• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Drayton Manor Park

They already have a Thomas themed soft play area. A stones throw from the old PA entrance. Ontop of the old ghost train site

There were rumours of them possibly re theming the boat ride to Thomas about 10 to 12 years ago. But they were just that, rumours. But you never know what could happen with the new owners.
Aah that makes more sense.

I hope the 5 year plan Drayton and Looping have it place also considers the thrill market. As much as it isn't Draytons key focus I'd presume they'd want to reach a far and wide as possible. Also if you look at pleasurewood hills that has both thrill and family rides and so I see no reason for Drayton to be the same.
 
This is a new coaster the looping group added in 1 of there international parks.

maybe that sort of coaster but longer could fit into the pirate adventure building and theme it to a pirate town.

That's a second hand off the shelf Vekoma Roller Skater. Not to suggest that's a bad thing, sure it's a great fit ... I say that more to urge some caution as to the level of investment made by Looping at their other parks. Pleausurewood is not a bastion of investment.

They've brought one water ride back from the bulldozer, they could do another. Splash Canyon was more politically difficult, but I suspect Pirate Adventure would be more logistically so.
 
That's a second hand off the shelf Vekoma Roller Skater. Not to suggest that's a bad thing, sure it's a great fit ... I say that more to urge some caution as to the level of investment made by Looping at their other parks. Pleausurewood is not a bastion of investment.
In fairness, I’d say that ride looks like a very well themed coaster based on the video, so Looping may simply have chosen to spend more on the theming than the ride in that particular case.

Also, I’d say that ride shows real promise in terms of how future Drayton rides may be themed!
 
Its hard to base what might happen at Drayton investment wise from the looping group on what they have done at their existing parks. Drayton is a much larger park and on a different level than any of their existing ones. Attendance levels/revenue is much higher at Drayton than any of their others, its 3-4+ times the amount a park like Pleasurwood hills get.

Will be interesting to see what they add and develop over the coming years. I think we all likely to see arial park (buffalo area) get some attention and a theme first, if they give the whole area the same theme (inc haunting etc) then I can see this being done in stages of multi years (although the area could be split into two separat areas. We could then see the pirates adventure area and pirates building re used, I have a feeling it will end up being an indoor family coaster of some type. There have been rumours in recent years of the park looking at Thomasland dark ride (not necessarily a boat ride) as the next thomasland expansion. They could add a decent sized dark ride with parts of the pirates building and utilise the rest for a pirate themed attraction. or they could maybe construct another building on what remains of the car park behind thomasland for a Thomas dark ride. I do though think we will see some other areas like arial park addressed before the next thomasland expansion though.

Coaster wise though I think we will see a new family/thrill level coaster over in the existing arial park section in a a year or two and before we see one put into the pirates building.
 
I know I can’t base anything on there other parks so like you said it’s the looping group main park and where at the safari park they mainly focused on the animal side of the park adding new parts to the safari while adding the lodges and re-theming the rides they already got. With Pleasure Wood Hills I can’t comment on that as not been since 1998 but looking at there rides there also re-themed a lot of there rides or brought 2nd hand.
That’s why I think they really gonna look at the pirate adventure and hopefully reuse the building and ride system as it be cheaper than replacing it and they can offer something that no other park in the uk to offer currently.
Also they can’t remove the building that easily as it’s now linked to the Dodgems, Staff rooms, burger kitchen, toilets, Soft play, Thomas shop and Winston queue line.
 
I think it was the start of Drayton Manor going from a zoo with a Amusement park to a theme park when they opened the pirate adventure. It was the park logo to they opened Shockwave which to today shares its logo with Thomas land. Any way on social
Media and trip advisor lots of visitors moan they miss it the most and during the former owners days they gave the same reply:
Thank you for taking the time to review Drayton Manor Park. We have had lots of comments and feedback around the much-loved ride that is Pirate Adventure. Unfortunately, this ride closed a number of years ago and there are no plans as of yet to reopen it. Now as of yet no plans that was in 2018/19 reply’s.
On Twitter and Facebook they had all season asking to bring back the Pirate adventure.
 
There's a themeing company up in York if they're desperate to stick to UK based companies.

Otherwise just get Joravision in.

I know that going off topic is generally frowned upon, but I just wanted to add to the discussion on theming companies. Is the theming company in York Paragon Creative? Because if so, they went into administration and as far as I know they don’t exist anymore.

https://www.insidermedia.com/news/y...appointed-to-paragon-entertainment-subsidiary

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/17...rm-paragon-entertainment-goes-administration/

They announced big expansion plans, advertised a load of new job roles, and then a few months later they went into administration. It’s a shame, particularly given how little is created in the UK now.

Of course, Benzin might be referring to a different company, or it is possible that Paragon Creative came out of administration. Although I can’t see any sign of it?
 
I know that going off topic is generally frowned upon, but I just wanted to add to the discussion on theming companies. Is the theming company in York Paragon Creative? Because if so, they went into administration and as far as I know they don’t exist anymore.

https://www.insidermedia.com/news/y...appointed-to-paragon-entertainment-subsidiary

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/17...rm-paragon-entertainment-goes-administration/

They announced big expansion plans, advertised a load of new job roles, and then a few months later they went into administration. It’s a shame, particularly given how little is created in the UK now.

Of course, Benzin might be referring to a different company, or it is possible that Paragon Creative came out of administration. Although I can’t see any sign of it?

From looks of it they've sort of come back as Technically Creative. Doing essentially the same stuff as before.

Could've been one of those restructuring the business jobs internally with new name and ownership.

Funnily enough I had an interview for a role with Paragon a year before they went under. Fortunate in hindsight.
 
Thank you so much for sharing that Benzin. I hadn’t realised that Paragon Creative had come out of administration as a kind of phoenix company. I hope they do well, as there aren’t many companies like that left in the UK.

It does sound like it was probably a narrow escape. I’ve had similar experiences myself. In the theme park industry you often have to move for new jobs, but jobs can also be quite precarious. You don’t want to have all the effort of moving, sign contracts for somewhere to live, and then find that the job disappears.
 
Does anyone know who did the work for adventure Cove as I read a blog from William Bryanthat the park still use local contractors.
If you watch the construction videos that Theme Park Worldwide put out, they seem to suggest the concepts and theming was done in house. I assume the physical building work was local contractors.
 
Not much left...

3202
 
I always thought it closed because H&S found parts of the scenery in such a condition that it posed a risk of collapse, potentially onto guest. Timber in years of damp conditions does not bode well. I could be wrong and the reason you give might be correct. But there is a few reasons that make me question it.

You see the ride did have docking areas incase it broke down, as can be seen in the photo below. These were next to all the major fire exits in the ride. The platforms were submerged an inch or so under the waterline. But in an emergency, they would work non the less. The boats would need manually positioning there, but that is no different than ride such as Duel breaking down, with cars not being on the exit directly.

w275-20131111-124956-4.jpg


Interesting for sure. Maybe the fact they were submerged was a factor in their decision.
It's A Small World at Disneyland Paris has evacuation docks that the boats have to be manually pushed to, as seen in action in this video;

 
It means the equipment and crews who took it down are expensive to hire. Nothing more.
Not necessarily true though. The park might have wanted it down before the christmas event or perhaps so they could prepare the area for whatever they might put there, even if it is temporary, so it's not just an empty slab of land.
 
Top