Alton Towers Hotel and Splash Landings

A few of you may have heard that I had a big birthday recently (I haven’t been banging on about it at all!). To celebrate the fact that I was turning 30, the Mr decided to treat me to an overnighter at Alton Towers in Staffordshire.

I am a rollercoaster junkie. I could go on them over and over again and I would just not get bored. This was part of the reason he chose Alton Towers and also due to the fact that last time we went, I was 5 weeks post c-section and joyriding Postman Pats van was about as extreme as I got!

The drive from Cambridgeshire takes about 2 and a half hours so we decided to stay over and try out the Alton Towers Hotel and Splash Landings Water Park while we were there.

We had an incredibly wet drive and arrived at the hotel just after lunch. We quickly checked in, got our water park tickets and dropped our bags with the porter before heading over to the Splash Landing Hotel where the water park is located.

Thankfully, both hotels are linked by a covered walkway otherwise we would have been soaked before even getting close to a swimming pool!

On first sight, the water park was smaller than we thought it would be. With several children’s areas plus 7 water slides, a water coaster, both an indoor and outdoor pool plus heated jacuzzi type pools, a lot gets packed into a tight space.

I took a few photos of the water park after it had closed as it didn’t seem right to be taking them while the pool was open.

The outside pool which was being enjoyed by a cheeky duck after closing!

After scanning our tickets at the turnstiles you go directly into the changing rooms. They have a selection of different sized cubicles for singles, doubles or families. There are plenty of lockers, which take a 20p piece, and were more than big enough for both our belongings.

The water park is a very short walk from the changing rooms and upon entering you are immediately hit by the heat! On such a chilly day outside, we could have been forgiven for thinking we were in the Caribbean!

The pool water was also amazingly warm. I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to getting in swimming pools and will try my hardest to keep my body parts out for as long as possible! Here, I was able to enter the water straight away without the sharp intake of breath!

We spent several hours trying out the various slides (all in the interest of research). The Mr is a huge water slide fan and spent much longer doing them than me. I much preferred cooking myself in the outside hot tub!

The slides were certainly extreme enough for me. As I mentioned in a previous post (One Lovely Blog Award), I am terrified of water so don’t go expecting anything along the lines of a Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon water park.

We are definitely getting old as mid afternoon we had a break from the water while we had tea and a cake!

The choice of food here is fairly limited and definitely priced accordingly! Our 2 hot drinks and 2 muffins came to £7. If you were looking for something more substantial, they had sandwiches, pies and paninis on offer with an ice cream parlour next door.

We spent a few more hours in the pool before deciding to retreat to our hotel and check out our room.

We had room 263 which was just being the reception desk and along the busy main corridor.

It was a really good size with a double bed, a single and a pull out second single. We thought we could easily get all 6 of us in here while the twins are still in a cot!

The bathroom was compact with a shower hiding just behind the door. The sink, as you can see, had its uses! That’s my birthday drinks waiting to be consumed. The Mr contacted the hotel to ask if they could do anything to help make our stay more special. They offered him a birthday package of 6 Bud beers, a birthday cake and a few balloons for the amazing price of just £35! Needless to say, we took our own!

After the exertion of the water park we were starving so headed on over to Flambos buffet restaurant in Splash Landings for dinner. Thankfully, we had reserved a table when we checked in as they were turning people away.

There’s a good choice of restaurants across the 3 hotels with buffets, a la carte and a pizzeria available. We chose the buffet restaurant as for £19.95 per person all you can eat, we thought it was quite good value. We certainly got our money’s worth! The food was really tasty and I was impressed that they had an entire section for vegetarian food.

All hotels have evening entertainment ranging from discos to pub quizzes. We were going to give the quiz a go (we love a good pub quiz) but could hardly keep ourselves awake! Knowing we had a busy day tomorrow, we admitted defeat and headed off to bed!

Given where our room was located, we were worried it might be quite noisy but we both managed to get a great nights sleep. Even though we had no children with us, we were still up and raring to go by 7! It’s true what they say about never sleeping the same once you’ve had children!

The cost of our room also included a buffet breakfast. We headed down to the Secret Garden restaurant on the bottom floor of the hotel. It was the first chance we’d had to look round the hotel and it’s pretty cool.

The breakfast was good and certainly set us up for the day. There was plenty of choice from hot to cold food. There’s nothing quite like a full cooked breakfast before you get hurled around on rollercoasters.

This is a great hotel and was definitely worth the money we paid for it. I’m not sure I’d have been so happy if we’d paid full price for the room though. I’m hoping we can bring the kids back one day but with the biggest boy starting school in September, I’m not sure we’ll be able to afford it or have the patience for the school holiday queues!