Smiling at the Wicker Man!

The six weeks summer break from work/school, which also coincided with our 10 year wedding anniversary, seemed like the perfect opportunity to indulge ourselves and the children with a trip to Alton Towers.

We stayed at the Towers Hotel, which is themed around the idea of explorers and was decidedly steampunky in places too. As it was a special occasion we upgraded from the standard room to an Arctic Explorer room. This upgrade was only another £20 but made a world of difference to us as the children got separate beds rather than bunk-beds and there was just so much more room in the room!

A key part of this two day visit was to FINALLY ride The Smiler and also the newest coaster at Alton Towers, The Wicker Man.

The Smiler, with its record breaking 14 inversions, has been on my coaster wish list since before it opened and in fact we had visited the park for Easter 2013 in the hopes of being among the first to ride it, but it was not to be as the official opening of the ride was delayed until May of that year. Later in 2015 a tragic ride crash caused the closure of the ride for quite some time for safety reasons and so our chance to ride has been delayed until now.

We were very lucky with queue lines (it had been very wet which must have put day trippers off) and were therefore able to ride more than once which gave me ample chance to fully experience the 85mph journey and to get the full "Marmalisation" process.

For the Hubby, (not a fan of spinney rides) the Smiler left him looking anything but happy. He was looking pretty queasy by the time we disembarked and he decided that once was enough for him.

For me, and for Eloise (Oz not meeting the height restrictions yet) it was a real thrill to finally ride this coaster and we couldn't wait to jump on again.

I certainly do seem to be grinning like a mad lady in these ride photos!







The Wicker Man is a wooden coaster created on the site of the old Flume ride.  Opening in March 2018 it is the first new wooden coaster in the UK for 21 years and claims another worlds first for Alton Towers, as it combines wood and fire in one coaster!

In an effort not to spoil the ride for anyone else wanting to visit I wont give away details of the pre-ride experience but if I tell you that the ride slogan is "Feed The Flames" you'll get the general idea!




















This is a great experience for the whole family as there are no inversions on the coaster so the height restrictions still allowed Oz to join us.

We all fell in love with wooden coasters whilst visiting Portaventura a few years ago and this ride cemented that love. It was thrilling from start to finish and although we didn't have to queue very long, the queue line is well themed and the ride is worth a reasonable wait.

So... I can now tick these coasters off of my list and I couldn't resist a souvenir of the occasion!