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Park News - (8/13/10) Alton Tower’s Facebook page has announced that while Thi3teen wont be open on Friday… Fourteen will.  Yep… your guess is as good as mine. One day only… ride Fourteen and get your mits on some exclusive “Fourteen” merchandise.
    (7/30/10) Alton Towers has now banned their guests from an interesting activity when staying at their resort hotels. Best to just read the article yourself…
    (7/24/10) Alton Tower’s hype machine is at it again… now reporting that they will not be running Thi3teen on Friday the 13th in August because they feel it is in the best interest of the guests. Ok, I think I’m going to be sick now... next thing you know they’ll be offering free adult diapers for riders... oh wait, they already did that back in May...
    No offense to our friends across the pond, but I’d be kind of irked by this kind of marketing myself if my own local park began to paint a global picture of my countrymen as being overly superstitious scared of our own shadows types, ready to wet ourselves at the slightest provocation. Just brilliant marketing for what really is just a family coaster. I can’t wait to see how they follow it up for Halloween.
    (7/17/10) Theme Park Review has posted a nice trip report from Alton Towers this week which includes a review of Thirteen, a POV of Nemesis and more TPR craziness.
    (7/14/10) Alton Towers does it again and finds a new over the top way to hog the spotlight… this time by hiring a Lifedog to “man” their waterpark.
    (6/30/10) Alton Tower’s news is often “weird” and today’s is no exception. According to this article the new coaster, Th13teen, has had to be sprayed with bug repellent because riders have been swallowing too many bugs in mid ride. Eeew…. Though certainly nothing new to Cedar Point fans who have to deal with odd insect swarms at different times throughout the season.
    (5/18/10) Alton Towers is at it again with the crazy press stories… this week they’ve been handing out “protective pants” to riders on Th13teen “to prevent accidents”. They claim that previously select guests have been having accidents when unprepared to deal with the most scary portions of the ride.
    (5/4/10) Alton Towers has bucked the trends again it seems. It was just last month that Six Flags in America was taking hits from the media for refusing the hire potential employees with haircuts that don’t meet their grooming standards.  This week Alton Towers is now offering their employees free Mullet and Perm hairdo makeovers as part of an upcoming 80’s celebration. Even the animals are getting in on the act… check out a couple of park donkey sporting their new perms and leg warmers.
    (4/20/10) Alton Towers fans can catch a glimpse of the former Black Hole coaster where it sits restored, repainted and looking for a buyer at the Gerstlauer factory. It’s in the background near the top of this page at Coasters and More, as well as close up pictures near the bottom.
    (4/16/10) Alton Towers has now been added to Google’s Street View program. Take a virtual walk around the park, starting with a view of Oblivion’s drop into darkness.
    (4/15/10) Alton Towers has been suffering from power failures it seems for the last couple of days, causing major problems and stranding a few riders her and there.
    (3/27/10) Screamscape sources tell us that Alton Tower’s is suffering through some Intamin Growth Pains with Thirteen lately. The unscheduled bouts of downtime are causing havoc with the park’s crowds. I can only guess that the problems likely involve the surprise drop track or perhaps the reverse launch or switch track.  Either way, if your planning a trip to the park purely for the purpose of riding Thirteen… you might want to wait a bit.
    (2/16/10) Alton Towers has been involved with a number of strange news stories this year, but this one may take the cake. The park has been forced to ban a pesky squirrel who has been seen riding the new Sonic Spinball coaster early in the morning, even jumping aboard to terrorize guests in the early hours. They claim they have installed high frequency sonic emitters designed to keep the critter away from the ride from now on.
    (2/15/10) A batch of pictures most people have never seen before showing off the construction of Nemesis at Alton Towers have been posted to Facebook here.
    (11/5/09) Another reader confirms hearing that not only will Rita be painted a new color, but also given a new name for the 2010 season to tie somehow into the new SW6 coaster. They also mentioned that we may see some kind of name change for Spinball Wizzer next season as well, though I’m not sure why.
    (11/4/09) As part of a special UK Concert Tour, Pink will be holding a performance at Alton Towers on Sunday, June 27th, 2010, as part of her Funhouse Summer Carnival Tour. Tickets are supposed to go on sale on November 9th.
    (10/30/09) A reader reports hearing that Rita will be painted green for next season, possibly to go along with a new theme due to the location near SW6.
    (10/20/09) A review of Alton Tower’s Scarefest event has been posted to ThemeParkTourist. They also have a few pictures of SW6.

