiser (Mondial Super-Nova) and the Huss Enterprise.

Energiser was then moved to the Ug Land area as “Bone Shaker” and it’s space was taken by a Chance Inverter running under the name Submission: Hang In There.

Ingestre Center - Aqualand - Merrie England/Katanga Canyon/Forbidden Valley - Mutiny Bay

Although having gone through as many name changes as X-Sector, this site was for several years the largest in the park, covering the space now occupied by Merrie England, Katanga Canyon, Gloomy Wood and Forbidden (Thunder) Valley. The Aqualand name was added when the rides in the area all had a water feel, the Log Flume, Rapids, Teacups and Octopus all helped create this impression. The area was finally split up i1992 when Katanga Canyon was created as the home for the Runaway Train and Rapids Ride.

A Steamboat Themed funhouse was located near the Swan boats for several years - originally there was “Splash Kat” pedaloes on this pond, and rowing boats on the main lake, the Splash Kats were moved to a roped off corner of the main lake when the Swan’s were installed. The funhouse was removed in 1997 to make way for the new station on the railway.

The corner of this site next to the Cinedome (originally a Cine-360, refurbished into a 3D cinema in 1987) which is now the walkway up to Katanga Canyon held a couple of rides, a “Space Boat” was installed for a couple of years, but was later replaced with an “Octopus” spinning ride. This ride had a twin, “The Spider” located in Festival Park for several years.

Gloomy Wood was also created in 1992 as the home for the new Haunted House ride, and the last corner of Aqualand, the home of ThunderLooper, beyond Gloomy Wood, became “Thunder Valley”. Before this name change, there was only 1 ride in this area (ThunderLooper) and it was only accessable via the cablecars or miniature railway. The opening up of Katanga Canyon and Gloomy Wood created a path approach into this area allowing much larger developments to take place. The New Beast opened in this area, also in 1992, and was identical to a ride removed the same winter from Talbot Street. Also moved to Thunder Valley was the “Dragon” kiddie coaster, which was renamed “The Beastie“.

1994 saw the installation of Nemesis in Thunder Valley, Alton’s first B&M coaster, and until the year 2000, the only B&M inverted coaster in Europe. 1997 saw the removal of the much-loved Schwarzkopf Shuttle coaster, ThunderLooper, to make room for the Pirate Ship from Fantasy World (now re-themed as a giant swinging blade) and the new attraction, Ripsaw. 1997 also saw the removal of the New Beast, the space it occupied is is now home to AIR (installed for the 2002 season a major new prototype coaster from B&M). The removal of Thunderlooper also marked the most recent change to the name of this area, now called “Forbidden Valley”

In 2008 the original Merrie England area was re-themed as a Pirate village - called “Mutiny Bay” - the existing rides getting a makeover (the Mack Teacup ride becoming a spinning barrels ride called Mauraders Mayhem) and the addition of a Zamperla Rockin’ Tug (Heave Ho) and the Mack built Splash Battle called Battle Galleons.  There is also a comedy pirate show in the courtyard Tavern, and you are welcomed to the area by a very familiar looking Parrot (at least, if you’ve been to Thorpe Park and stood in the queue line for the Pirates 4D show - that parrot will seem very familiar!)

Talbot Center / Festival Park / Ug Land

Talbot Center was the home to Alton’s first rollercoaster, the Corkscrew (1980). This area was enhanced to become Festival Park, with the addition of a number of travelling spinning rides over the years, the Spider (identical to the Aqualand Octopus apart from the theming - moved from Trentham Gardens in 1985), a Wave Swinger (now the “Ug Swinger”), a 1001 Nights magic carpet (replaced in 1995 with the Energiser, which was moved to X-Sector in 1998), a smaller portable Magic Carpet (later removed), and an Enterprise (now in X-Sector). The Dragon coaster was here for several years before becoming the “Beastie” in Thunder Valley. In 1996 the Corkscrew was heavily renovated, with new trains and mechanical hardware.

In 1999 this area was given a much needed revamp to become “Ug-Land”, with a prehistoric feel to the rides, the rides remaining in this area (the Corkscrew, Wave Swinger, and Breakdance) were re-done with dinosaur themeing, and several shows and games were installed.

