Recently myself and my family took a trip to drayton manor. The park opens at 10.00am and we got there for 10.30am after a 3 hour drive from newcastle. On arrival the queues were outrageous, Thay had 10 paying boxes and only 2 of them were open! (for it being the school holidays i was quite shocked) , We waited one hour to get to the front of the queue which took us to 11.30am.
I paid for a family ticket of 5 people which cost me £120 which i thought was a bit pricey.
First of all my friend who had come with us needs a wheelchair, instead of taking his we decided to book and hire one for £15. It took the lady 15 minutes to bring the chair so our friend was made to stand whilst clung onto us!
It was 12 oclock before we even made it to the first ride, The first ride was a childrens ride called the wild west shoot out,After waiting 45 minutes My son whos 5 years old and my younger brother who is 8 years old (whom we took with us) enjoyed it very much, The idea was to
sit in a cart and whilst the cart moved you shot the targets with the provied gun.
By the time this was finished it was after 1pm so we went for lunch which was way over priced coming in at just over £40! After that it was coming onto 2pm and with the park closing at 6pm we wanted to squeeze in as many rides as possible, Next we took the kids to the new 4D cinema which was new for 2009, The queue wasnt too bad and we only waited around 20 minutes to get in. After being led into a room that wasnt the cinema we were then made to stand and watch a totally waste of time movie with fake celebritys in???? After the 15 minute movie we were eventually took into the cinema. To my amazment the 4D film was actually pretty good! It was a pirate film about a crew looking for a lost skull from an old pirate ship. The 4D effects were brilliant and my kids were amazed by it all, water shot out at us when the ship made splashes, wires touched out legs, and the chairs moved in simulation modes to the movie.
After the 4D show it was about 3pm and we were losing out on time!! We rushed the kids to the drunken barrels (which they didnt even have to wait for) which was basically a waltza but bear barrels instead, Whilst the kids were on the barrels myself my partner and his friend all took it in turns to get on the best ride there....The apocalypse, The queues went down pretty quick for this ride to my suprize and me got on no problem. It took you 54 meters and droped you whilst standing or sitting at a downward tilt, It was breathtaking and i really enjoyed it!
By this time it was actually getting on to 4pm and between us we'd only been on 4 rides!!! We relised that it was priority we got the kids onto more rides and forgot abot us going onto the thrill rides which we had hoped we'd get onto. The kids made it onto another 3 rides which included a boat swing ride, the dodgems, and an octopus ride that spun round.
On top of this the park was filled with wasps, they were everywhere!!! It was also full of those flying ants they were down your top, in your hair it got very annoying! And i dont mean just a few flys...i mean there were millions of them and you wernt even able to sit down for less than 5 minutes! Time to leave!!!
7 RIDES???!!! ....7 rides is what we got for £120 plus the £40 for dinner and the £40 petrol, altogther it cost us £200 to go on 7 rides!! After our long 3 hour journey home i vowed never to go back to drayton manor, even though it was very fun and a good day out for the kids, The prices were bad!, the waiting times were bad!, and the attitude of some staff was bad! All and all i would not really recommend this theme park i have been to better and cheaper theme parks than this and had a great time with no complaints.
The fact that we only got on 7 rides was ridiculous we also didnt have time to go to the zoo or thomas land. If you are a group of older people then i think it would be ok...But it is not appropriate for a family with small children who get impatient quickly.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
More is 25% off online and £75,000 contents cover as standard. Get 1/3 off our Buildings Cover, when you take Combined Cover and up to £2,000 Garden cover should you suffer theft or vandalism of your plants and up to £2,000 Garden Equipment cover.
Ecalor stands for the best quality at the lowest prices possible for direct electric heaters, heat pumps, solar covers, sand filters & our constantly growing product line up including a wide range of spas and Above ground Pools.
NH Hotels, the hotel chain leader in Europe, with more than 300 hotels in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Enter into our web site and find the best available tariff at all times
Advantages: variety of rides, not over priced, queues arent long at times Disadvantages: summer queues, food prices, staff can be unaware of things at times
freebieking 01.05.2007 (01.05.2007)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Drayton Manor Park
Oct 20th, 2009
very helpful by (33%):
helpful by (50%):
somewhat helpful by (17%):
