Half-term fun... right on queue!
Life was a rollercoaster for MARC WADDINGTON as he headed off to enjoy a Mardi Gras celebration at theme park Alton Towers during half-term...
‘DOING anything nice at half-term?’ is a question many parents are asked prior to schools breaking up.
And usually you’d expect most answers to raise a smile and an ‘Ooo, that’ll be nice.’
Rarely do you expect your response to raise an eyebrow, let alone a look of abject fear.
But when I mentioned I was taking my daughter to Alton Towers in the midst of the school holidays, the reactions (from people who know and probably share - my pathological loathing of queueing) ranged from mild to utter horror.
What have I let myself in for?
On the drive there, images of queues outside Passport Offices around the country flash before my eyes.
Queuing really has been the theme of the last few weeks, and I’m starting to think that after smugly avoiding all the classic queue scenarios, I’m now walking straight into the eye of the storm.
Mercifully, my fears were to prove mostly unfounded. When we arrived at just after 10am last Tuesday, the car park was, encouragingly, only sparsely peppered with vehicles.
And apart from 15 minutes in the box office standing behind a big cockney bloke who was hellbent on making it absolutely clear that he was now the most important person north of the Watford Gap services, there was little in the way of tiresome standing around to be done.
What helps is the sheer size of the park, and the fact that if you’ve got little ones who aren’t big enough for the main, headline rides, you’re able to get onto most of the ones you need to get on with relatively little waiting.
Our first stop was Cbeebies Land, where my daughter and her little mate managed to get into Justin’s House in a matter of minutes before spending a good quarter of an hour releasing their pent-up, nervous excitement by firing off a barrage of spongey red cannonballs at the other kids and parents.
At Hey Duggee’s adventure playground, it was a similar breeze in. No queues, just lots of mad dashing around, swinging on hammocks and sliding down big steel slides. So far, so good.
The biggest attraction for my fiveyear-old was most definitely the Congo River Rapids.
For anyone who doesn’t know it, it essentially goes like this: one minute you’re waiting in hopeful anticipation, the next minute you’re on a terrifying, bumpy ride through central Africa - sort of a theme park ride-meets-government immigration policy, if you will.
Because of the large number of rafts, and the fact they can fit six or seven people in each, there’s little waiting around before you’re careering down the rapids and being spun round as your vessel bounces off the sides.
Cue plenty of squeals from my little fellow travellers, for whom the sight of grown-ups being drenched with foaming white water is a source of endless amusement and delight.
Next up was the Runaway Mine Train, the oldest rollercoaster in the park, which has been rattling around the dark tunnels of Katanga canyon since 1992.
My daughter, who was just tall enough to get on, spent much of the journey round pretty silent, her knuckles turning white as they gripped the metal bar across her lap. By the second run round, the bottom lip was trembling, and to be honest, I couldn’t hand-on-heart say whether hers were screams of enjoyment or outright terror.
But for someone of her age, it’s definitely a pretty good entry level rollercoaster. However, I think it’ll be a few years before I’ll be getting her on the Wicker Man.
That ride is most definitely one of the highlights of any trip to Alton Towers, and one with a particularly dark concept behind it. It’s based around - I imagine - the 1973 movie in which a detective journeys to a remote Hebridean island and discovers the island folk partaking in pagan rituals rather than being good, God-fearing Christians - with fiery results.
The ride was the first wooden rollercoaster built in the UK in over 20 years, and you’ll be pleased to know it’s not made of wicker.
While the kids waited with my daughter’s friend’s dad, I braved the journey into the large pen, which is plunged into darkness before a CGI flaming wicker head with a sinister Scottish accent tells you you’re essentially about to be sacrificed. Oh well. At least the queue wasn’t that big.
Then onto the ride, which somehow – probably down to the clattering and rattling and the many twists and turns – feels much faster than its top speed of 44 miles an hour. It’s quite the exhilarating experience.
The theme of Alton Towers over these few weeks is Mardi Gras, and while there is absolutely no shortage of food generally at the park, one of the most notable elements of the Mardi Gras theme is Food Street, just in front of the castle itself, and where a number of food trucks and stalls are set up selling Louisiana-style fare.
Now, I’ve never been to New Orleans, and don’t know a huge amount about the place.
But one thing I have gleaned from friends who’ve been is that if you stumble into the wrong part, you can quickly find yourself at risk of being relieved of the contents of your wallet. And in that regard, Food Street is an authentic New Orleans experience.
I opted for the Po’boy sandwich, which is a staple of Creole cuisine. Down there, it’s generally a crusty French baguette loaded with fried shrimp or some other seafood, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and a Cajun sauce.
Legend has it it was first served to striking streetcar workers, who, bereft of income, were described as “po’ boys”. But if they’d have been paying the equivalent of the £7 for their sandwiches that I paid for mine, they’d have ended up very po’ boys indeed.
That’s not to say it wasn’t a pleasant experience, and it was much-needed by this point in the day. But as for the seafood element, I would have struggled to say it was definitely shrimp.
In truth, it seemed more like the kind of breaded scampi you might buy from the supermarket. However, in its defence, there was plenty of it, and the hole it left in my wallet wasn’t as big as the one it managed to fill in my stomach.
Along Food Street there were street food options a-plenty, including a chicken shack, a Tex Mex stall, a smokery and various hotdogs.
The girls were more than happy with their portions of chips, which at £4 were a reasonable size.
We ate our food down by the lake, where the impressive two-storey Mardi Gras bar loomed over the pontoon, and where singers and musicians performed southernstyle music at intervals. There were also colourful dancers and stilt walkers wandering around, with whom the little ones delighted at having their photos taken, and joining in with the routines.
One of the great things about Alton Towers is the sheer variety of attractions on offer, for all ages. My daughter, for example, was as keen to spend twenty minutes wandering around the Sharkbait Reef as she was to be flung around in the barrels of the Marauders’ Mayhem ride.
The reef, which is a partnership with SEA LIFE centre, doesn’t look particularly big from the outside, but it’s quite the aquatic treasure trove inside.
She was dazzled by the vivid colours of the various tropical fish, loved walking through the tunnel as the sharks swam above and was highly amused by the sight of the vegetarian rays chomping on broccoli.
By mid-afternoon, as little legs began to tire, we headed for the Sky Ride, the cable route ride high above the park that takes in stunning views of the gardens and the rolling Staffordshire countryside beyond.
And, before we knew it, it was home-time, albeit after the trek back to the car, my legs ready to buckle under the weight of a child who insisted she was far too tired to walk and so had to be carried on my shoulders.
It must have added at least another 1,000 steps on top of the 15,000 we’d clocked up during our day of trekking about the grounds.
But I’ll take walking over queuing any day of the week, and I’m grateful to be able to say that, despite venturing to Alton Towers in the middle of half-term, we definitely spent considerably more time enjoying the many attractions than we did standing around waiting to experience them.
Something tells me my forthcoming trip to the passport office will be a far less thrill-heavy, queue-light affair.