ALTON TOWERS United Kingdom (Abbreviation: AT) Merlin Entertainment Group
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ---- (1/26/2026) Alton Towers Names New Bluey Themed Coaster (12/29/2025) Alton Towers - What's Happening with Project Horizon? (10/11/2025) Alton Towers - Using Scarefest To Expand In-House IP and Mythology (9/10/2025) Alton Towers Confirms World's First Bluey Coaster Coming in 2026 (8/24/2025) Alton Towers Really Does Make Some Fine Video Ads With Fun Details and Easter Eggs
Park News - (10/11/2025) A great article about Alton Tower’s “Scarefest” Halloween event has been posted, detailing how the park has expanded their self-made lore and legends through the use of extended narratives told through the use of “fear & storytelling”. The park has become quite creative at using something as simple as a haunt or scare zone to “deepen themed lands, expand park mythology, and strengthen in-house IP.” A fine example use shown as a new addition for this season is called “Edge of the Forest”, which further develops the storyline behind the park’s TH13TEEN roller coaster that actually opened 15 years ago. (8/24/2025) As I’m not in the UK, I don’t get to see the regular onslaught of marketing from Alton Towers directly, but I did notice something very fun about the video the park posted for National Roller Coaster day last week. If you watch the first video below, about 15 seconds in you’ll see a woman approach the entrance of Nemesis Reborn and pause for a moment to lean over and pick-up a pair of lost ear-buds sitting on the ground and put them in her ears to discover they are playing the The Hall of the Mountain King. Now if you jump back in time one year to the full ad the park released for Nemesis Reborn where the creature grabs a park security guard, you’ll notice that he drops those very same ear-buds on the ground in that same spot, while the same music is playing. While Hall of the Mountain King is featured in a number of days for the park from over the years, so that park isn’t news, but as the story of the lost earbuds on Nemesis took a full year to play out, it is a very nice touch. I noticed a few other fun nods, like the water bottle the ride op is drinking from in the Nemesis control room has the name Percy on the bottom, which was the name of the security guard in the first video. Of course there is also the quick cameo by none other than the legendary John Wardley nodding at the woman as she exits the coaster, so again… well done Alton Towers. (I’m sure there may be some other things I might have missed…)
2026 - Bluey Kiddie Coaster - (1/26/2026) The official name of the new Bluey themed roller coaster coming to Alton Towers has been announced as being called “Bluey the Ride: Here Come the Grannies”. (9/10/2025) Alton Towers has announced that their new roller coaster for 2026 will be given a “Bluey” theme, after the popular kids cartoon dog character. Look for the new ride to open in Spring 2026 within the existing CBeebies Land. The Australian kids show is apparently extremely popular in the UK, and Alton Towers took the time to notice in 2024 when they added some Bluey themed resort rooms to one of their hotels. Currently it is not known who the manufacturer will be. (7/2/2025) A quick video showing off the construction walls around “Project Sunshine” at Alton Towers that will bring a new family coaster to the park in CBeebies Land in 2026 has been posted by Coaster Chall. (6/5/2025) According to local news posts, Alton Towers has closed the Postman Pat Parcel Post kiddie ride in CBeebies Land for good. According to the rumor mill, a new kiddie coaster is expected to take its place, with further rumors suggesting that the new coaster might also come with a “Bluey” theme. Of course I’d still label the Bluey part as a wild rumor at this point, likely generated because the resort adding a Bluey live-action show in CBeebies Land in 2024 along with some Bluey themed suites to one of the hotels. Regardless, the new kiddie coaster planned is said to be working under the codename, “Project Sunshine” (12/22/2024) According to Yahoo News, Alton Towers has submitted plans to build a new “junior coaster” inside the park’s CBeebies Land. The new project could be ready to open as early as the 2026 season, but many expect that the new coaster may be themed to the kids cartoon, Bluey.
2027/2028 - New Indoor Attraction / Project Horizon - (12/29/2025) So whatever happened to Project Horizon at Alton Towers? This was meant to be some kind of new indoor attraction that was originally slated to open in 2025. Issues arose and the park changed gears, instead opting to move forward with Project Ocean in 2025, which ended up being the new Toxicator ride. While Project Horizon was originally approved back in early 2023, something seemed to derail it. According to a post on Facebook by Airtime Rush, the park notified the local district council on December 22 that they had now “complied with site contamination and soil management conditions” that were apparently holding the project back. The new plan may be to break ground sometime in 2026, and open in either 2027 or 2028.
(2/19/2023) According to an update posted to TowersTimes, Alton Towers was approved to move forward with their large new indoor attraction project, aka: Project Horizon. As before, I believe the timeline on this wouldn’t see it open until 2025. Follow to link to read more details about what the structure itself will likely look like from the outside, as well as the placement of it in the park. (11/23/22) The latest word on the proposed new indoor coaster project for Alton Towers (referred to as Project Horizon) is that construction on the large building for the indoor ride is set to begin in Spring 2023 and the ride is expected to open in Spring 2025. (11/6/2022) According to a post by TowersTimes, the new indoor Project Horizon planning application mentions that the new attraction inside would be some kind of indoor roller coaster. A family friendly indoor coaster would be a good fit for the park that has been without such an offering ever since they closed Black Hole in 2005.
(9/5/22) In other news it has come to light that Alton Towers will “hold a public exhibition event” on September 19th featuring proposals to add a new indoor attraction on the former site of Alton Mouse in the former Coaster Corner section of the park. According to the limited information in the leaflets, the proposal will be for a new attraction building on the site. As for the location, Towers Times mentions that guests have not had access to the former Coaster Corner area since 1992, following the removal of the 4 Man Bob and Alton Mouse from the area, and the relocation of Alton Beast to the Forbidden Valley area as “The New Beast”. Noise from the outdoor rides in this area was always an issue with the locals, so the area has sat unused for many years, so building a new indoor attraction should be a viable solution to breathe new life into the site. A new video on the CoasterChall channel also discusses this new development in further details (see below). In other news a post to Twitter shows off markings on the ground in the park said to be placed just outside of the Enterprise ride, hinting that it could be related to an SW9 project. Keep in mind that the park is also planning on closing Nemesis for a complete rebuild that will likely see Nemesis closed for all of 2023 to reopen in 2024, so between Nemesis, Duel, and this new indoor ride project, and whatever SW9 turns out to be… there a lot of activity being planned for Alton Towers all at once.
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