Often the success of a theme park trip can be determined by the number of rides and
roller coasters you get to experience. This could mean riding as many attractions as possible, or
finally getting on the one roller coaster you’ve been meaning to ride for ages. People who visit
theme parks regularly, like me, pride themselves in figuring out how to maximise the number of
attractions we can ride in one day. That means coming up with some sort of game-plan, a rough
schedule or itinerary which we can use during our visit. For Alton Towers, the UK’s biggest theme
park, that’s especially important. Alton Towers has a large collection of rides, but what’s more
difficult is that these are spread out across the park’s large site. If you want to ride The Smiler,
then Nemesis, be ready to walk 15 minutes across the whole width of the theme park itself. Because
of this, theme park nerds boast about their strategy to conquer Alton Towers, a strategy which
allows them to ride all 7 of the park’s major roller coasters in the shortest time possible.
This got me thinking though. There are so many different routes to take around
the park - but mathematically, one of them has to be the fastest. So, let’s find out.-
Sadly, it’s not that easy. First we need some data. Specifically, we need to know how long
the queues are for each major roller coaster at various points throughout the day. That way for
example, we can estimate it would take someone 60 minutes to queue for the Smiler at 1pm.
As a long-time user of queue-times.com, a website which tracks queue times for a whole multitude of
parks across the world, I asked whether we could borrow some data for Alton Towers - to which they
replied, yes - great start. Queue times aren't the only data we need however. We also need to create
a map of Alton Towers which gives estimates as to how long it takes to walk between all 7 roller
coasters. For example, it takes roughly 7 minutes to walk from the Smiler to Rita, and vice versa.
With all of this data we’d be able to predict A. how long it would take
someone to queue for a particular roller coaster at any point during the day,
and B. the time it would take someone to walk between rides.
So, how do you then determine the fastest way to ride all 7 roller coasters? You brute force it of
course. That means producing a way of calculating the total queue plus walking time for every single
combination of riding all 7 rides, which in our case is 5040 unique combinations, easy.
Well, easy for someone who knows Python a little bit better than I do.
Fortunately my friend Edd is smart - andhe quickly wrote a piece of code to analyse all
5040 permutations. During the testing phases we realised we needed to add two additional features.
The first was that riding roller coasters isn’t an instantaneous event. After you finish queuing
you’ll spend several minutes boarding, riding and then leaving the roller coaster itself. So,
do account for all that extra time, we added an additional 10 minutes to the queue time
for all rides. Secondly, computer programs don’t need to eat lunch,
but sadly as humans, we do. So we coded in a 45 minute lunch break which the code would decide
for you as long as it’s after 12pm. So with the code set up, the data ready to go, we hit run.
Imagine you’ve just rocked up to the turnstiles at Alton Towers. It’s a busy day, perhaps a weekend,
and the time is currently exactly 10am. Let’s start the clock:
The first thing to do is begin a 7 minute walk to Oblivion. There, you’ll join the 1 minute queue,
allowing you to leave the ride at 10:18. Next, you’ll complete another 7 minute walk over to
Rita, which currently has a 10 minute queue. After that, you’ll join the 32 minute long
queue of 13. Counterintuitively, it’s time to head back over to X-Sector, for a ride on the Smiler.
You’ll join the 74 minute long queue at 11:34, meaning you’ll leave the ride at 12:58,
just in time for some lunch! Where you eat is entirely up to you, but use the 45 minutes wisely!
Assuming you eat next to the Smiler, you’ll have an extra 7 minutes to walk to Wicker Man. There
you’ll join the 56 minute queue at 13:51. Two more rides to go! Next on the agenda is a 10 minute
walk to the Forbidden Forest, which obviously means a ride on Nemesis, at exactly 15:07. A 36
minute queue later allows you to move on to your final roller coaster. Join Galactica’s 47 minute
queue at 15:53 and savour your successful speedrun of the Alton Towers Resort. After all that, you’ll
have ridden all 7 roller coasters in a record time of 6 hours and 50 minutes - amazing right?
Kind-off? It’s extremely unlike you’d be able to follow this itinerary to the exact minute.
However, the rough order should be one of the fastest for a peak day. Though, it wouldn’t
surprise me if you thought your route was faster. So, what about the alternatives, how much time do
you lose by riding things in a different order? Sometimes quite a bit. Say you do the obvious
thing and ride the park’s newest roller coaster, Wicker Man, first. After that you head to Nemesis
and Galactica, then Rita and Thirteen, and finally end the day with Oblivion and the Smiler. You’ll
take 55 minutes, nearly an hour longer - that could be another ride on Wicker Man for example!
