Alton Towers, First Day of the Season and Alton After Dark, March 2026

Oh dear. What a day.

Now, don’t get me wrong, a day at a busy theme park is what you make it, but there are just circumstances that are beyond your control that can really impact your day. And whilst some people went on opening day and managed to have a good time, there were many who didn’t. Ours was 75/25 in the negative. Some things were just ‘these things happen’ moments. Others, could have been handled better.

Well, it was not news when we arrived that the Monorail would not be available. It was down for maintenance. Good news for us, Platinum passholders are now allowed to use the hotel/Galactica entrance, so for us this wasn’t an issue and we didn’t have to walk the 20 min trek to the main entrance.

However, on opening day (been since and not seen it) Towers had put on a replacement bus service to ship guests to the main entrance. Sounds good? Well… from what we heard, there was a queue for guests from the main entrance backing down back towards the car park. Anyone who got on the bus was allowed to exit the vehicle and skip the entire queue. Organised queue jumping. So what should have been a positive action, caused more trouble than it should.

Usually, Towers allows guests in at 9am so they can wander until rides open at 10am. Now, it seems like this has changed. Guests are now allowed to enter at 9.30 am, which didn’t help the hefty tailback at the main entrance.

Not a welcome change. On a day where guests are chomping at the bit to get back on their favourite rides, Alton Towers made the decision to stagger opening on several rides. Spinball Whizzer, Th13teen, Curse, Sub-Terra and Galactica weren’t due to open until 11am. So queues for the likes of Nemesis Reborn, Rita and others were double stacked. Crazy.

It’s day one of the main season. All rides SHOULD be available… or so you’d think.

Runaway Mine Train, The Skyride, The Monorail were all scheduled to be receiving ‘annual maintenance’ (fyi, 3 weeks later and they’re still unavailable). Feels off to have the Skyride closed having just spent millions to get it back open for last season? Mine Train is a great between ride for the smaller kids, so whilst issues occur, its definitely one that should be open at start of season. And we’ve already talked about the Monorail

Rides close. Issues happen. That’s part and parcel of theme parks. You live the theme park life, expect queues and ride downtime. But this felt more. We all expect rides to occasionally have a wobble and need 5 mins, but it felt like every time you looked, something was down. I’m not counting the break for a potential electrical storm in the area, that’s a safety precaution. But every big ride seemed to be off at some point during the day. Oblivion, Smiler, Thirteen, Rita, Toxicator, Wicker Man – all closed for technical issues.

The new perk for Platinum passholders is a one shot fastrack ticket to use on any ride. Whilst it can be a blessing, it was clearly also causing problems. The fastrack queue for Wicker Man later on was tailed out past the shop. It was probably an hour on its own. I know everyone wanted to save it for a night ride during After Dark, but it was mad just how much of a problem it caused. The following week they did trial not allowing it to be used after 5pm to stop everyone hoarding it until later. This was later dropped, but they have added that you might not be able to use it if the main queue is 90mins plus.

We were guilty of saving our fastracks too, but luckily, we used them on Nemesis and Smiler when the fastrack queues were only short and main queues were 45/60mins. Clearly everyone wanted to use it on Wicker Man (to be fair, it is the best night ride with all the fire! Elliott did save his for Thirteen, but it was closed early due to wind, so he missed out.

Couple all of the factors above: busy day + scheduled closures + poor ride availability + bad planning + extra fastrack users = massive queues. Yes, the big rides were usually on 60+ all day. We went on Thirteen while it was on a 50 min queue, but took 75. Oblivion I ran to when it was showing 30 mins but was longer. Wicker Man was over 100 when we waited for it. I don’t mind waiting in a queue, but these were big queues and it felt like the issues elsewhere weren’t helping.

I loved Alton After Dark last year. We came back every weekend to check it out and grab a few night rides on our fave coasters. This year, it still looks great around the park. Mutiny Bay and X-Sector look great and the Smiler really glows at night! It was made to be a night ride. Wicker Man is always the highlight with the flames and orange glow it gives off. The pathways around the park look amazing with the green, purple and orange lights, and the facade for The Curse At Alton Manor always looks the part with its spooky purple glow.

New for this year was over on Towers Street. The frogs had been given After Dark makeover. They were in their high-vis jackets, but over them was a rigging with spotlights painted to some of the rides and an Alton After Dark logo above.

A great touch for Alton After Dark 2026, was the inclusion of ‘Symphony of the Towers’ A light show upon the towers itself. With accompanying music and smoke effects, the towers flashed and dazzled to a backdrop of ride songs and ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ – the Alton Towers song as most of us know it. The windows flashed different colours whilst the walls cascaded with reds and greens. It looked great. A welcome addition.

Well, in comparison to last years opening day (which was also the opening of Toxicator), this felt worse. Last year, we felt like we got loads done. Went on most rides, had a few night rides, a fairly enjoyable day. This year, we struggled to do anything. Get to a ride, its broke, go somewhere else and wait 100 mins, get lunch, try again… There was very much a sombre mood amongst us all. The kids have been spoiled in the past with walk-ons on Stardust Racers in Epic Universe, so they’ve got short thrift for 60 minutes for Rita these days.

We still got some stuff done. Nipped out to the main entrance to check out the repaint of the Corkscrew, which really brightens the entrance plaza, got on Wicker Man in the afternoon, went for a look around the new Bluey coaster, a ride on Thirteen and Oblivion, hit the arcades, tried some new foods, used our fastracks on Nemesis and Smiler before heading home.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love Alton Towers. It’s my ‘home’ park (1hr40 away) and I have childhood memories here, so I’ll always want to come back again, but it feels like something needs to give and a big change is needed. If Universal coming to town isn’t the big kick up the arse it needs to get it back in order, I don’t know what is!

As usual, full details and booking can be found on the official Alton Towers website.