Thrills of a different kind as theme park gets in festive mood
ALTON Towers is usually associated with hot summers days, standing in line waiting to test your nerve on their latest thrilling ride.
But now managers have opened up some aspects of the theme park for the festive season with a Christmas market, selected rides and an impressive light show.
The Christmas market is, as you would expect, a mixture of food and drink stalls, stocking fillers, decorations and independent retailers.
The prices might seem a bit high but this one isn’t more expensive than you would be paying at any of the others around at the moment.
I went along with my partner and our three-year-old son, so it was mostly about the rides and the Lightopia event, which takes place once the sun goes down.
Only a select few family rides were open, including Cbeebies Land, which our little boy absolutely loved – and, if truth be told, so did I.
The chance to ride in Postman Pat’s van, or on the In The Night Garden’s boat, fly with the Gojetters and ride the Octonauts rollercoaster were just some of the highlights.
The main thrill-seeking rides, the likes of Wickerman, Smiler and Oblivion aren’t open, nor is the Runaway Mine Train, Congo River Rapids or The Haunted House.
Those rides are closed because they form part of the Lightopia route.
We also loved the Sharkbait Reef by SEA LIFE but the main highlight was the Lightopia event.
Set throughout the grounds of the theme park, around many of the rides which are currently closed as explained above, Lightopia is spectacular in what it offers, hundreds of people, animals, faces, creatures, flowers, buildings and seasons all illuminated against the dark of the evening.
The theme runs from each month of the year to seasonal events such as Easter and Halloween finally ending in a stunning water projection on the main lake with images of Santa Claus projected onto the cloud of water mist.
We entered the event at about 4.30pm and it took us about an hour to get all the way around, although we sped up near the end as all the fun and games of the day was starting to tire out our little boy but you could very easily spend another hour in Lightopia taking in the sights presented before you.
The only question mark I would have of the event is that it is rather long, the walk does seem to take quite a while to get from the start to the finish but other than that it is as spectacular as you would expect from Alton Towers and well worth the £20 entry.
On the whole, we really enjoyed our day out at Alton Towers’ Christmas event and, for the majority of the day, the weather behaved as well!