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Drayton Manor Park

Thanks for the update. Considering the area is fundamentally still a field with a little bit of ground works, am not sure the area will be up to much for an Easter opening.

Nebulaz by all accounts are more of a spectacular view rather than ride experience. Bravo for a UK's first...but not going to get too excited for Drayton just yet.
 
Well when Adventure Cove was been worked on they started ground work mid April and it was all finished by the end of July.
They even poured Cement for the footers for 2 of the attractions and they will continue work to Friday then go back after the new year and by Feb half term I reckon there will be hardware put in place and theming will be done in March. There is just over 16 weeks to Easter.
 
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On a different note; given there's been a lot of talk about Pirate Adventure recently, is this warehouse that I've highlighted in red the one that used to house PA?:
Drayton-Manor-Potential-Pirate-Adventure-Warehouse.png

I only ask because if so; from having scoped out Drayton on Google Earth, PA's building is surprisingly massive, and I think they could do a lot with it!

I can also see why the park apparently explored integrating PA into Thomas Land at one point in time, as it does border onto Thomas a surprising amount; I think the building could house a pretty good Thomas dark ride to give the area a little something different, as well as an indoor attraction, and it could maybe even fit something else on the non-Thomas side of it!
 
Matt N said:
On a different note; given there's been a lot of talk about Pirate Adventure recently, is this warehouse that I've highlighted in red the one that used to house PA?:
Drayton-Manor-Potential-Pirate-Adventure-Warehouse.png

I only ask because if so; from having scoped out Drayton on Google Earth, PA's building is surprisingly massive, and I think they could do a lot with it!

I can also see why the park apparently explored integrating PA into Thomas Land at one point in time, as it does border onto Thomas a surprising amount; I think the building could house a pretty good Thomas dark ride to give the area a little something different, as well as an indoor attraction, and it could maybe even fit something else on the non-Thomas side of it!
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Yep thats the Pirate Adventure building. I really hope it doesn't just become another Thomas Land attraction. But as a new dark (ideally boat) attraction as something unique and special in the UK
 
Matt N said:
On a different note; given there's been a lot of talk about Pirate Adventure recently, is this warehouse that I've highlighted in red the one that used to house PA?:
Drayton-Manor-Potential-Pirate-Adventure-Warehouse.png

I only ask because if so; from having scoped out Drayton on Google Earth, PA's building is surprisingly massive, and I think they could do a lot with it!

I can also see why the park apparently explored integrating PA into Thomas Land at one point in time, as it does border onto Thomas a surprising amount; I think the building could house a pretty good Thomas dark ride to give the area a little something different, as well as an indoor attraction, and it could maybe even fit something else on the non-Thomas side of it!
Click to expand...
I think you are indeed correct Matt. :)

Edit: @pjanvil beat me to it. :p
 
My idea is; maybe they could put a Thomas dark ride into the smaller bit that backs onto Thomas Land (you could possibly extend the building a touch to come behind Troublesome Trucks if need be), and then use what they have left for something else? So they could maximise space and have 2 attractions in there?
 
It would be a shame to see it used for Thomas Land but then you could understand why if they do given that's their big money spinner.

I'd love to see a new dark ride in there but being realistic that's unlikely given how expensive they are to build these days.

Probably remain unused for a good while yet I reckon.
 
I think there are several scenarios where we could see the building back in use again some time in the near future and some where it is unlikely.
If they do decide to build a new dark ride I doubt very much it would take up the whole building but I could see them at least attempt a dark ride but probably on the cheap.
I think they could fit a part indoor and part outdoor coaster in the building and I've said before that would be something both unique and marketable. A pirate theme for something like that would be great.
Looping however may think the building is too expensive to use and not bother attempting to put another ride there for a while. They may even decide to knock it down and use the flat land for something which I wouldn't think was unreasonable.
 
They won’t be able to do that as the train runs between PA and Troublesome trucks.
I think unless the looping group gonna remove the Jolly Buccaneer and re-theme the Dodgems again and the building which houses PA I can’t see it been anything else other than another Pirate themed ride.
Does this ride use all the former building of its version of Pirate Adventure?

They could have the trains themed to a Pirate ship and they use bits of the Excalibur lake.
 
To visualise roughly what I'm suggesting; here's a drawing I did in Google Earth, showing roughly how I think they could use the building and surrounding area to house two attractions:
Pirate-Adventure-Options-Drayton-Manor-without-coaster-plot.png

(Apologies for the slight crudeness of it)
  • The area highlighted "Thomas?" is where I suggest a Thomas dark ride could go. The plot is roughly 1,150 square metres in area (I took it in slightly to compensate for the train after reading @Themeparksandy1981's note above), which for comparison is a little bit larger than the area of Gangsta Granny's full building at Alton Towers. I did have it jut a little past the current PA building for additional space, but it doesn't quite hit the train track.
  • The area highlighted "Non-Thomas?" is where I suggest a non-Thomas dark ride could go.The plot is roughly 1,920 square metres in area, which for a point of comparison is ever so slightly smaller than Lego Ninjago The Ride's full building at Legoland, and around two thirds to three quarters of the size of Duel's building.
I think they could quite easily cram in two dark rides within that space, and I think it could work well!

