Drayton Manor
United Kingdom

1949, and 86 acres of land were bought and developed into a family park with a modest selection of restaurants, small hand-operated rides and rowing boats on the park lake.

Like Six Flags Belgium and to a lesser extent, Oakwood, this middling medley of rides soon snowballed. The next few years saw the Tower Ballroom open, a zoo to be installed (and extended) and the number of rides to balloon dramatically.

With such additions, the parks’ future was secured, but for enthusiasts, the park went pretty much un-noticed until Shockwave, the Intamin stand-up roller coaster opened as part of a British hat trick of coasters in 1994.

Since this pioneering attraction, Drayton Manor have ensured that they don’t drop the baton in the race for best value park and have hardly wavered in their investment of rides and attractions since.

Storm Force 10 and Apocalypse have perhaps been the most successful of these subsequent investitures, Apocalypse being the first (and not last) tower ride to have riders standing up, something which is achieved to far better extremes than Shockwave.

It is fair to say, Drayton Manor has a unique charisma like no other park in the UK. You pay for parking here, something which is reflected in the good value wristbands that you buy as you enter.

The park is quite bland in places, but it is the lack of rich and masterful theming that gives the park its charisma.

Rides like Storm Force 10 use quality theming that doesn’t rely on being in a well themed area alone, and don’t require you having to know the intricacies of the theme before riding as it is blatantly obvious via subtle touches in the queue line.

Moving on, the Shockwave doesn’t impress quite as much as the newer attractions. The theme is a flippant attempt at the Wild West I think, but the wooden clad station is a mess and houses perhaps the worst queue line I have experienced.

Fortunately, such queues are rare – the likelihood of queuing at Drayton Manor is rare unless your visit it particularly poorly timed, although busy days can be made a living hell by the thuggish natured visitors that the park strangely attracts.

Queue jumpers can be a problem at Drayton Manor so if you have the misfortune of being in a queue stay alert. Queue jumpers normally skulk off if you draw peoples attention to them, and staff are normally quick to stop them if they’re spotted, which due to the design of the parks’ queue lines, they rarely are.

Graffiti is something that Drayton Manor are clamping down on to varying levels of success. Whilst such things are now no more noticeable than in any other park nowadays, maintenance is what the park lets itself down on.

When things become broken through wear and tear, what is probably only intended as a quick fix (industrial masking tape) seems inevitably to become a feature of the ride.

I am not surprised to see this on rides like Klondike, a ride that is fundamentally a mess courtesy of Pinfari or the Ghost Train, something of an antique as far as theme park rides are concerned, but to see this on rides such as Apocalypse and Storm Force 10 is, I think, a bit of a disappointment.

Thorough years of investment, it seems that Drayton Manor now have a perfect variety of rides. Major thrills are offered by Apocalypse and to a lesser extent, Shockwave, and water rides come in the form of Splash Canyon and Storm Force 10.

Children are hardly going to be begging to go home either with a selection of kids rides big enough to compete even with the most major of theme parks.

Dark rides at Drayton Manor are adequate for a park of its size. Pirate Adventure is severely underrated and was well ahead of its time, although is not anywhere near perfect, just the best we can expect for a non-Disney rip-off (which essentially it is). The Haunting could be a great ride if it wasn’t for the gross understaffing on it meaning that 10 people can easily queue for an unacceptable 20 minutes for a somewhat pantomime performance inside.

Staff come in all shapes and forms. They range from welcoming to arrogant. There seems to be no consistency, and whilst staff on one ride make conversation whilst you wait to board, on another they will be too busy playing about to even acknowledge that you are there.

Drayton Manor seem to design each ride with care and attention and in that respect, each ride seems to offer a new and unique experience to that of neighbouring parks.

This becomes somewhat faded through history, mind you, with rides like the Ghost Train being naff in the truest sense. Rides like this go further to add to Drayton Manor’s diversity, and rides that were unoriginal to the point of being a bore (the Log Flume, for example) are being replaced.

Jungle Cruise celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2000, but has since become the latest construction site for so-called Project Neptune. The ride fell into the latter category of being a weary boat ride through a smelly pond of non-working animatronic figures.

The new version is likely to be an updated version of this, hopefully with something to separate it from the norm, much like many other rides at the attraction.

The zoo is, unfortunately, not as impressive as the rest of the park. Whilst it has many unique breeds of animal, living conditions equal, and often don’t even come close to that of Chessington.

The zoo doesn’t offer much of a diversion from the rest of the park and is quite poorly presented. The whole zoo is, in fact, easy to miss.

The park is very well laid out and free of bottlenecks. Essentially, the park is an L-shape skirting the lake around which the entire park is pretty much based. Although many queues are overly long for what seems to be the sake of it, you never should go off the beaten track, for rides or for restaurants.

Merchandise is something you find to buy as opposed to more commercial parks which use every available square foot to gleam money from your unsuspecting wallet. All merchandise seems to be standard to sub-standard and quite unmemorable consisting of the usual branded clothing.

Shows are something the park most certainly does not excel in. Seafaring spinach eater Popeye comes to Drayton Manor in a drab and dreary show that leaves most people fidgeting and eager to leave which is all that the park offer. No characters seem to wander around the park, either, which may leave kids wanting more than a good selection of rides, as it is quaint charisma that they’re not interested in.

Drayton Manor has endured a vigorous investment recently, and although it shows, the park keeps a rather low-key ambience and a good sense of value from the moment you enter.

Whilst you shouldn’t go expecting it to be a sleek, Disney experience, you should expect a respectable family park with a great selection of rides, more than enough to keep you entertained.

Marcus Sheen

	Add Your Thoughts		Your Thoughts