2010 - Sonic Spinball - Confirmed - (2/15/10) New pictures of Sonic Spinball have been posted to the Towers Times and RCPro.
    (1/25/10) In addition to the official logo for Sonic Spinball being found at Kotaku, they report that not only has Sega Europe signed an excluive 3 year deal with Alton Towers for Sonic which will also include Sonic themed rooms at the Alton Towers Hotel.
    (1/8/10) As odd at this sounds, Alton Towers will be rethemeing Spinball Whizzer for the 2010 season. Okay… we’ve heard that several times before, but the odd thing this time is the theme. The ride will be themed to SEGA’s famous videogame character, Sonic the Hedgehog, and be renamed as Sonic’s Spinball. You can even see a picture of the coaster being repainted Sonic Blue here. I’ve got to admit, this may actually be a good new theme for the ride… but can we have a Halo themed ride next?

2010 - Thirteen - (3/19/10) A reader has sent in a link showcasing their own pictures and a description of their first hand experience with Alton Tower’s official Boot Camp for Thirteen.
    (3/18/10) A couple of new videos have been posted showing off Alton Tower’s new Thirteen coaster. The first video embedded below is from GM TV in the UK, a morning news show, which shows off what seems to be a fairly unedited view of the coaster… which includes footage shot of the big surprise. To be fair… this looks like a family friendly coaster… nothing extremely thrilling about it.
    However if you watch the second video clip, from Central Tonight, it looks like they did a bit of creative editing to make the drops on the coaster look massive, but they did get perhaps the best shot of the big surprise in action that you wont want to miss.  Granted… none of the special effects that will be in the final version of the ride were working during any of these shoots, so there are still more surprises to come.


    (3/17/10) Want to see just what you can expect to find inside Thirteen when it opens? SPOILER WARNING - Check out this video clip posted to YouTube that seems to show off exactly what will take place inside the crypt… from a hardware point of view at least. If you want to be surprised… don’t watch. You’ve been warned. Otherwise…as I’ve said before, I’m not overly impressed as this is supposed to be what all the fuss and hype is all about. There better be some stunning special effects in there to go along with this.
    (3/16/10) Tow more slightly different 5-second long teaser videos for 13 can now be seen on YouTube here and here.
    (3/12/10) As if the hype over the scare factor of Thi3teen wasn’t high enough, Alton Towers has announced that an optional special ticket can be purchased for just £1 extra that will include “health insurance” for both physical and psychological trauma, as well as access to a medical expert who will be stationed at the ride. I’ve got to call bogus on this because honestly, this is getting beyond silly behavior for Alton Towers. Pure media sensationalism that I believe has a very strong potential of biting them in the butt if Thi3teen fails to impress. Given what we know of it already… honestly, I’m already not impressed.
    (3/11/10) According to the newest Alton Towers park map, Ug Land is no more, and is now listed as The Dark Forest.  Rita: Queen of Speed has also had a slight name change and is now simply listed as Rita. You can view the new park map over at Towers Times.
    Meanwhile, while the previews of Thi3teen were cancelled, the official Alton Towers website still lists it as opening on March 20th. I’ve heard that the preview issues were more with the state of the construction site in general and not the ride itself.
    (3/10/10) Thi3Teen is already proving to be a little bit of a beast it seems, and it hasn’t even opened yet. A special preview tour and the first-rider bootcamp events that were to have taken place have now been postponed indefinitely. It sounds almost like some kind of problem may have come up during testing that have thrown a proverbial ghost into the machine. No word yet on how long this could delay the opening of the new ride. Thanks to George Reason for the info.
    (3/9/10) An new TV teaser for Thi3teen has been posted online and embedded below. Apparently a longer version will will begin to air later this week, most likely on the 13th.

