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Drayton Manor Park

It seems Pirate Adventure has a fanbase of it's own! Now, I do have an optimistic response to what you've shown there, which is that the email you've shown is from the customer relations department, not from the people responsible for overseeing what happens to the ride. Many of the staff I speak to (who joined after 2015) were not even aware of the existence of the ride until a while in to their jobs. Also, the email states that the ride is closed and not on the attraction line up, but it does not state any future plans to demolish or redevelop it.
The email @DW_0505 received from Steve Lomas clearly stated that there will eventually be a time where a decision is made about the ride, and that relaunching it is possible, and it was from the head of Park Operations, who has witnessed the ride interior himself.
I'm not saying that anything is certain, it is not. But as his previously been said, we may not have seen the last of Pirate Adventure.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
If they were smart, they could sell the boats back to Mack. I hear they have a sudden, unexpected need for some!
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Haha very true, one of the first thoughts I had when I heard about the fire was that this is now the last Mack pirate boat ride in existence. Maybe they'd want it restored themselves for that very reason; almost like a shrine for Pirates in batavia :)
 
ciaran said:
I have been watching this thread for almost a year now but I never made an account, but I recently emailed Drayton Manor regarding my (ex) favorite ride there, Pirate Adventure.
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So glad you've made an account and have posted here - it's great to hear other people are just as enthusiastic about this ride as myself.

The email I received from Steve Lomas did give a glimpse of hope for the future of this attraction - given that it is all currently in its previous state and is not destroyed. I've said it before and I'll say it again - it makes sense to keep hold of this ride:
  • The building can go nowhere seen as Winston, Thomas Shop and Staff Rooms are all located here
  • Fits in with the existing theme of Pirate Cove
  • The ride system is something DMP would never be able to afford again and offers great throughput and reliability
  • The ride is unique given the recent openings of Icon and Wickerman
  • It would be difficult to place into Thomas Land as it way outside of the enclosed perimeters which makes it so popular
  • As @Sauron97 has said - it is the last Mack Pirate Boat Ride - which must carry some weight
So don't lose hope here. I just hope that DMP management read this forum and see the love this ride is getting, somehow I don't think they do...

I don't want to go into too much detail, but I do have photos of interior and exterior opening day photos of Pirate Adventure (including of the Ghost Scene) and I'd be happy to share a few images.

Sorry for ranting - I can't help it ;)

EDIT: As per requests below, I will upload some of the images I have. They’re all from ride opening day, so are printed physically. Give me a little time to find them out and I’ll upload them
 
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I would love to see photos of the park before Pirate Adventure started to be built to see what it replaced as I know the bumper cars and the ghost train were there before construction and were rethemed into the area.
 
Same, I've never seen a Drayton without Pirate Adventure either, must have given the park a much more 'basic', non theme park appearance.
The ghost scene bit at the end of Pirate Adventure was genuinely creepy I must admit, whilst I have a lot of love for the ride, stuff like that did terrify me as a child :p
I do think that kids who grow up nowadays would be traumatized if they went to 90s theme parks/watched 90s films, idk, it's just a theory, but I think we had more of a stomach.
 
Sauron97 said:
I do think that kids who grow up nowadays would be traumatized if they went to 90s theme parks/watched 90s films, idk, it's just a theory, but I think we had more of a stomach.
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Well just look at how scary Terror Tomb was compared to Tomb Blaster.
 
Sauron97 said:
I do think that kids who grow up nowadays would be traumatized if they went to 90s theme parks/watched 90s films, idk, it's just a theory, but I think we had more of a stomach.
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I'm afraid think this is just a theory, as it's espoused by almost every generation that follows another, and you're barely out of your teens! ;)
 
I can’t remember going to Drayton Manor as a child but I do remember my mum having to buy tickets for the rides. I remember me and my sister moaning at my mum cause we wanted to go on the bumper cars but they cost 4 tickets per car and we both wanted to drive.
My mum was gutted that the pirate adventure was gone as that was her favourite ride.
My mum thinks the worst decision the park did was scrap the wristband system as kids she was more happy to watch us on the rides and she was just happy buying tickets for herself for the rapids and the pirate adventure.
 
EDIT: As per requests below, I will upload some of the images I have. They’re all from ride opening day, so are printed physically. Give me a little time to find them out and I’ll upload them[/QUOTE]


Whoop! Do it do it do it....
 
As someone that has rode on Pirate Adventure since the early 90's and worked on it and explored every crack and creavis of the attraction in the 2000's. I am looking forward to seeing these pictures.
 
Visited Drayton Manor for the first time since 2005 last bank holiday Monday. A quick review...

Firstly I found it very frustrating that so many rides are such low capacity. I guess usually it isn't too much of an issue but on a bank holiday it's very frustrating standing in long lines that don't move. And slow operations doesn't help either. Wild West Shoot Out, The Haunting, Shockwave on 1 train, Storm Force 10 were all painful queuing experiences.

