We couldn’t let summer go by without a visit to a theme park. As Mei’s family lives Birmingham way, which isn’t too far to drive to Alton Towers, that’s where we decided to head. Laney, Mei (cause she lives in London full time) and I packed up our overnight kits and headed north for the weekend. We were a little bit worried that the weather was looking a bit ropey but it turned out pretty glorious in the end … which also had the unfortunate effect of bringing thousands to the park – but hey, sometimes you can’t have everything.

The train ride up on Friday night was surprisingly quiet and comfortable. Virgin trains are always good for comfort but in my experience people are always fighting for seats. We must have timed our train just right as we missed most of the commuting traffic and weekend traveler traffic. We ended up hitting sack pretty late – Mei’s mum insisted on feeding us and then we listened to Mei on the piano. She says she practises anytime she’s at home to keep her skills up. It seemed so natural – makes me regret not continuing on with my piano lessons!

Saturday morning bloomed bright though ominous clouds did sit on the horizon for a bit. We thought we got to Alton Towers pretty early but heaps of people were already there. We parked in the carpark and took our first ride for the day – the monorail from the car park to the theme park entry! No chicken drumsticks allowed …

Waiting for the “line” drop was painful – so many people trying to push in front and get through but in the end it didn’t really matter, there were enough rides that for the first bit at least there wasn’t too huge a queue. The most we waited the whole day I think was about an hour a half for Rita – ironically the queen of speed had the largest line of the day! Oh, this was not counting the wait for Thirteen, the newest ride at the park, which broke down just as we were about 15 people from the front! Thirteen wasn’t the greatest ride in the park, but it does have something that will surprise.

I was quite impressed with our planning, and luck, during the day. We managed to hit all the rides we wanted to hit including Air, Nemesis, Oblivion, Ripsaw, and Hex (this one still trips me out).

But the ride that we really enjoyed the most on this hot day was the Flume. The line for this was nearly as long as for Rita but it was massively entertaining to be in line because everyone was getting absolutely drenched – and if the splash back from the bottom of the ride didn’t get you, the showers afterwards did – just as well none of us
wore white today! It was a good time to have a slushie too – mmm.

Our last ride for the day 🙁 was the Sonic Spinball. This was rated “Laughs and Frights” but I think it was the roughest ride of the day! Ha ha!

Almost the best thing about the day was the dinner that Mei’s mum had prepared for us which included one of the best roast pork dishes I’ve ever tasted. I must admit I kept going back for more!