For the past few years, Alton Towers has opened up sections of the theme park for its Christmas event. Open exclusively for hotel guests, you must be staying as part of the Santas Sleepover event to get into the park. The best part of all is the rides that are open have no queues! No major attractions opened for this year's event however for the first time ever, Duel was opened. Alongside Duel, the whole of CBeebies Land was open, Heave Ho, Marauders Mayhem and Spinball Whizzer.
During the event Towers Street and the areas open are turned into a Christmas Winter Wonderland. With fake snow and Christmas trees added to the areas, the park felt very Christmasy during our visit. In addition, the rollercoaster restaurant is open serving Christmas meals. One thing that was missing in the rollercoaster restaurant was Christmas music, something that in the past was a nice addition instead of the normal music playlist.
One of the biggest attractions of the Santa Sleepover event is, of course, meeting Father Christmas, who did not disappoint. Located at the back of CBeebies Land you're greeted by an elf who guides you through the magical forest to Santas lodge.
Based inside the Alton Towers Conference centre, the Santa Sleepover event also unlocks the potential to go and watch the pantomime, Alice in Wonderland. For a group of adults, this might not sound like fun but the TPG team thoroughly enjoyed the pantomime. Just like other mainstream pantos its filed with jokes that will go over the children’s heads but make adults laugh.
Not a great deal changes around the park but one addition we did like was the Christmas theming being added to Duel along with some new Christmas music added down the Haunted Hallow footpath.
As much as we would love to see the event opened up to annual pass holders not enough is open, and it would take away the magic of it being an exclusive event for hotel guests.