Shockwave is a great 'novelty' coaster. The layout is very basic and short but the fact you're actually standing up makes it very fun, especially front row.

Accelerator is a perfect coaster for the park. It's just about intense enough for thrillseekers to enjoy, but also a perfect starter coaster for smaller children.

Forgot how much of a soaker Storm Force 10 is, especially the backwards drop on the back row! A fantastic water ride.

The highlights for me were the flat rides. Got multiple re rides on Apocolypse, Maelstrom and Air Race which are all superb. It's such a shame Alton don't have a few flats of this standard to add a bit of variety to ones day.

The crowds seemed to die down by 3ish and the park was far more enjoyable. £25 for a zoo visit with 3-4 brilliant rides is great value in my opinion.

It would take another major thrill ride to get me to go back, but it's a good quality family park.
 
Hmm, I think you might be misunderstanding a little @Plastic Person I know we've had our disagreements about kids ect ect,ahah, but my post here wasn't meant to be a slight against them, I was simply saying that I don't think kids nowadays would be used to the meaningful scariness that I believe older people were subjected to.
This is really for another topic, but I actually think kids these days see gore and death all the time, but it's all over the top and is done as if death, violence and sex lacks any meaning. I don't find any modern gore/horror/action film powerful in this regard, but when I see films like Jaws, Psycho, Birds ect, I actually get moved and scared (still :p) by some of the scenes. I'm thinking a better example would probably be something like the London Dungeon, which used to be a lot more grizzly and eerie, but dropped this in favor of cheap gore and jump scares.
On topic, basically, I don't believe a ride like Pirate Adventure will exist again in this country, because I think that some of its scenes like with the beheaded pirate, and the woman trying to escape that guy who pops out of the barrel, and the jail parts would be seen as not suitable for nowadays families/kids for the aforementioned reasons. This is ignoring the fact dark rides are no longer what they were anyway!
And, going off memory, in the last few years I managed to get on it, I'm sure I can remember being stuck on Pirate Adventure boats where kids screamed and cried their eyes out on numerous occasions; I don't recall this ever when I was younger so in a way, there's a bit of evidence there, even if it's a little subjective!
 
It is with great pleasure that I share some of these images with you of Pirate Adventure - going through these pictures always brings back happy memories, I think it’s amazing the connection you can have with a ride.

These images were all captured either on the opening day of Pirate Adventure or before the ride opened to the general public. In some of the other images I didn’t attach, you can actually see the photographers in the water.

In my opinion Pirate Adventure was responsible for turning this park around - from being a "fairground" to a "Theme Park", without this I doubt we'd see the additions such as Shockwave today.

I have gone through my album and have picked out any images that I feel would be of most interest. I really hope that they bring back some fond memories for the reader of this.

The below image is of the facade of the ride, with a band playing during the grand opening ceremony, note the uncut ribbon on the door.

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This scene was just before the drop on the ride, the positioning was altered slightly during the final years of operation.

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The below image is from the battle scene of the ride, just before the boats enter the caves where further scenes were, including the ghost scene. Note the amount of smoke here - this ride did truly create an atmosphere.

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This scene was mid-end ride if I remember correctly, during the caves section. The yellow character under the “bench” was removed from the ride quite early on - I am wondering if this was repurposed and placed at the entrance to the battle scene on the left - which did “spit” water.

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Finally, I strongly believe this is the ghost scene which has been spoken about so much. I never did manage to witness this in person, but I am pretty sure this is it.

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Please be aware that these images were taken when the ride opened in 1990 so aren’t the best quality. But they hold true value with me, given that they were taken before or during the first ride opening. I have many more of these, but I figured these would be the most popular, I have images of the boat, village and straw huts amongst others.
 
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By the time it closed, it had been neglected to the point at which it was awful.

It wasn't looked after.
 
A couple more images of Pirate Adventure before it opened - for anybody interested.

The below scene is just after the initial drop on the ride, as you can see, this consisted of many free standing buildings within the water with animatronics on, I believe it is meant to have been a small market town.

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This scene is under the decorative bridge the ride has, the hand which can be seen in the image is from an animatronic on a bridge before the one shown in this photo - it popped down from the bridge to surprise riders. This effect intermittently worked throughout 2000-2010, it was then turned off after this point. Just after this point was the bar scene with the man chasing the lady on the balcony, and the two animatronics which soaked one another, one was in a window with the other stealing treasure from below (again this effect was turned off in around the last year of operation).

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One thing that always stuck out for me is the smell in Pirate Adventure - does anybody else remember it? This was actually because DMP had a Bromine Cleansing System installed on the ride.

Also, is anybody able to help me with perhaps a ride schema (showing the path of the ride) or perhaps the ride audio - I know it's a long shot.

EDIT: Notable late additions to Pirate Adventure include an additional animatronic in the scene before the drop (in my previous post) with an animatronic at a desk, assumed to have arrived after the opening of the ride as not on these images. Also, the Pirates fighting on the bridge, I believe they were added with the Parrots at a later date.
 
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