But wait, I have another idea! Building upon @JAperson's brilliant suggestion of an indoor/outdoor family coaster, you may notice a rather large lake directly behind Pirate Adventure that isn't up to too much... correct me if I'm wrong here, Drayton aficionados, but isn't this the lake that houses the long SBNO Excalibur? Let's add that into our calculations:
Pirate-Adventure-Options-Drayton-Manor-with-coaster-plot.png

  • The plot I'm referring to is the area highlighted "Coaster?". I've calculated that it is around 4,900 square metres in area, and if you extend that to include the rest of Excalibur's former plot, then it becomes around 8,000 square metres in area. For some idea, Wakala at Bellewaerde, a Gerstlauer family launch coaster that seems like the calibre of ride Drayton would go for, takes up an area of 7,308 square metres according to Gerstlauer, so if they used both the allocated building section and the allocated outdoor section, or some of the allocated building and the entire Excalibur plot, then I think they could get a Gerstlauer coaster similar to Wakala, but with some indoor sections, in quite easily, personally!
Do you guys like my ideas, or think that they're vaguely feasible?
 
I cannot see a coaster being allowed on that lake. It is way to close to the deer park housing estate. Which is just beyond your photo. Apart from the zoo. It is one of the closest locations in the park to housing. When the leaves are not on the trees, you can clearly see the houses from the Excalibur lake. Maybe something low and slow like Rob666 says. But nothing even averagly sized.

They could certainly split the building up and use some for Thomas. I mean they do not have to use the same entrance for any ride they did. Which sort of makes the 'they have to do a pirate theme due to other rides' argument mute. They could make a new entrance that isn't in the pirate area we already have. That means they can then use whatever theme they want without interfering with the pirate area.
 
No coaster will ever be built in that part of the park

on that note, what potential coaster sites are there? How much land can they expand into? I can only really think of two places for a coaster… and even then they will be small by most standards
 
The only way they could use that building for 2 rides is on the front remove the Dodgems so they could have the same current entrance but add a exit to the right side
For the Thomas land side I like the idea of a extended building and that could be the new entrance/ queue line with PA exit next to Emily play area used as the exit.
It would cost more to remove the building as it’s walls connect to the Burger Kitchen, Emily play area&Toilets, Thomas shop, Sodor classic car ride, Winston control room and I think a staff area.
 
The Pirate Themed area was only ever pirate themed to match Pirate Adventure. There's no reason it couldn't be re-themed along with a new ride.

This might come as a surprise but I'd actually love to see a Thomas re-theme of Pirates Adventure, if it used the short lived Tugs TV show as reference and they weren't afraid to lean into the darker feel. It would be a completely unique boat ride. Imagine floating through a harbour and canals, with animated trains the same size as the prop for the Gruffalo in Chessington's Gruffalo ride.
Not only would the kids love it but it could be a massive nostalgia hit with the adults too.
 
Tim said:
The Pirate Themed area was only ever pirate themed to match Pirate Adventure. There's no reason it couldn't be re-themed along with a new ride.

This might come as a surprise but I'd actually love to see a Thomas re-theme of Pirates Adventure, if it used the short lived Tugs TV show as reference and they weren't afraid to lean into the darker feel. It would be a completely unique boat ride. Imagine floating through a harbour and canals, with animated trains the same size as the prop for the Gruffalo in Chessington's Gruffalo ride.
Not only would the kids love it but it could be a massive nostalgia hit with the adults too.
Click to expand...
What's the point of using an IP which hardly anybody knows? The whole marketability of an IP comes from the brand being one that children and their parents will recognise; hence Ben10 losing its IP as recognition for the brand fell.
 
I didn't say use Tugs as an IP. Thomas is the IP. But Thomas takes place on land and because of this the show usually views the world from above the trains.
But if the boat ride aspect was kept the guests would be looking up at the trains as seen from a harbour or canal that runs along side the train tracks. This was the way Tugs was filmed, so that was my visual reference.



so they'd need to borrow a few references from how Tugs was filmed from water level to make the snese



so all the scenes in the ride would be on land. But the guest is on a bot in the water
 
Jb85 said:
No coaster will ever be built in that part of the park

on that note, what potential coaster sites are there? How much land can they expand into? I can only really think of two places for a coaster… and even then they will be small by most standards
Click to expand...
Now they've removed pandemonium, if they do remove apocalypse as predicted then they will have a decent chunk of space there for a coaster. It'll be a shame to see apocalypse go but a new coaster might well be a much better ride for the park in terms of what it needs to achieve.
 
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