Secret Weapon
TS Member
I visited Drayton Manor on Friday 11th July 2025 (by myself) for the first time in 23 years, and my day was unfortunately very disappointing (even worse than the 2025 Alton Towers opening day).
Due to the volume of schoolchildren, the queues for the rides were so long that I only managed to get on two rides all day (The Haunting at 3:15 p.m., and Gold Rush just before 5 p.m.), and the situation was made worse because:-
(A) The Drayton Manor website stated that the park would be open until 6 p.m., but the rides actually closed at 5 p.m. (this is significant, as the schoolchildren did not leave until 3:30 p.m., which meant that the final few hours were crucial)
(B) The schoolchildren relentlessly jumped the queues throughout the day, which made it impossible for me to ever progress (unlike Drayton Manor, Alton Towers minimises this by using tall chain-link fences which are impossible to crawl through or under, whereas the unsecured and unattended gate in the Air Race queue practically invited abuse)
(C) There was no way for me to know ahead of time that Friday 11th July 2025 would be exceptionally busy (without past experience), as Drayton Manor does not publish live queue times on their websites or apps (unlike the Merlin theme parks), which makes it difficult to monitor or estimate the queue lengths on any given day (the only indication is a binary flag on the booking website which states whether a particular day has sold out or not)
(D) The staff were apparently aware of the issue, as they notified me that 9000 people had pre-booked tickets for Friday 11th July 2025, but only 2000 people had pre-booked tickets for the following day; unfortunately, Drayton Manor never communicated this to me (if I had known then I would have gone the following day instead)
(E) I visited the park during early July in 2002, and do not remember the school trips having such a profound effect at the time (it was more of a minor nuisance - especially as queue-jumping was an issue even back then, and has apparently still not been addressed some 23 years later, besides a handful of occasions that I witnessed)
(F) The ride operations were awful throughout the day, as - in spite of 3+ hour queues - there were countless empty seats on all of the rides (Drayton Manor unfortunately does not operate any single-rider queues - even on busy days), and the boarding process seemed to be very slow on most rides (The Haunting is possibly the only exception to this, although it is not a traditional ride, as such)
(G) Several of the rides suddenly closed shortly before I was about to board them, including Air Race (twice), The Haunting, and a 45-minute wait for Gold Rush after the park had closed, until the staff finally advised us at 5:45 p.m. that they would be unable to fix the issue
(H) I did not witness this myself, but I heard from another customer that some of the schoolchildren had allegedly fraudulently used the Easy Access queues, without valid tickets
(I) This did not affect me directly, but I noticed (and I heard others complain) that the Easy Access queue for some of the rides (such as The Wave and Maelstrom) are not clearly indicated outside the station
(J) The popular Bounty ride was closed all day
(K) I visited Alton Towers during the school trip season in June last year, and I don’t remember the issues being anywhere near as severe as Drayton Manor (partly due to a combination of superior operations, single-rider queues, a wider selection of attractions, minimal queue-jumping, and better overall behaviour from guests)
(L) Many of the rides did not open until after 11 a.m.
The blood pressure in my eyes and head began rising towards the end of the day, although it has fortunately since subsided (I think this was due to stress rather than heat, as I felt fine when I went I went to Thorpe Park in 31-degree weather last year).
On the positive side, all of the staff that I met were polite and friendly, and happy to provide free tap water upon request (which was important due to the heat and lack of water fountains, and something that is unfortunately not always forthcoming at other parks), although the water was unfortunately very warm and thus I ended up paying for fridge drinks anyway (the fridge in the Stormforce 10 souvenir shop was faulty, and so I purchased drinks from the shop by the zoo instead); I later realised that the cold water in the Thomas Land toilets were cold and so I could have just used that tap instead; I was disappointed that they were so slow to operate the rides (see point E above), but I believe that this is due to the park’s operating procedures and not the individual staff members themselves. I also witnessed some of the staff ejecting queue-jumping children from the rides, although this was unfortunately not much of a deterrent to the others (but at least the staff tried).
The zoo provided some peaceful respite (especially after the chaotic noise of schoolchildren in the Air Race shelter actually caused me to plug my ears), and it struck me that the wild animals were actually better behaved than the children, unfortunately.
It also occurred to me that the stickers around the park which celebrate "75 Years" of Drayton Manor probably could have been stuck directly to the queue board, as 75 years is probably how long it would have taken me to board most of the rides, sadly.
I almost visited Drayton Manor after Gold Rush first opened 2024, but I decided against it due to Apocalypse, Pandemonium, and G-Force no longer being present (the last two of which, I never got to ride); however, I now feel better about none of those rides being there anymore, as I realised today that I probably wouldn’t have gotten to ride any of them, anyway.
Also: I only visited Alton Towers once during the 1990s (when Nemesis first opened), whereas I visited Drayton Manor at least once per year, partly due to the huge queues at Alton Towers; ironically, however, it now seems that the situation has completely reversed (I remember telling people at the time that Drayton Manor was the better of the two parks, but I now accept that I was wrong).
I was e-mailed a free return ticket around 4 p.m., without me having requested it (perhaps in anticipation of my unhappiness); I am grateful for the gesture, although I am not sure how ‘free’ it really is, as I suspect that it does not include free car parking?
