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Drayton Manor Park

Yes, Dextors Laboratory. And we need to take into consideration aswell that Cartoon Network is also part of Boomerang, which is where Scooby Doo is coming from I believe.
 
Retheming Apocalypse to Dexter's Lab would be cool. It'd still be exactly the same nerve-shredding machine, but just brightened up a bit. The current 'theme' with the crappy radio station playing is depressing, and doesn't do the ride justice.
 
The whole of the top area of the park I can see eventually all being re-themed to fit into Cartoon Network Street. Like I said before If the 2014/15 coaster for the park is a thrill one maby they can create a ''new'' area and re-route the entrance of Poccy round the other side to where the buffalo now stands.
 
The problem is the park have now got so many rides/areas to sort out and other new things planned its going to take 5 years or so for us to see all of it completed and thats if we dont see any more years where they just add a 4D Cinema. The park certainly have improved alot of the past few years but still lots to get sorted out and Sam's post clearly highlights many of these issues. The park seem to be aware of what needs sorting though. All the rumoured plans are-

New Thrill Coaster: Rumoured to be a world's first design from Vekoma (expected 2014)-Only concern with this is that its been pushed back before and if Pirates closes this off season surly the thomas area replacement would be for 2014.

The Haunting Retheme-Re themed into scooby Doo (possible 2013 addition)

Apocalypse Retheme-Rethemed to Dexta Lab (wouldnt take too much work or cost though)

Golden Nuggets Retheme-was rumoured to get a Cartoon Network retheme at some point in the future when Ben 10 was first anounced (the park had plans drawn up for extensive rethemes for most arial park attractions, its just now when we will see each one executed)

Thrill Ride on Black Revolver Site-Rumoured to be a Zamperla AirRace and could open 2013

Pirates Adventure Replacment: Expected to see thomas land expansion, i have fealing the whole ride will be removed and a smaller thomas themed dark ride added on part of the site along with some other thomas land attractions (there is thomas themed dark ride at Fuji Q in Japan).

Excalibur Replacement- There are plans for a replacement attraction apparantly, have a feeling this one might have to wait a while though and will likly be used as part of their xmas event for next few years.

Water Park: I wouldnt expect to see this for a long while, if its anything like the hotel which was delayed over a 10 year period i wouldnt expect to see this much before 2020

Wooden Coaster- If this even happens i would have thought atleast 5 years away.
 
If Apocalyse was themed to Dexter, then I'd be happy.

There are parts of Dexter's Lab which would fit the ride perfectly, such as the laboratory itself, or something evil!

Just as long as it's a slightly sinister theme, and not Dee-Deefied!

Apocalypse doesn't look good in it's current state though.
There are puddles all around the queue!
 
I'm assuming the theme/story will be along the lines of you go into his laboratory to see his inventions and dee-dee presses the button (which she shouldn't) and a siren/alarm/flashing lights go off or something causing you to rise. Something along those lines anyway!
 
Am I the only person that doesn't want to see The Haunting ruined by Scooby Doo? I realise that most guests probably don't appreciate all the cheesiness and evil laughter, and in fact I freely admit that the ride is a bit rubbish, but those are the exact reasons why I enjoy it! Worse still is the fact that Scooby Doo is a truly appalling series that should have been killed off decades ago. I've never seen the appeal of a programme that seems to have incredibly annoying characters and the same daft storyline in pretty much every episode. If the rumour turns out to be true and the park go ahead with it I'll be massively disappointed.

As for Apocalypse potentially getting a Dexter's Laboratory theme, the park would need to be mad to taint one of the country's most hardcore thrill rides like that. In my opinion it's not a ride that should make any attempt to appear cheery or family-friendly at all, and I'd like to see the tatty theming renewed and the radio station they play in there replaced by some tense music to make the atmosphere even more ominous. As an enthusiast I think it's important for me to feel the sort of nerves the average guest experiences at theme parks from time to time. It'd be nice to get that from 'Poccy' again, and if even then I found I couldn't replicate the terror of my first couple of goes any more* then at least I'd have more worried facial expressions to chuckle at. :p

The park is on the whole looking good, and coped with the crowds on Sunday better than I expected it to with the most obvious exceptions being Pirate Adventure (which I'd rather see gone than operating like that; such a pity) and G-Force, which was a miserable 70 or so minute wait despite some pleasingly efficient work from the ride op and hosts. Drayton, if you're going to insist on keeping a short, themeless coaster that offers a ride experience somewhere between average and rubbish, you should at least buy a second train to save the poor sods in the queue some misery. An excellent thrill coaster that can obliterate long queues is to me the thing the park most obviously lacks, so here's hoping they'll fill this hole in 2014 when they won't have to go up against SW7.

*For some reason I wasn't really fazed while I waited for my standup floorless ride at Sandwich meet. Clearly I'm a complete lunatic, else I'd have been as worked up as Sam (quite rightly) was.
 