2005 brought yet another dramatic transformation, with the arrival of the Thunder Rock Rally, and Rita, Queen of Speed (Intamin Rocket Coaster) - which now dominates the area, and almost hides the older Corkscrew!

Talbot Street / The Land Of Make Believe / Cred St.

This area has been home to several exhibitions, notably, an exhibition of puppets and models from the TV Series “Space 1999″ and “Thunderbirds”, and also a “Motor Museum” for a number of years. In the early years, the area was dominated by a 40ft high Snakes & Ladders board used by Childrens ITV over several years for the game show “Hold Tight”, hosted by Bob Carolgees.

In the early days, this section of the park was home to a walk-through Haunted House (Doom & Sons) which closed in 1992 when the new Haunted House opened in Gloomy Wood. Also in this area was “Around The World in 80 Days”, which was re-themed in 1994 to become “Toyland Tours”, which was again reworked in 2006 to become “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” with a shorter boat ride, and a sizable post-show featuring the Glass Elevators. The Theater originally held a “Dancing Fountains” show, then a magic show, and now a show featuring well known characters from kids TV (examples include Barney and the Tweenies)
A number of rollercoasters have found their home in Talbot Street over the years, including the 4-Man Bob (originally located at Trentham Gardens), the original Beast, and the Alton Mouse - all of which have since been removed.

Kiddies Kingdom

Added in 1986, Kiddies Kingdom is a very colourful play area for small children, manufactured by Bounceabouts Leisure, the area surrounding this facility has now been expanded to include the Beastie coaster, along with Spinball Whizzer and a selection of other rides and attractions aimed at children.

The Towers

An on-going restoration work is slowly seeing the Towers themselves being restored - although they will probably never reach the finery of years ago, the structure and windows will be slowly restored to their original condition. The construction of Hex for the 2000 season led to the renovation of the Armoury and Octogon chambers. Previous years have seen the Chapel partially restored to include the galleries where the Lord & Lady would sit, and the replacement of the stained glass windows.
Transport Rides

The Minature Railway originally running from the woodland near the log flume, to the Pagoda overlooking the gardens, with the original Cable Car system linking to it. The cable cars were replaced with the system linking Aqualand to Festival Park, for several years you were not allowed to disembark at the “turn” station.

This railway was rebuilt for the 1997 season with twin tracks, but a shorter route, leading only as far as Gloomy Wood, wasn’t run in the 1998 and 1999 seasons, and the track was finally lifted in 2000.  The area has now been converted into the “Haunted Hollow” walkthrough - simply a path through the gardens with various interactive spooky exhibits.

The original 7 monorail trains (named after the planets) were bought after the 1986 Expo in Canada, the trackwork was designed by Allot & Lomax, and manufactured by CWA. This was opened by none other than Star Trek’s Captain James T Kirk - William Shatner. Further rolling stock has since been purchased to increase the capacity futher

Ride Photography

The Log Flume, Black Hole and River Rapids rides have always had on-ride photos, systems which were later added to the Beast and Corkscrew, all using convention film based cameras, where you would buy your photo, and then have it posted to you a few weeks later.

When the Black Hole was re-vamped in 1992, it gained the UK’s first Digital ride photo system, where guests could see the picture of themselves on the ride, and purchase it on the spot, with it being printed and ready in a matter of minutes. This system was such a success that the systems on the Log Flume and River Rapids rides were replaced with similar systems.

Oblivion, Nemesis and Ripsaw also have the digital photo system. The corkscrew’s was removed, as has the system on Ripsaw, although in 2001 the corkscrew again featured on-ride photos.

In 2007 the concept of Ride Photography moved on again, with the introduction of the “Your Day” DVD service - where at the end of the day it is possible to purchase a DVD containing a mixture of “stock footage” of the rides, and short clips of video of one of your rides (you wear a wristband which is detected by a sensor on the ride)

Other Stuff

Another landmark in the history of the park was the change in 1998 to franchised catering, gone were the expensive and relatively poor quality food, as the catering was handed over the familiar names of McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut.

Virtual Queuing was testing in 1998 on Nemesis, and introduced on major rides across the park in the following years, in recent years this has been phased out and replaced with paid-for FastPass tickets.