    (2/15/10) A few pictures and a brief video clip have been posted showing off Thirteen being tested.
    (2/3/10) A new video showing off a little bit more of Thirteen can be found here, along with information about the Ultimate Fan contest.
    (2/2/10) New pictures of Thirteen’s new coaster train as well as Rita’s refurbishment can be found here. It looks like the creeping vine theme of Thirteen has spread over to Rita now. Unfortunately the new of Thirteen’s train isn’t all that good… other than the fact that we can see it only has a lap bar at least. They also have information on a contest to be one of the first to ride, so check it out.
    (1/31/10) A new construction update of Thirteen at Alton Towers can be seen at Theme Park Review this week, including a fake coaster train made from the snow.
    (12/11/09) Alton Towers has confirmed that their new coaster will be named… THIRTEEN.  Yes… Thirteen… I’ll pause to let that sink in as perhaps the most uninspired ride name of the year. Wait… it gets better… well, no, not really… so get your wading boots because it’s going to get DEEP before it gets any better.
    Opening in March 2010, they’re billing it as the world’s first “Psychoaster”. The story of the ride is based around an ancient burial site that was uncovered in the Dark Forest, where riders will come face to face with the horror that has been unleashed from the ancient crypt. Unfortunately the good details stop there, as they don’t even mention who is making the ride (Intamin) or that the new world’s first technology / surprise will be a section of track that drops to give a freefall sensation, which has all been rumored for some time. 
    Instead the press release claims (start the over-hype machine!), “The new technology will be the first of its kind in the world and will potentially make the ride so frightening that the Resort is considering introducing a controversial age-rating. Only visitors between the ages of 16-55 will be allowed on the ride due to concerns about emotional maturity and physical health. Visitors may also be limited to one ride per day and be required to sign a waiver which assures the Resort of their physical and mental health to avoid any resulting lawsuits.”  Yeah… they went there… sigh…
    First the military style guards to protect the trucks, then the body guard story, and now this. I think someone at Alton needs to tone back the crazy promotional style a bit otherwise riders may come off quite disappointed if the ride doesn’t deliver.
    (11/25/09) It’s a bit silly, but Alton Towers has announced that they have hired a professional bodyguard to protect the secrets of SW6. I’m not sure who this guy is, but somehow I’m not worried that he’s coming to knock on my door. Your secrets will be mine… oh yes…they will be mine…
    (11/16/09) New aerial photos taken of SW6 have been posted here along with a teaser banner covering a large item on the back of a truck.
    (10/23/09) A reader was approached to take a survey about SW6 the other day, and while nothing new was revealed about the attraction itself, they did ask their opinion about several possible names for the coaster, none of which was “Surrender” so it looks like that name really is out. Some of the names they could remember being asked about included: Panic, 13, Thirteen, 666, Mortalis, I.T.U. (Into The Unknown) and The Woodcutter. I’ve got to go with Mortalis myself… as the rest sound kind of lame.
    (10/12/09) A new construction update for “Surrender” has been posted here as well as others at Theme Park Review. The project continuers to be a bit mysterious... even with the name of the coaster. According to one source, Surrender is not going to be the name of the coaster at all, it just may have been a poor bit of text placement in the teaser graphic that made it look a bit too prominent. I guess we’ll know more soon on that issue. I’ve also been given a bit of a info about what is supposed to be the “world’s first” element. According to one rumor, as part of the indoor coaster experience section, at one point the coaster is likely to come to a stop indoors, at which point the section of track it is sitting on may be dropped down to another level, likely into some kind of creepy “crypt” environment. Of course the track really wont be ‘dropped’, think of it more as a controlled plunge experience, much like Disney achieved on the Tower of Terror rides, mixed with a switch-track element.
    If this is true however... some may have issues with the “world’s first” part of it as I know that Mystery Mine at Dollywood has a section of track in the station that drops the cars down into the maintenance area on the floor below. Of course, this isn’t part of the ride experience at all and is done slowly, so if this rumor holds true, this should be a very interesting and unique part of the overall ride experience.

2011 - Family Attraction - Rumor - (7/19/10) Alton Towers is said to be focusing on ‘families’ guests for the 2011 season. No details have leaked out yet about just what this may entail.

2012 - Family Thrill Ride - Rumor - (7/19/10) I’m told that the park is hoping to build some kind of new family thrill ride for the 2012 season. The final location has yet to be determined, but they are looking into possibly putting it inside the old Black Hole structure as one possibility.

2013/2014 - Rumor - SW7 - (7/19/10) I’m told that planning for the SW7 project is set to begin by the end of the month, with the goal of opening the new thrill coaster by 2013/2014. Depending on how things go and what happens between then and now, it is most likely going to be 2014. No word yet on just what this new ride may be.

Future Plans - (7/15/09) I’ve been told that Merlin has drawn up a long term master plan for Alton Towers to show off to the local residents how they would like to develop the park over the next 10 years. Along the way they would like to see the park’s attendance which had peeked out around 2.5 million last year move up to the 2.9 – 3.0 million guest range on a regular basis.
    The best way to do that is though new capital projects, with the general idea being to build 10 new medium to large sized attraction (or replacement attractions) over the next decade, starting with the new coaster opening in 2010. Another hotel is also being considered along with the idea of turning the “southern” car park into a kind of Citywalk style entertainment / retail zone that would link the park up with the hotels. The current overflow lot would then be transformed into a new permanent facility. 
    A map has also been seen that had some areas of the park highlighted as possible locations for future roller coasters. In addition to the current SW6 / 2010 site, it also listed a site in the back where the old Beast and Mouse were in the late 80s as well a a site using some of the current southern carpark. The map also listed Spinball Wizzer as an attraction could be moved or sold to another park in the future. You can read more about this over at Alton Towers Almanac.