Drayton Manor’s Magical Christmas 2018 Review
Reviewed by Julie Powell
Since Christmas has been a regular conversation topic in our household for the last 6 weeks, we decided to treat the boys and take them to Drayton Manor’s Magical Christmas this weekend for a festive family day out. We had never been to Drayton Manor before but visiting Thomas Land has always been on out list of places to visit so Drayton Manor seemed to tick both boxes.
It was just under a 2-hour drive for us but was very easy to find with plenty of parking just a short walk from the main entrance. Once we were in the park, we headed straight to Thomas Land – only the Thomas Land rides and the Zoo are accessible during the Magical Christmas, but with a 3 and 5-year-old in tow was perfect for us.
Thomas Land itself is made up of 20 attractions, our first ride was Winston’s Whistle-Stop Tours which is an aerial sky ride with views over most of Thomas Land, it provided us with such a beautiful sight of snow on the roof’s. Christmas music was playing, we were lucky to be able to see Thomas at his turning point whilst we were on the ride and the boys faces lit up when they saw the antlers, red nose and fairy lights on him.
After this we made our way around Thomas Land going on most of the rides – I was very impressed at the waiting times, I think the most we had to wait was around 5 minutes which is ideal when you have little ones which have yet to learn the art of queuing.
At 12pm we headed below the balcony at Knapford Station to catch one of the live shows (they happen several times a day), this was a short musical performance featuring Sir Topham Hatt and at the end of the show in begin to snow – my 3 year olds face just lit up with pure delight as he found it so magical and got us in the festive spirit.
We then headed for lunch which I was pleasantly surprised for a theme park as it was very reasonably priced.
After lunch we headed to the zoo to see the reindeer and the other animals that they had on offer and then caught the Thomas train back into Thomas Land – the ride itself was magical passing a snow-covered station with passengers waiting at the platform.
It was then time for us to go and see Santa, we arrived slightly before our allocated time but they let us through no problem as there was no queue, when we arrived in the Castle of Dreams we were met by 2 elves who took us into see Santa, and I have to say he was by far the best Santa I have ever seen, he took time to talk to both boys, my 3 year old was a little wary but Santa was very patient with him and he was soon up there with his brother chatting away and telling him (much to Santa’s delight and my embarrassment that mummy wanted new pants for Christmas!!). After Santa we were led into the castle where there was free reindeer face painting, cards to write our Drayton wishes on and a post box to post them off.
It was then back for more rides before we headed to outside Thomas Land to watch the imagination parade, this featured Sir Topham Hatt and the star of imagination and was lovely to watch, the parade took us to the lake where a beautiful 30ft tree was stood shining in the moonlight, the show then finished with a short firework display over the lake with festive music playing softly in the background.
Thank you, Thomas Land, for the most magical day see you next year!!
Rating: 5/5
Tickets cost from £14 to £28.
Drayton Manor’s Magical Christmas is on until the 31st December 2018 and tickets are available to book at www.draytonmanor.co.uk.
Drayton Manor, Drayton Manor Drive, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B78 3TW