Here’s the additional time for two other routes, one starting with the Smiler, and the other with
Nemesis. With these you’ll add either 42 or 45 minutes to your route. Hopefully now you’re
thinking that the Coaster Bot approved Alton Towers speedrun route is the way to go. If you do
stick to our itinerary on your next visit do let us know, we’d love to hear if it was successful!
The model can do more than just minimising the total time. Perhaps you don’t mind long
queues but absolutely hate walking between rides, especially up and down the various hills scattered
around Alton Towers. Well, we’ve got you covered. The fastest route around Alton Towers from the
entrance begins with a walk to X-Sector, for the Smiler. You’ll then ride Oblivion after,
before heading to the Dark Forest to experience Thirteen first, and Rita second. From there,
walk towards the entrance, taking a right to head to Wicker Man. Finally, you’ll make your way over
to the Forbidden Valley for a ride on Nemesis and then Galactica. All-in-all, that’ll take you 35
minutes to walk, 4 minutes faster than the fastest overall route mentioned earlier, pretty neat huh.
Though, we can actually save even more time. Theme park nerds often go on about how they
get to the park excessively early - sometimes more than an hour before the park ‘officially’ opens.
But why, what’s the point, if gates open at 10am can’t you just rock up at 10am? Of course not.
Alton Towers is a faff, it’s a short monorail ride, or 10 to 15 minute walk between the car
park and the entrance. This means that, to maximise your day, you need to get to the
car park with time to spare. Although the park is ‘open’ from 10am, they usually let people
through the gates at least 15 minutes early. This means if you’re in the plaza before 9:45,
you can walk straight into the park and begin to queue for a ride before it actually opens.
So, let’s run our python model again, this time with the assumption that you’re near
the front of the pre-queue as soon as the rides start running at 10am.
So, let’s imagine you’re at Alton Towers, waiting in the queue for Thirteen to open.
Your watch hits 10am, Thirteen open to guests and our clock starts.
Instantly you’re able to ride thirteen after just a short 4 minute queue. That means you’re
already heading over to Rita at 10:14. After a 6 minute wait, you’ll be onboard. Then, at 10:30,
you’ll walk 7 minutes towards Oblivion, which currently has a 12 minute long queue.
From there, it’s time for Nemesis. Walk 16 minutes from X-sector to the Forbidden valley,
and join the line at 11:15. After your ride, head over to Galactica, and enter that 43 minute queue
at 11:51. Now relax, it’s 12:44, which means it’s time for some lunch. Don’t dilly-dally though,
because at 13:39 you’ll need to join the 56 minute queue for Wicker Man. To finish
the itinerary walk for 8 minutes from Wicker Man over to the Smiler and join the queue. All-in-all,
you’ll be able to ride all 7 of the park’s major roller coasters in 6 hours and 8 minutes.
By getting to the park early, and being in a queue at 10am, you’re able to ride everything
roughly 40 minutes earlier - which could be enough time to get an extra ride in! So,
in that respect, our model confirms that theme park nerds are right,
you should get to a park early if you want to maximise your ride time. Though, the best
way to maximise the number of roller coasters you’ll be able to get on has, and always will
be by visiting on an off-peak day. By arriving early, and visiting on an off-peak day, our model
suggests you could ride everything nearly twice as quickly than if you turned up to the park at 10am
on a peak day - that’s a time saving of over 3 hours. For your interest, on screen we’ve created
a ride-itinerary for all four combinations, so you know what the best route is for your situation.
At the end of the day though, these are very vague suggestions on how to
visit Alton Towers effectively. Our model is far from perfect. Firstly,
it’s made using peak and offpeak average queue times for 3 months worth of data, all from 2021.
Who’s to say whether those three months are an accurate depiction of the rest of the year, or
even 2022? To make the model better, and perhaps even more usable, we’d want to know less about
the specific time you should be riding a roller coaster, and more the rough order you should be
riding them. If you have any ideas of how we could improve our model we’d love to hear from you.
So there you go, over the past 11 minutes or so we’ve seen a whole range of ways to ride
all 7 of Alton Towers’ major roller coasters the fastest. Did you predict the fastest itinerary,
and did you think that getting to the park early would make such a big difference?
Let us know in the comments down below. Thank you for watching, and we'll see you all next time.