^ Nope, I too will miss The Haunting! what I will miss more is the exterior Que music which seems to have literally vanished! Having spoke to my friend who works there he said it hasnt been working for a few seasons now. I have tried contacting the people who themed the ride as they composed to music too but I have had no luck in getting the music. I would love a copy of it though! It was so atmospheric!

Along with Farm Studios who did Excalibur the over loop music I really enjoyed! but again no luck.. it seems really hard to get hold of Draytons audio!
 
Ugh! Went to Drayton Manor yesterday as it was my wife's birthday, it's only 40 minutes up the road, and my 2 year old loves Thomas Land.

Queues getting into the park meant that the journey took two hours, with daughter shouting "I need a wee wee" for all of the last hour.

Then a 35 minute walking queue just to get tickets.

And then a 1 hour 15 minute queue for (not Shockwave or G force but...) Harold's Helitours!

Of course there's no guide within Thomasland about how long queues are, it looked about 20 minutes long, but we didn't take into account the 5 minutes it took to load/unload the ride each time, this seems to have been due to just having one staff member, who had to singlehandedly manually unlock each of the helicopters, let everyone out, then count in the new batch, then wait to see what was left before counting in a few more, then manually lock them into each of the helicopters, then check seatbelts, then push the button to start the ride.

Plus the penguins were asleep :p
 
Appalling, yes, but if we'd known we'd have just gone on another ride or gone for a wander round the zoo. Thankfully the queue is in a spiral shape so we were able to warn the people joining the queue later on.
 
I was at Drayton Manor on Wednesday, queues for the bigger rides were a lot smaller ranging from 5 mins to 30 mins. Thomas Land which was extremely busy and Ben 10 Ultimate mission had a queue longer than an hour!!

Also noticed people smoking Cannabis in queue lines, lots of queue jumping as well. But I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the day despite the awful weather and the park is looking great. It was just a shame that the park closed at 5:00pm, it is way to early for this time of year.
 
Drayton closed at 7.30pm on Sunday last week!

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AstroDan said:
Drayton closed at 7.30pm on Sunday last week!

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yeh i can confirm that as i was there. It was soooooooooo busy though
 
That's why it closed so late. Closing time was meant to be 6pm, but the park hit capacity and extended their ride opening hours until 7:30pm (Though some queues were open until gone 8!)

It is the time of year though for parks to get busy, and no doubt the nice weather we've had these past few days has added to that. Good on Drayton for extending hours though. It's a shame certain other parks are as keen to do so when things go wrong or the parks get too busy :p
 
Ian said:
That's why it closed so late. Closing time was meant to be 6pm, but the park hit capacity and extended their ride opening hours until 7:30pm (Though some queues were open until gone 8!)

It is the time of year though for parks to get busy, and no doubt the nice weather we've had these past few days has added to that. Good on Drayton for extending hours though. It's a shame certain other parks are as keen to do so when things go wrong or the parks get too busy :p

To be fair even though it was busy we had a great day, my only gripe was the complete mis-management of getting people into the park. They have two lanes for cars entering yet it was left as a free for all to get in, this result in a queue of over an hour from the motorway. All it needed was a couple of staff members to guide the traffic in properly and the queue would have flowed so much better
 
One of the main issues is the junction in. Most people approach the park from Tamworth direction. This means they end up on the opposite side of the road to Drayton Manor Drive. They then need to get across the road to turn in. Problem is the opening is only one lane wide. This means cars have to take turns. But no one ever wants to give way. It's very much a case of forcing yourself in, and cutting people up, else you'll be there all day.

In an idea world the road ould have traffic lights on the junction, so only traffic from one direction are getting in. It'd really help with flow into Drayton Manor Drive, and also stagger traffic a bit making it easier to navigate once in the park. However, as the road is the main road for the surrounding areas, and is one of the only routes anything they do will cause queues at some point. The council would be best reworking that road, and creating a loop around diversion for through traffic, with traffic light control for those turning into DM Drive.
 
Images copyright of Shawn Sanbrooke.

Some interesting pictures of Excalibur here! I actually think its looks rather cool purple! also note the snow effects being added to. Only bug bearer is whats going to happen AFTER Christmas? It really does seem alot of money just to keep it open for the Christmas period.

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To me it seems they have filled the old tunnel bit up, and this new Christmas ride will be some kind of walk through, just using the queue line, turntable and tunnel. So I guess it could be rethemed next year to some kind of none Christmas walk through.

It certainly looks more work than I first thought.
 
I would imagine that this will remain an Xmas attraction for the next few years as the park have loads of other projects in the works which will prob happen before anything is done with this site, Its great that they are making use of it rather than just leaving it standing there.

Christmas is now really big for Drayton and one of the most profitable times of the year (from reports i have read) and they receive some great guest numbers so its great they are continuing to expand it and spend money on christmas specific attractions.
 
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