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Drayton Manor Park

I agree that’s it’s very weird they’re doing the entire park, minus those two rides obviously.

Weirdly, staffing budgets never seems to have been much of a concern for Drayton Manor, like it is for virtually every other park. They have very little history of staggered openings, even on dead days when barely anyone is going on the larger rides in the morning, and rides are often staffed quite heavily, again even during off peak times. So I guess an extra half hour of every ride isn’t that big a worry for them.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
I agree that’s it’s very weird they’re doing the entire park, minus those two rides obviously.

Weirdly, staffing budgets never seems to have been much of a concern for Drayton Manor, like it is for virtually every other park. They have very little history of staggered openings, even on dead days when barely anyone is going on the larger rides in the morning, and rides are often staffed quite heavily, again even during off peak times. So I guess an extra half hour of every ride isn’t that big a worry for them.
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They have generally always staggered the opening of the two main water rides, which also happen to be the two highest staffed rides in the park.
 
I think in for park’s 72 years history they never have had a world class coaster when you compare it to Alton Towers past and present coasters but what Drayton always had is good selection flat rides and dark rides that’s not available to ride within a 100 mile of any other park.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
I agree that’s it’s very weird they’re doing the entire park, minus those two rides obviously.

Weirdly, staffing budgets never seems to have been much of a concern for Drayton Manor, like it is for virtually every other park. They have very little history of staggered openings, even on dead days when barely anyone is going on the larger rides in the morning, and rides are often staffed quite heavily, again even during off peak times. So I guess an extra half hour of every ride isn’t that big a worry for them.
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Drayton Manor is a lot closer to large residential areas which would make the recruitment easier.
 
Whilst I love the Current Alliteration of the Haunting, and still scares a good 90% of kids that go on it, I think it's still just below its original version when it opened in '96. The ambience, the Animatromics head, the darker tone, it all comes together as a great pack no one should miss put on, which I think the park should reconsider adding back to it. If it wants to be a family park, it needs some of the darker theming to go with its more Happy Tone to satisfy everyone (e.g. Adventure Cove, Thomas Land, and Vikings) Midnight's Syndicate Music is brilliant, but becomes less impactful on the ride the more you experience it. They should've just kept some of the Original Ambience, especially in the Cellar and the Library.

Though I think we call agree that the current Skeleton jumpscare before you enter the Library is Miles better than the original one, which just slowly lowered below you with a blue light illuminating it. Yeah, real Scary Drayton :/

Oh and yeah, Scrap Dr Ghostman and the LEDs in the 1st preshow, he really does make the ride just feel silly and childish. Either bring back Dr X, or make a new Preshow with a bit more serious and sci fi like tone.
 
Trooper Looper said:
Oh and yeah, Scrap Dr Ghostman and the LEDs in the 1st preshow, he really does make the ride just feel silly and childish. Either bring back Dr X, or make a new Preshow with a bit more serious and sci fi like tone.
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I think for the current target audience that the park is aiming for The Haunting is great as it is, not too terrifying but with a spooky enough atmosphere for family groups. My daughter is 9 and she was pretty freaked out by the slightly creepy ambience of it. I don’t think it really needs to get any darker and the Dr Ghostman preshow does the job in setting the scene and letting kids that it’s a bit of fun not to take it the haunted aspect of it too seriously. You want to give them a little spook, not frighten them to bits.
 
I have been very impressed with the operations on Accelerator recently. It may have operated like this previous, but it shows that Drayton will actually utilise rides properly that have been designed for better throughput. This was not the case at all not too long ago. (most of the time). Loading the bays while the train has it's harnesses checked / train is dispatched. Then, as soon as every person is out of the vehicle after the ride, the air gates are opened, letting the next guests board the train. Usually with most of the departing passengers still on the exit side of the station, doing their usual faff and whatnot. By the time the harnesses are checked, the exit platform is clear, so no delay in dispatching the next train. They had dispatches down to a couple of minutes and less, which for Drayton Manor is mighty impressive.

Made for a pretty fast moving queue and a level of operations I would like to see the park aim for more in the future. You need the rides designed to be able to help with this though, Accelerator certainly is with it's floor raising before the train has come to a full stop.

It is nice to see non the less. Operations that I have rarely, if ever, seen outside of Alton Towers here in the UK. It is also impressive to watch rides being operated to the maximum they can possibly be. Accelerator certainly was being this weekend. I know it is only one ride, but it is a start!

Something they really need to do if they plan on operating fast track, nothing annoys the public more than selling fast track due to bad operations, it seems Drayton are really starting to focus this area going forward. As operations seem to be slowly but surely picking up else where.
 
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SRQ is a double edged sword. An efficient SRQ should be same side of the station as the main queue and easily batched. Several rides at DMP would be difficult in this regard. A setup like Nemesis at Towers used to have is probably actually going to slow operations slightly.
 
Not as easy as add another queue for most. Accelerator, Shockwave and (whilst it's still there) Apocalypse would be hard to retrofit SRQ
 
Just a quick question, do the park stick to the 1.3m height restriction for stormforce 10 as last time i visited im sure i saw a smaller child around 1.2m. Also if it is 1.3 then that’s very strict for a water ride of that kind
 
I think they do, I can’t see them taking any risks with water rides nowadays.

I agree it seems very high, I’m sure it used to be 1.2 years ago. I’ve not been on it for years because my kids aren’t 1.3 yet and don’t fancy going on alone.
 
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