Drayton Manor Resort
Dear Diary. Looming before me is a sign reading DRAYTON MANOR RESORT in a quirky font designed to convey fun.
But I'm not feeling fun; I'm feeling apprehensive. Drayton Manor is the UK's fourth largest theme park but the reviews for it on Tripadvisor are mostly negative:
The park is a shadow of its former self
Expensive, especially when you qué for over two hours for a ride because it keeps breaking down.
Not kept clean especially the eating areas.
Qué jumpers, no staff or security
Food there is very expensive.
The wait times for rides were a an absolute disgrace, for example over an hour for the kids submerine ride in thomas land, it is aimed at young children and to expect them to wait for that long is ridiculous.
And I've brought my whole family here too: my girlfriend and my two sons. And my dad. So if Drayton Manor is shit then I'll get the blame.
My oldest son, 5-year-old 5-year-old, wants to go on a log flume. Drayton Manor doesn't have a log flume but it does have Stormforce 10, which is essentially a log flume. I used to come to the park when I was a teenager and my dad's memory of Stormforce 10 is of getting stuck up at the top when the ride broke down. We were trapped at the top of the ride for 25 minutes, he claims. "We almost got hypothermia," he says, but in a way that implies it was a good thing.
"If we're quick we can get on it before the queues get long!" I say to my dad and Girlfriend. But when we get to Stormforce 10, there's a problem: 5-year-old's too short to go on the ride.
Also, there's a second problem: the entrance is closed and there's a sign that says "OPEN AT 12 PM".
"Never mind, we can go on the River Rapids," I say. "Look it's just over there."
But when we reach the River Rapids ride, a sign here too says "OPEN AT 12 PM".
Are all the rides closed until 12 PM??
So we head back the way we came. On the way we pass Maelstrom, a ride that spins you round high up in the air. All the people on the ride are screaming as the ride swings them up into the sky before plunging them back towards the ground.
"There's no queue," I say.
"Well, go on it then," says my dad. "We'll look after the kids."
So I run into the queue. The queue leads round to the back of the ride, where there's a surprise that makes my heart sink: about two hundred people are queuing for the ride. I just couldn't see them before because they're behind the ride.
A sign says "40 minute wait from this point." Fuck that. There's no way I'm waiting 40 minutes. So I leave.
11 AM: Thomas Land
So first we visit Thomas Land, an area of Drayton Manor themed around Thomas the Tank Engine. Thomas Land is the largest area of Drayton Manor and has 20 of the park's 46 rides. This means if Thomas Land had just seven more attractions, then the majority of the park would be Thomas Land, and by that point, they might as well rename Drayton Manor to Thomas Land and be done with it.
As a kid, I knew all the names of the engines and I even had little metal Thomas the Tank Engine toys I used to park under the fridge in the kitchen. But nowadays I can't remember any of the names of the engines other than Thomas himself. I think there might be ones called James and Henry but I'm not sure.
As I'm standing there, a lifesize Thomas the Tank Engine chugs past, his face beaming and his eyes moving side to side, just like on the TV show. He's pulling passenger cars filled with small excited children and their parents. "Oh my god," I say as Thomas cruises past. Even now, as a 36-year-old man, the sight of a life-size Thomas the Tank Engine fills me with joy. They went and did it, those absolute mad men. They made Thomas into a real train.
Now, if they could just solve global warming as well, then everything would be fine in the world.
First we go on Diesel's Locomotive Mayhem, a ride that spins you around on board a gang of diesel engines. The ride's only for small children but I'm gripping the ride's safety bar in terror because the spinning diesel engines are a hair's width from colliding with each other when they meet in the middle.
Next we go on Cranky's Drop Tower, a ride where you're lifted high above Thomas Town and dropped back down. The ride is operated by a fat middle-aged woman who's one of the slowest people in the world. Even a 90-year-old bedridden pensioner could run the ride faster than her. She's walking around the ride doing up people's seatbelts with the speed of an arthritic sloth.
Next, we queue for the Rocking Bulstrode ride, a ride where you sit in a sea barge that swings back and forth. The queue for this one is about twenty minutes. People keep getting on before us because they have fast pass tickets. People like two fat women, who look like the fat slags from Viz magazine. Fast pass is the work of Satan. Every ride has a small queue of fast pass holders outside the exit who get on the ride before everyone else. When I was a kid, jumping the queue was against the park rules, but nowadays you can do it as long as you're rich. Call me excessive, but I'd like to round up all the fast pass holders, throw nooses around their necks, and hang them in the big square of Thomas Land. Then I'd leave their bodies dangling from the rides as a warning to anyone else who thinks about buying fast pass tickets.
11:50 AM
The River Rapids ride opens in ten minutes and we're in an early queue forming outside. Next to the queue is Stormforce 10, which is already open, despite the sign that said "OPEN AT 12 PM". Every time a boat goes down, a tidal wave of water drenches any unsuspecting people standing nearby.
I put 5-year-old on my shoulders and take him over to see. Around us is a massive puddle from where the boats splash into the water.
"Daddy, I want to get closer," 5-year-old says.
So with 5-year-old on my shoulders, I step a little closer to the fence around Stormforce 10.
"Closer Daddy."
So I get even closer to the ride. We're standing right next to the fence.
A boat comes down the chute. When the boat hits the water at the bottom, the resulting splash is like a tidal wave that drenches me from head to toe. 5-year-old escapes relatively dry. Only his trousers are wet.