Due to the volume of schoolchildren, the queues for the rides were so long that I only managed to get on two rides all day (The Haunting at 3:15 p.m., and Gold Rush just before 5 p.m.), and the situation was made worse because:-
(A) The Drayton Manor website stated that the park would be open until 6 p.m., but the rides actually closed at 5 p.m. (this is significant, as the schoolchildren did not leave until 3:30 p.m., which meant that the final few hours were crucial)
(B) The schoolchildren relentlessly jumped the queues throughout the day, which made it impossible for me to ever progress (unlike Drayton Manor, Alton Towers minimises this by using tall chain-link fences which are impossible to crawl through or under, whereas the unsecured and unattended gate in the Air Race queue practically invited abuse)
(C) There was no way for me to know ahead of time that Friday 11th July 2025 would be exceptionally busy (without past experience), as Drayton Manor does not publish live queue times on their websites or apps (unlike the Merlin theme parks), which makes it difficult to monitor or estimate the queue lengths on any given day (the only indication is a binary flag on the booking website which states whether a particular day has sold out or not)
(D) The staff were apparently aware of the issue, as they notified me that 9000 people had pre-booked tickets for Friday 11th July 2025, but only 2000 people had pre-booked tickets for the following day; unfortunately, Drayton Manor never communicated this to me (if I had known then I would have gone the following day instead)
(E) I visited the park during early July in 2002, and do not remember the school trips having such a profound effect at the time (it was more of a minor nuisance - especially as queue-jumping was an issue even back then, and has apparently still not been addressed some 23 years later, besides a handful of occasions that I witnessed)
(F) The ride operations were awful throughout the day, as - in spite of 3+ hour queues - there were countless empty seats on all of the rides (Drayton Manor unfortunately does not operate any single-rider queues - even on busy days), and the boarding process seemed to be very slow on most rides (The Haunting is possibly the only exception to this, although it is not a traditional ride, as such)
(G) Several of the rides suddenly closed shortly before I was about to board them, including Air Race (twice), The Haunting, and a 45-minute wait for Gold Rush after the park had closed, until the staff finally advised us at 5:45 p.m. that they would be unable to fix the issue
(H) I did not witness this myself, but I heard from another customer that some of the schoolchildren had allegedly fraudulently used the Easy Access queues, without valid tickets
(I) This did not affect me directly, but I noticed (and I heard others complain) that the Easy Access queue for some of the rides (such as The Wave and Maelstrom) are not clearly indicated outside the station
(J) The popular Bounty ride was closed all day
(K) I visited Alton Towers during the school trip season in June last year, and I don’t remember the issues being anywhere near as severe as Drayton Manor (partly due to a combination of superior operations, single-rider queues, a wider selection of attractions, minimal queue-jumping, and better overall behaviour from guests)
(L) Many of the rides did not open until after 11 a.m.
The blood pressure in my eyes and head began rising towards the end of the day, although it has fortunately since subsided (I think this was due to stress rather than heat, as I felt fine when I went I went to Thorpe Park in 31-degree weather last year).
On the positive side, all of the staff that I met were polite and friendly, and happy to provide free tap water upon request (which was important due to the heat and lack of water fountains, and something that is unfortunately not always forthcoming at other parks), although the water was unfortunately very warm and thus I ended up paying for fridge drinks anyway (the fridge in the Stormforce 10 souvenir shop was faulty, and so I purchased drinks from the shop by the zoo instead); I later realised that the cold water in the Thomas Land toilets were cold and so I could have just used that tap instead; I was disappointed that they were so slow to operate the rides (see point E above), but I believe that this is due to the park’s operating procedures and not the individual staff members themselves. I also witnessed some of the staff ejecting queue-jumping children from the rides, although this was unfortunately not much of a deterrent to the others (but at least the staff tried).
The zoo provided some peaceful respite (especially after the chaotic noise of schoolchildren in the Air Race shelter actually caused me to plug my ears), and it struck me that the wild animals were actually better behaved than the children, unfortunately.
It also occurred to me that the stickers around the park which celebrate "75 Years" of Drayton Manor probably could have been stuck directly to the queue board, as 75 years is probably how long it would have taken me to board most of the rides, sadly.
I almost visited Drayton Manor after Gold Rush first opened 2024, but I decided against it due to Apocalypse, Pandemonium, and G-Force no longer being present (the last two of which, I never got to ride); however, I now feel better about none of those rides being there anymore, as I realised today that I probably wouldn’t have gotten to ride any of them, anyway.
Also: I only visited Alton Towers once during the 1990s (when Nemesis first opened), whereas I visited Drayton Manor at least once per year, partly due to the huge queues at Alton Towers; ironically, however, it now seems that the situation has completely reversed (I remember telling people at the time that Drayton Manor was the better of the two parks, but I now accept that I was wrong).
I was e-mailed a free return ticket around 4 p.m., without me having requested it (perhaps in anticipation of my unhappiness); I am grateful for the gesture, although I am not sure how ‘free’ it really is, as I suspect that it does not include free car parking?
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