Credit: Clara Lou Photography/PA Real LifeHow much do you love your favorite theme park ride? Would you ride it hundreds of times? How about thousands? How about moving just to be closer to the Park?
Well, that’s what one man in Staffordshire, England did.
Michael Eley, 51, is a primary school teacher who lives next door to Alton Towers, one of the most popular theme parks in the United Kingdom. He’s an enthusiast who visits the Park every single weekend to ride their haunted house attraction, The Curse at Alton Manner, which he estimates he’s been on over 15,000 times. Back in 2013, he and his family moved to Alton village, Staffordshire in order to be closer to the Park.
For those of us on the other side of the Atlantic, Alton Towers Resort is a theme park and resort complex in Staffordshire, England, and is the largest theme park in the United Kingdom. It’s also one of the oldest, with the grounds originally opening in 1860 as a county estate – it opened as a theme park in 1980. Today, the Resort is home to a theme park, water park, spa, mini golf, and hotel complex. As of 2021, it was the most-attended theme park in the UK, having racked up 1.8 million visitors.
The Curse at Alton Manner originally opened in 1992 as The Haunted House and received a reworking in 2003 as Duel – The Haunted House Strikes Back! The attraction became an interactive laser shooting ride with a zombie theme and stayed that way until September 2022, when Alton Towers announced that it would close and return as The Curse of Alton Manner, reverting back to a traditional haunted house attraction.
It reopened on March 18 of this year, and Eley was there to celebrate – he racked up 35 rides on opening weekend and even brought his class of students along on a field trip. Since its reopening last month, he’s been on it a total of 86 times.
“It all started with my brother dragging me on ghost trains as a kid, I always wanted to go on the rides he liked with him, and that sparked a lifelong love of them,” Eley stated to the UK’s The Independent. “I’ve loved the Alton Towers Haunted House since it first opened in 1992 and the newest version is incredible, I love how they’ve used technology to update it.”
Eley’s brother passed away in 1987 at age 18, and he says that riding the attraction reminds him of their shared memories. As a token of appreciation for the enthusiast, Alton Towers reached out to Eley to invite his class to visit the new attraction, and he took his year six students (that’s 5th grade for us Yankees) to enjoy the Park with him.
Michael Eley acknowledges that some may find him a little bit odd for his passion, but he doesn’t care. As he put it, “It’s a childhood passion that I never grew out of and is very much my happy place.”