Drayton Manor Park
Reviewed by Adam Legge
“I’m sitting at the top of a Big Wheel and it’s snowing on my head!” is a phrase that is still making my wife laugh three days later! She’d packed myself, my best mate and my two children, Sophie aged 10 and William aged 8 off for a day of fun without her and our baby. With hindsight… I think she’d simply seen the weather report!
Giving ourselves time to gear up for the big rides and get our bearings of the park, train mad William dragged us straight over to Thomas Land. Surprisingly, given the freezing temperatures, it was very busy, perhaps the busiest part of the park. We queued for ten minutes to get on to Troublesome Trucks, which given that it’s a kiddies rollercoaster, we were all very impressed at its speed and the enjoyment of the ride. After a quick go on Cranky’s drop tower, again a great kids ‘slightly scary’ ride. we chattered our teeth all the way over to The Pirate Adventure Indoor Experience, again the queue for this was about ten minutes. The ride is ghost train meets pirate boat, we travelled in boats around pirate land and I nervously glanced at the water canons that seemed to be aimed at us, thankfully they were not firing that day… I wonder if that’s because they were already feeling sorry for us as we all shivered our way around?! All in all, this was a great ride that fulfilled its aim at being a ‘scare ride’, Sophie was ashen faced as she climbed out of the boat!
We continued the pirate theme by venturing on to the Jolly Bucaneer, a kiddies round-about roller coaster and then onto The Bounty. Now considering both the children were pretty brave and adventurous with going on rollercoasters during our day out, you wouldn’t think one ‘little’ pirate ship would be their undoing would you?!! William hasn’t stopped talking about how he ‘nearly lost his tummy’ when the ship went vertical!
Our next ride was Shockwave, we barely had to queue for more than a few minutes but even if we’d had to queue in the ice cold for quite a while, that ride would have been worth it! It was exhilarating! William begged us to take him to the ‘Drunken Barrels’ Jon and I were quite keen for a rest by then so a drink stop sounded like a great plan… turns our we’d been tricked into a ride on a Bavarian themed waltzer that rises to about a 45 degree angle but as you can spin yourself around so fast, the angle you’re at is of no consequence! Thank goodness we HADN’T had that drink!
Our stomach’s had a chance to recover on the Wild West Shootout, with no queue at all, this was a journey around the Wild West shooting baddies, tin cans and assorted Western paraphernalia whilst building up points. This competitive ride definitely appealed to all of us… three rides later, Jon had won twice and William once! During this time Sophie had eyed the Apocalypse and had ummed and ahhed whether she could be brave enough! Uncle Jon convinced her that it was probably not as huge as it looked and got her on the ride… probably thanks to this being later in the day, freezing cold so no queues at all, which meant they walked straight on. Had she had time to watch it in the queue I doubt we’d have got her on! A very proud and slightly shaky legged Sophie emerged from the ride describing the death defying drop from thousands of feet at hundreds of miles an hour!
Next was William’s ride of choice and the one he’d been waiting for all day – Ben 10 Ultimate Mission! He was not disappointed at all, he loved the speed of the ride and said that the beginning part when you’re pulled up the slope backwards and then suddenly fired forward was the best bit of it all! Again, there was no queue at all so as soon as he’d got off the ride – he hopped straight back on!
The weather really had put a lot of people off and the park was noticeably quiet by 3pm which, we took full advantage of by another walk round Thomas land, a welcome reprieve after the exhilaration of the thrill rides! There were no queues and the children were able to hop on to any ride that took their fancy. A definite and welcome plus to this theme park over others is that it is not huge so none of us felt overly exhausted from walking round, frost bitten yes, but at least we weren’t shattered!
I would recommend this park to all, there’s something for everyone, while it has some spectacular thrill rides, it has some great rides for the smaller visitor too! Although it’s smaller than others, we went on a quiet day yet still didn’t manage to visit all the theme park or do anything more than brief walk round the zoo, in fact the kids wanted to go back the next day – the cold hadn’t put them off at all! I’ve promised to take them, my wife and the baby soon… on a day when the temperature makes it over zero degrees!
A definite 5 out of 5 from us all!
Rating: 5/5 
Save money by purchasing your tickets online at there is curently an Easter Special Offer on the website to save even more money. For more information or to book tickets visit www.draytonmanor.co.uk
