What a difference a smile makes!

Whoever said the Northern folk are friendlier than the South?


This photo of Splash Landings Hotel is courtesy of TripAdvisor
We recently went on a Merlin Tour!  Starting at Thorpe Park and ending up at Warwick Castle, my 7yr had an amazing time, especially as he'd reached the magic 1.4m in height, meaning he could go on all the big rollercoasters!

One of the things that really stood out for me was the difference in reception greetings from Thorpe Park's Shark Hotel to Alton Towers Splash Landings!

Thorpe Park's Shark Hotel

This was a small hotel based in the park and is designed as a base camp.  Somewhere to rest your head and recharge your batteries before another day of screaming for Jesus!

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Cheeky stay over at the @thorpeparkofficial Shark Hotel. Colossus can do one! Never going on that again! #thorpepark #rollercoaster

A post shared by Rachael Jess (@rachaeljessblog) on Aug 17, 2019 at 8:50am PDT

We were greeted with a smile.  A very friendly receptionist who explained checking in, the extras we got for the 2nd day, booked us into breakfast and chatted with my son.

Really set our day and holiday off well.

Alton Towers Splash Landings Hotel

We arrived at the hotel at 9am so we could leave our bags, ask a few questions and book breakfast.

We were greeted with a very quiet unhappy girl who clearly was unwell and not wanting to be there.  I felt like we were putting her out!

When I asked to confirm that our bag would be in our room when we came back later (as this was a service they offered), she said no quite sternly and that I had to check in with reception first as my bags might not be in our room!

There was no mention of a 2nd day early entry, so I assumed we didn't get that.  (For information, you do at Chessington overnight stay and an hour fast track at Thorpe Park overnight stay).

Maybe due to the popularity of the park, Alton Towers don't feel they need to keep their customers happy and therefore, don't need to put in as much effort to make everyone's stay feel special!

Finally, when we asked about breakfast she very rudely said you can have 10am that's all that is left!

Well, that's no good to us!  The water park opened at 10am and we wanted to make maximum use of it, hence staying at Splash Landings! We also had a day of travelling ahead of us to visit Blackpool, so we couldn't stay in there all day.

To think that I wasn't expecting much from our Thorpe Park stay and it was great, to expecting excitement and a great place to crash at Splash Landings only to come away knowing I will not be staying at that hotel in a hurry again.