The welcome was great, the hotel was well geared towards children as one would hope, we weren't disappointed, the hotel reception well thought out to keep little ones entertained while the adults do the boring bits while checking in, loved the stairs to the reception desk for little ones to talk to reception.

The disco was terrrrrible!!!!! Haha!!! Our little one was excited at the disco prospect and enthusiastically ran towards it, got half way then turned round and ran back out saying 'I don't want to'.....can't blame him, the music was dire!!! But then our little one loves drum and bass and dance music not the usual kids garbage, he has dj parents so we congratulated him on his choice as we would run a mile too!! and when he was presented with the choice of disco or walk he chose to go for a walk in the valley instead, which was really lovely, a stunning old forest.

The restaurant food was bad, I opted for fish and chips, at £17.00 I expected something at least half decent, the batter wasn't cooked properly, the mushy peas tasted sweet and weird. The waitress did ask how our meals were and I told her but got no response, we guessed it was a rhetorical question. The knives and forks at the table were dirty after they had been washed so the washing facilities in the kitchen aren't up to scratch, even the replacement wasn't clean.

Breakfast had a really good choice, the sausages and bacon could have been cooked longer, very pale and unappetising, the 'heat' lamps to keep the food hot failed miserably, everything varied between luke warm and vaguely hot, I'd be surprised if there weren't food poisoning cases. I had vaguely warm fried eggs, beans, mushrooms, the best well cooked sausage I could find which happened to be mangled, toast, hash browns, all of my breakfast was luke warm or cold. The fruit was a great option, loved the pancakes option and pain au chocolat, I went to put raspberries on my little one's plate but they were mouldy so put them to one side in the hopes no one else would go for them. Loved the idea of a cappuccino option but it wasn't a very good one, so improvements could be made there too.

The beds were the most shocking, like a slab of concrete, the pillows were terrible, I brought my own pillow as I find pillows at places I stay very questionable, I'm so glad I did! Despite this I still only managed about an hour's sleep on that rock hard bed, tossing and turning knowing I'd got a full day at the theme park in the morning, then the rubbish breakfast and it was tipping it down outside which lasted until gone 1pm. I spoke with other guests in the lift on the way down to breakfast, we all agreed we'd had a rubbish night due to the uncomfortable beds and horrible pillows. One said he'd woken up with a cricked neck and a woman from a different family said the same about the beds and that after reading the reviews she brought their own pillows for her family......it's pretty dire when your guests bring their own pillows for goodness sake!!!! especially when it costs an arm and a leg to stay here......my son's teacher asked how our break was, she's wanted to take her little girl for a long time but can't afford the extortionate prices out of term time, I told her if you value your sleep don't go and it's definitely not worth the extortionate prices when she would be able to go.

All in all it was really not worth the money we paid for one night or the terrible meals at extortionate prices, we feel really ripped off, not great to entice return custom!

It pittled it down for three hours the following morning and no mention of the rainy day guarantee, I had to ask if it was going down as a rainy day and was told different things like, it will be decided this afternoon, to download the app, it'll come up on there, we await the news if Alton towers are loyal to their own policy.