#disabled accessibility

This actual clown was parked in two spaces, one of which was a disabled parking space. Note there's no disabled tag or placard.

I have never been so incredibly aware of how inaccessible a place is in my life. I'm aware that this makes me very privileged, but I think it also makes it quite clear just how dreadful the accessibility was

I'm becoming more disabled as I age, and I struggled so much yesterday, of my friend group, at least half of us are disabled in some way.

1. We arrived and two friends had pre-booked the disabled access cards. We couldn't collect them because they were "at capacity" for them and we'd have to wait until someone left to get ours

2. There are refill stations around the park, but you can only use their cups (which cost £9) to refill. There were water fountains, but they were not in the refill stations they were elsewhere, and not indicated on the map like the refill stations

3. While there were signs on rides explaining what they would be like, indicating whether there was flashing lights, how fast they were, if they went upside down, how bad the g-force was with colours indicating the level of each - they were specific to the ride itself. My friend struggles with strobes and the sign for smiler doesn't indicate that there is any and on the ride there isn't - but there is in the queue and so she really struggled

4. The signage in the park is dreadful. Without the app we could not have navigated the park pretty much at all. This is less a disabled accessibility issue and more for older people or those who aren't very good technology. Also, I didn't know they had an app - how can I download an app I don't know exists?

5. The park is a horseshoe shape and in the middle is "the gardens". The path through that is a quite difficult hike. The sign indicating this path does not explain that this is a difficult hike or that it is completely inaccessible. We were in agony after using it thinking it was a shortcut (there was also no other signs indicating a different path to where we were headed) and it did not explain how difficult the walk was. A friend has asthma, another has POTS. This was dangerous

6. You still have to queue when using the disabled access pass for rides. If you're unfortunate enough to be queueing behind five other groups or more with the same passes, you have to stand for extended times. Yes it shortens the time compared to the usual queue, but you're still standing. I struggle with chronic pain - this was incredibly hard and painful

7. The disabled access pass (from what we could see) only gave faster queueing times for rides. Not access to sensory safe places, not faster access to food/drinks, not access to private places to sit, not quicker access to bathrooms - all things disabled people may need depending on their personal needs

8. We saw ONE disabled bathroom all day, and it was combined with a baby change. There were disabled stalls in bathrooms, but anyone who uses a public bathroom knows there's only one of those, and a single disabled bathroom is more practical for some disabled folk

9. There was so little seating. Considering just how large the park is, and how often you have a few guests waiting beside a ride for other guests to return from said ride (and wait times are commonly 40 - 60 minutes) you would expect there to be seating? No. Seating was often only near particularly "pretty" green areas of the park or beside food places, and only few when there was seating

10. We noticed this at least once, but it may have been true of other rides also - by taking the disabled access route we missed out on decor that explained the "plot" behind a ride. We missed story information behind a ride because the access route went a different way around the ride (toward the exit). This is the most minor issue of the day, but still it's unfair for us to have to miss out

11. The rides are built for skinny people. One of my friends (who isn't obese by any measure, she's just curvy) had to wear spanks to ensure she'd fit in the rides properly and even then sometimes struggled still. This isn't to say she deserves it more than obese people because she's closer to skinny, just to emphasise just how small the seating is, and how inaccessible it has the capacity to be

12. The walk from the car park is incredibly long. There is a monorail - but it doesn't stop at the car park, it goes further to elsewhere (I'm unsure where). We had to walk twenty minutes just to get to the front gate with no more disabled-friendly option

13. The disabled access pass had a cool down. You'd use it on a ride and they'd mark down the next time you were allowed to use it, so between uses you would have to wait twenty minutes or more to be able to use it again on another ride, reducing the amount of rides you could ride or forcing you to wait in a regular queue in the meantime which defeats the purpose of the access pass

We had a good day regardless and made the most of the experience, but we came away in agony and upset about the experience outside of the rides themselves. It was ridiculous.

I don't know if things like this are industry standard across theme parks but if it is, that is not a defence of Alton Towers, it is a criticism of the industry.