Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Ride

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Ride was a dark ride located in the Cloud Cuckoo Land area of Alton Towers theme park, Staffordshire, England. It was based upon the famous 1964 Roald Dahl book of the same name, and took its thematic inspiration from the illustrations of Quentin Blake. The ride closed at the end of the 2015 season and was replaced by the Alton Towers Dungeon in 2019.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Ride
The entrance to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Ride.
Alton Towers
AreaCloud Cuckoo Land
StatusClosed
Cost£8million
Opening date1 April 2006
Closing date8 November 2015
ReplacedToyland Tours
Replaced byThe Alton Towers Dungeon
General statistics
Attraction typeDark boat ride, Elevator
ManufacturersMack Rides
Rexroth Bosch Group
DesignerTussauds Studios
ThemeCharlie and the Chocolate Factory
Capacity1000 riders per hour
Vehicle typeBoat, Elevator
Vehicles10 boats, 2 elevators
Riders per vehicle9
Duration11 minutes
ConstructionJJ Cavanagh Construction (started mid-2005)
ProjectionElectrosonic
Bose
Elevator showFalcon's Treehouse
nWave Digital

History

The building originally housed Around the World in 80 Days and later Toyland Tours, though the original layout was shortened when redeveloped into Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Mack Rides, who had engineered the original ride hardware in 1981, returned to add a new offload point towards the end of the ride, allowing guests to move into the new simulator ending.

The attraction was closed at the end of 2015. The building and associated boat ride were re-themed into The Alton Towers Dungeon, which opened in 2019.

Various theming object from the ride were put on sale at auction on 13 February 2019 to raise money for Merlin's Magic Wand.

Ride experience

The ride was split into two segments, the first being a boat ride along the chocolate river inside Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Passengers encountered all the characters from the book (going from Augustus Gloop to Veruca Salt) as either simple animatronics or CGI projections. After disembarking the boats the second segment began with a short pre-show video (involving Mike Teavee). The video was presented in a way that made it look like as if the viewers were actually trapped within the TV set. The ride continued inside one of the two "Great Glass Elevators" which simulated passengers taking an airborne trip through the rest of the factory. Each elevator was a static room with semi-translucent walls and ceiling on which CGI animations were projected from the outside, and only the floor slightly trembled to give the impression of movement.

References
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