Drayton Manor Park

[Themeparksandy1981]

Pandemonium was waiting for a part back in 2017

But with the downtime it had a paint job.
Storm force had all its queue line out side replaced

 

[DistortAMG]

Pandemonium was waiting for a part back in 2017

But with the downtime it had a paint job.
Storm force had all its queue line out side replaced

I absolutely love the cornish fishing village / life boat station vibe of Storm Force 10, even with what I mentioned earlier. A truly unique theme that was executed so well.

 

[Hid]

Maybe that was the plan but the plan changed.

I absolutely love the cornish fishing village / life boat station vibe of Storm Force 10, even with what I mentioned earlier. A truly unique theme that was executed so well.

Its kinda a similar theme to what Walibi Belgium did with Dock World.

I think StormForce 10 could do with some more effects not many sprayers on there or blasters.

Did StormForce 10 and River Rapids used to have off ride shooters where you could soak the riders

 

[DistortAMG]

Maybe that was the plan but the plan changed.

Its kinda a similar theme to what Walibi Belgium did with Dock World.

I think StormForce 10 could do with some more effects not many sprayers on there or blasters.

Did StormForce 10 and River Rapids used to have off ride shooters where you could soak the riders

Yeah it is kind of similar to be fair. No both rides have never had anything like off ride shooters.

What Splash Canyon did how however, just about viewable in this photo. On the building at top right of the photo, was a pipe that dropped water on riders from above. The pipe and it's housing would rotate so that it could either soak riders near the end of the ride, or at the very start of the ride.

I believe this was manually controlled by staff. It stopped working sometime in the late 90's or early 2000's.

You can just about see the horizontal brown pipe coming out the top of the red building here. It was mounted in such a way (the blue part of the building at the top) that the whole thing could rotate to the other side.

 

[Hid]

Yeah it is kind of similar to be fair. No both rides have never had anything like off ride shooters.

What Splash Canyon did how however, just about viewable in this photo. On the building at top right of the photo, was a pipe that dropped water on riders from above. The pipe and it's housing would rotate so that it could either soak riders near the end of the ride, or at the very start of the ride.

I believe this was manually controlled by staff. It stopped working sometime in the late 90's or early 2000's.

You can just about see the horizontal brown pipe coming out the top of the red building here. It was mounted in such a way (the blue part of the building at the top) that the whole thing could rotate to the other side.

Was Splash Canyon ever a soaker of a Rapids you barely get wet these day.

Congo River Rapids at Towers on the other hand can get you soaked.

 

[DistortAMG]

Was Splash Canyon ever a soaker of a Rapids you barely get wet these day.

Congo River Rapids at Towers on the other hand can get you soaked.

You did get much wetter yes, you could also get stuck in the wave pool area for a while with boats passing you, the waves are now gone and they have added side guides in the refurbishment to prevent this from happening.

While on the subject, I have posted these before, but they are worth showing again for newer members as they are decent photos.

River Rapids station under construction. Looks different without Shockwave!


The wave pool area looking back towards the station. You can see queue line buildings being built here which still stand to this day.


The end of the ride, showing the building that the pipe mentioned earlier was on. You can see some footers for Shockwaves zero g roll already in place here, at the sides of the river channel.

 

[Hid]

You did get much wetter yes, you could also get stuck in the wave pool area for a while with boats passing you, the waves are now gone and they have added side guides in the refurbishment to prevent this from happening.

While on the subject, I have posted these before, but they are worth showing again for newer members as they are decent photos.

River Rapids station under construction. Looks different without Shockwave!


The wave pool area looking back towards the station. You can see queue line buildings being built here which still stand to this day.


The end of the ride, showing the building that the pipe mentioned earlier was on. You can see some footers for Shockwaves zero g roll already in place here, at the sides of the river channel.

I guess they wanted to tone it down to prevent another accident like it did before, in my opinion River Rapids are the 2nd most dangerous theme park attraction because of how unpredictable they can be.

 

[Jb85]

@DistortAMG lovely photos thanks

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

The biggest problem now to Drayton Manor in the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s the company who did the theming have long gone and the staff neither retired or passed away so they not to anyone other than in house workers to build props and like many Have said all the lands built so far has been all basic wooden buildings but they could recoup some of the Merlin magic makers who’s losing/lost there job at Alton Towers and not sure who is behind the theming of Ghosty Manor but proves there’s still uk companies out there who can build animatronic‘s.

 

[JAperson]

The biggest problem now to Drayton Manor in the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s the company who did the theming have long gone and the staff neither retired or passed away so they not to anyone other than in house workers to build props and like many Have said all the lands built so far has been all basic wooden buildings but they could recoup some of the Merlin magic makers who’s losing/lost there job at Alton Towers and not sure who is behind the theming of Ghosty Manor but proves there’s still uk companies out there who can build animatronic‘s.

If they're paying some company will do it. And haven't a British company been involved with all the theming at the new park in Saudi Arabia? Drayton have always been an odd park when it comes to theming. Some stuff gets it, while other stuff sort of just gets its own theme, or basically nothing.

 

[Maelstrom]

The biggest problem now to Drayton Manor in the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s the company who did the theming have long gone and the staff neither retired or passed away so they not to anyone other than in house workers to build props and like many Have said all the lands built so far has been all basic wooden buildings but they could recoup some of the Merlin magic makers who’s losing/lost there job at Alton Towers and not sure who is behind the theming of Ghosty Manor but proves there’s still uk companies out there who can build animatronic‘s.

i don’t get why you say it’s the biggest problem now at Drayton Manor as it’s really none issue. The company they used to use aren’t the only company capable of doing theming 100’s of other theme parks around the world manage to find companies to do theming work.

The problem is actually the willingness for the looping group to Pay for it and allocate enough budget for external theming work.

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

i don’t get why you say it’s the biggest problem now at Drayton Manor as it’s really none issue. The company they used to use aren’t the only company capable of doing theming 100’s of other theme parks around the world manage to find companies to do theming work.

The problem is actually the willingness for the looping group to Pay for it and allocate enough budget for external theming work.

Sorry about bringing the Bryan’s up again but they were always wanting to use local tradesman and businesses at the park.
It’s the reason they used Golding/Space leisure and Simworx’s.

 

[djtruefitt]

Due to the bad weather today Drayton will be shutting at 4pm instead of the advertised 7pm. Guests will get a free return visit.

 

[Rob F]

Possibly for the amount of people on park vs running costs for the extra 3 h’s it’s probably worthwhile