Drayton Manor - Dont bother, stay home and save your money !!!

paulfoel

Went to Drayton Manor with wife and 4 yr okld son yesterday. Worse theme park I've ever been to unfortunately.

- Queues were massive. Only managed to go about 5 rides all day.
- Queuing system is rubbish. They seem to spill over everywhere and theres no signs anywhere telling you how long queues for each ride are.
- Hardly any staff working on the rides, so load times are very slow.
- Place was filthy dirty. Rubbish everywhere, toilets disgusting.
- Huge queues for food too.
- Some of the rides seem a bit rundown. Could do with a lick of paint.

Bunnie1982

Ok, so without pointing out the obvious, we are still in the summer holidays therefore it would be busy in any park that you would go to e.g. Alton Towers, Chessington. I don't see how having the queues massive and the park being busy is actually Drayton Manors fault.

I'm quite suprised you found no signs telling you how long the queues were, because whenever I have been (and I have been a lot of times) there are signs which state "45 minutes from this point" and so on, this is on all the major rides.

As for queues spilling over everywhere again this again may not be Drayton Manors fault, some visitors in the park have no concept of queuing and I have found this at most parks.

I never rate any theme park toilets they are always well below standard, however at Drayton Manor I have always found the toilets up by Apocalypse to be extremely clean as they are constantly monitored.

I'm sure if you visit other parks there are the same problems with some rides being run down and in need of a lick of paint.

Drayton Manor park have invested in their childrens rides this year and have put Thomas Land in place which has a lovely, colourful selection of rides for children. In upcoming years there is a lot of regeneration happening in the park with rumours of Excalibur being removed and a new ride put in place.

Please don't write this park off just yet because of one bad experience, because it is a lovely little park with plenty of potential for the future. Drayton Manor Park is family run and there is a good reason why it has won the best family attraction over the past few years.

Bev_White_2

Was at Drayton Manor myself on Wednesday and it was undoubtedly busy.

Thomas Land was packed and you were queuing for at least an hour at Peak Times for the rides on Thomas and the Troublesome Trucks and were probably queuing for two or three turns on every other ride.

The queues elsewhere (though we didn't go anywhere near Shockwave or the other major rides) were as to be expected for a theme park in August.

I think the biggest problem in Thomas Land is that they haven't taken the pram factor into account. You can't move for them and this is what contributes to the queues being disorganised.

Saying that I think the kids still managed around twenty rides each which isn't too bad.

It's been three years since we were last there and I did think parts of the park were looking in need of a bit of TLC and a coat of paint but perhaps given the investment in Thomas Land, that is to be expected.

Would we go back? Probably but it's a long way for a day trip for us and to be honest we all prefer Flamingo Land anyway.

However, if you've got kids that are Thomas mad, and they don't mind a bit of a wait, it's worth the trip.

paulfoel

Bunnie1982 wrote: »

Ok, so without pointing out the obvious, we are still in the summer holidays therefore it would be busy in any park that you would go to e.g. Alton Towers, Chessington. I don't see how having the queues massive and the park being busy is actually Drayton Manors fault.

I'm quite suprised you found no signs telling you how long the queues were, because whenever I have been (and I have been a lot of times) there are signs which state "45 minutes from this point" and so on, this is on all the major rides.

As for queues spilling over everywhere again this again may not be Drayton Manors fault, some visitors in the park have no concept of queuing and I have found this at most parks.

I never rate any theme park toilets they are always well below standard, however at Drayton Manor I have always found the toilets up by Apocalypse to be extremely clean as they are constantly monitored.

I'm sure if you visit other parks there are the same problems with some rides being run down and in need of a lick of paint.

Drayton Manor park have invested in their childrens rides this year and have put Thomas Land in place which has a lovely, colourful selection of rides for children. In upcoming years there is a lot of regeneration happening in the park with rumours of Excalibur being removed and a new ride put in place.

Please don't write this park off just yet because of one bad experience, because it is a lovely little park with plenty of potential for the future. Drayton Manor Park is family run and there is a good reason why it has won the best family attraction over the past few years.

Nope. No signs at all with wait times...

My issue was the queing was that, for some rides, there was no attempt by staff to manage the queues. ie. put up barriers etc. Also, there seemed to be the minimum staff on each ride so things took ages.

In terms of needing painting, I can only judge on other places I've been recently like Oakwood Park, Legoland, Alton Towers and Drayton Manor is by far the most run down IMHO.

