I can hear the shouts:

“Alton Towers ain't educational!”

“You're having a tin bath!!?”

But yesterday saw around ninety Rutland County College staff and students travel to Alton Towers in Staffordshire for the annual trip. In the past this trip was for Psychology students only, but this year it had been opened up to all college students.

In the preparation for this trip AS Level Psychology students had designed an experiment to test the effects of stress on memory. The idea being that different intensity of rides will have a different effect on participants being able to remember things. We await the results with baited breath.

As for the day as a whole, it went fantastically well with no issues or dramas. Even the responsible adults managed to enjoy themselves…

The park wasn't very busy and queue time was pretty good, the longest wait was about 15min. We managed to get on virtually all the rides we wanted to, even some we didn't.

As is normal for a trip to Alton Towers, there is usually a 'new' ride to go on, and today was no different: Nemesis Sub Terra. After various reviews from students that included 'rubbish', 'really scary' and 'you get squirted with egg', it was decided that four brave souls would risk it. Nemesis Sub Terra is loosely themed on the park's famous Nemesis ride and revolves around the discovery of eggs from this original monster. Anyway, to cut a long story short it means you enter a mock lift to see said egg only for an alarm to sound, people to poke you, shout at you, move you around into mock lift again, chase you down a very dark alley with various scary people/objects inside before exiting into daylight. Dave managed to sum it up in three words: “very unpleasant experience”.

Towards the end of the day we were left with probably the biggest dilemma of the day and one we took an age to decide, do we risk getting wet on the Congo River Rapids….?

After much deliberation it was decided that we would risk it, and despite a surprise squirt attack from the bank by some local yobs, all was well.

Overall, a really good day out, really well organised and impeccable behaviour by all except maybe some inappropriate language on the occasion roller-coaster.