Bunnie1982

I am genuinely quite suprised as I always remember they used to have the signs, particularly on the bigger rides.

I'm holding my breath in terms of what will happen with Oakwood as it has been bought out by Aspro group. Now those are some toilets that I always find a disgrace, especially the ones by Hydro.

When I went to Drayton at the start of the season it was all done up and looked lovely, must have gone downhill during the season. Will be able to comment further in a months time.

Carmina_Piranha_3

Bunnie that's a cute avatar :T

I agree about the queues spilling over - thomas land is jam packed and it's difficult to move around, especially with a pram. Some of the thomas rides only have a tiny area for queueing, so queues would spill out everywhere on a busy day. I love drayton manor though, and keep going back.

I've been to alton towers today though, and had a lovely day - yes it was busy but there's just so much space! lots of large grassy areas to sit and relax for for kids to play games.

But then part of the charm of drayton manor is that a family can go, and separate to go on rides for different sized children, and then find each other again straight away, whereas at alton towers today i was at one end of the park with my toddler and it took us half an hour to meet his dad off a ride at the other end of the park :rotfl:

I was at drayton manor 4 weeks ago, it was summer holidays and a weekend but we had a good time. I take a picnic, and feed the toddlers while we are in the queue for the troublesome trucks because that queue is always full of whiny hungry children because it's so long. a couple of crackers or strawberries helps keep people happier.

And sorry i have to say this - rubbish everywhere and filthy toilets says more about the customers than it does about the staff!

yummymummy888888

I agree with the OP

These places charge a lot of money and maintanence seems to be very low priority. (Pleasurewood Hills is the same) I would rather they maintained the whole park rather than investing in new stuff to get more people in. (May get more return customers that way.)

Also the ZOO is disgraceful. That poor tiger in a big plastic/glass box. Nearly cried

Carmina_Piranha_3

I was at wicksteed park yesterday and the toilets were filthy and they smelled really awful. It rained all day and wasn't warm, I dread to imagine the smell on a hot day :eek:

But £50 got a family of 4 in, whereas at drayton it would have paid for just the 2 adults, and at alton towers it wouldn't even pay for 2 children.

If raising the prices to pay for extra cleaners meant charging alton towers prices (blackpool pleasure beach do and I think they have a cheek) would people still go to the parks?

I would pay the extra to have toilets with dry floors (okay, it was raining but i don't think they'd seen a mop all day) that don't stink. I ended up changing my toddler on a bench (his wet clothes I mean, not nappies) because the toilets were just too awful.

paulfoel

Carmina_Piranha wrote: »

Bunnie that's a cute avatar :T

I agree about the queues spilling over - thomas land is jam packed and it's difficult to move around, especially with a pram. Some of the thomas rides only have a tiny area for queueing, so queues would spill out everywhere on a busy day. I love drayton manor though, and keep going back.

I've been to alton towers today though, and had a lovely day - yes it was busy but there's just so much space! lots of large grassy areas to sit and relax for for kids to play games.

But then part of the charm of drayton manor is that a family can go, and separate to go on rides for different sized children, and then find each other again straight away, whereas at alton towers today i was at one end of the park with my toddler and it took us half an hour to meet his dad off a ride at the other end of the park :rotfl:

I was at drayton manor 4 weeks ago, it was summer holidays and a weekend but we had a good time. I take a picnic, and feed the toddlers while we are in the queue for the troublesome trucks because that queue is always full of whiny hungry children because it's so long. a couple of crackers or strawberries helps keep people happier.

And sorry i have to say this - rubbish everywhere and filthy toilets says more about the customers than it does about the staff!

Whereever you go, the place is going to get dirty if there are people there. Its just that you need to employ staff to empty bins, sweep up, check toilets etc.

Its blatantly obvious that Drayton Manor do not employ enough staff to keep the place tidy enough, or allow the rides to be well organised.

Compare with DisneyWorld in Florida which is a MUCH bigger scale. Always clean and always well organised...

Carmina_Piranha_3

Maybe they couldn't get any extra seasonal staff? my husband's firm can't find a cleaner, even when they are offering school-friendly part time hours. nobody wants the job

I know that there are people on MSE who would take it if it was in their town, but here there are just hundreds of cleaning jobs unfilled and nobody wants them.

vikingaero

Have you guys that visited these places complained to the Customer Services desks in the parks? I get the impression that there's a cleaner sitting drinking tea all day because no-one has told them that the loos are stinky! Theme parks will always employ the bare minimum in the UK and we need to kick them up the butt and make them work harder.