I walk back to the queue for the River Rapids ride with water dripping off me. The other parents in the queue look at me and smile with mirth.
"Maybe that wasn't a good idea," says 5-year-old.
He's telling me.
12 PM: River Rapids
We're going on the River Rapids ride. I have fond memories of this ride as a kid. We'd all go on dressed in cheap plastic raincoats - me, and my dad, mom, sister and brother. We would be shrieking with laughter as waves of water splashed up the sides of the boat and wet us. There was also this part with rocks where boats could get stuck. Sometimes we were unlucky and our boat would be stuck for ages. We'd watch helplessly as everybody else sailed past. The only way to get free would be if another boat dislodged you by bumping into you, at which point we'd laugh at them because then it'd be their turn to get stuck. It was great.
We climb into the circular boats. I'm excited.
But when we reach the end of the ride, we're still dry. We barely got wet at all.
5-year-old's upset. "I want to get wet," he sulks with his arms crossed.
We would have got more wet by splashing ourselves in the toilets with water from the tap. Perhaps I would have got some funny looks splashing water onto my face, torso, and groin but at least I wouldn't have had to queue.
12:40 PM: lunch
We've gone to get lunch at one of the park's cafes. But I find myself staring up in disbelief at a menu that sells a kids' box that consists of three chicken nuggets, fries, and a drink for £7.95. Not a box of chicken nuggets: three chicken nuggets. For almost £8. Why is it so expensive? Were the chickens given Mozart to listen to and silk cushions to sleep on?
I decide to order three mozzarella sticks (£5.95), large fries (£4) and beef chilli loaded nachos (£6.95).But making my order takes longer because the guy at the till needs to replace the roll of receipt paper but he doesn't know how. One of his teammates comes over to help. At one point, his teammate starts banging on the receipt machine with his fist while the other one watches with fascination. I'm watching with fascination too. Then the first teammate gives up banging the machine with his fist and starts fiddling about with the innards of the machine instead. By this point, a long queue has formed behind me. Finally, after a final swift slap to the machine, the guy says, "Can I take your order, sir?"
As I walk back to the table with the tray of food, I marvel at how I've spent almost £17 on food, including almost £6 just on three mozzarella sticks. I should be disgusted by myself at wasting money but I'm too tired so I just sit down and eat some chips instead. 5-year-old eats all three mozzarella sticks and I don't get any.
1:20 PM Thomas Land
We still have all the rest of the park to visit but instead we're back at Thomas Land riding the small rides for children. I don't mind though. At least the queues in Thomas Land are short.
Girlfriend takes 5-year-old on the Runaways Trucks Troublesome Rollercoaster. Meanwhile I walk around the rest of Thomas Land with 1-year-old in the baby carrier. A sign for Harold's Helicopter Tours says "You must be higher than Harold to go on this ride." I imagine Harold Bishop from Neighbours, his eyes red-eyed and glassy from smoking pot, sitting in front of the ride and refusing kids entry until they take a toke and get as high as he is.
A crate says SODOR'S DOCK which my confused brain reads as SUCK MY DICK.
I take baby 1-year-old on a carousel called Blue Mountain Engines. 1-year-old doesn't seem to like the ride but he doesn't not like it either. He sits on my lap the whole time, looking confused.
In the middle of the main square of Thomas Land is a ride that looks like a torture machine from hell. It's called Toby's Tram Express and consists of a tram that rises into the air and spins around at mad angles. Imagine a tram that's caught in an invisible hurricane.
There's this Google review for the ride:
This ride has changed my life. I went in as an unpure soul, wanting to see the light. But then I went on Toby's Tram Express, and the light, I have touched.
Okay then.
There's no queue for Toby's Tram Express so 5-year-old and I run and get on. There's no seat belt either so we just hold on tight as the ride lifts us into the air and starts to spin us around.
"Whoa, this is fun Daddy!" says 5-year-old.
It's a good job Girlfriend didn't go on this ride. She gets dizzy easily.
When we get off, there's still no queue so we run around and do it again.
Next we queue for Flynn’s Fire Rescue, which is a ride where you have a water gun and you shoot water at a flaming building. Personally, I'd like to shoot the water at the ground and go shooting off into the air as a makeshift jetpack. I'd go live in the sky and have a castle made of clouds. I'd only come down from the sky occasionally to steal ice-creams from children and purses from pensioners.
In the queue, a little girl gives me a chocolate button and I end up talk to her mom about the River Rapids ride.
"My son wanted to get wet today," I say, "but we went on the River Rapids and we barely got wet at all."
"Yeah, it's really not as good as the Alton Towers rapids," she says with a nostalgic sigh. "That one has walls of water and you can get really wet. I love that ride. It's the best ride at Alton Towers."
Is it possible I have found my next wife?
"If you want to get wet then you should try that ride," she says, pointing to a ride called Captain's Sea Adventure. "On that one you get soaked. We went on it yesterday and got absolutely drenched."
So after Flynn’s Fire Rescue, we go on Captain's Sea Adventure. You climb into a boat and take a seat. Every seat is equipped with a water gun. When the ride starts, the boats spin around and you can shoot the other riders with water. It's really good. We all end up getting wet. When the ride ends, My dad shoots the people waiting in the queue, causing them to fall back and shriek with laughter. I spray one kid right in the face for a good ten seconds.
2:45 PM: Zoo
We're at the Drayton Manor zoo. It's not much of a zoo. The porcupine cage is empty. An information sign says "Porcupines are nocturnal, meaning they sleep at night." Well if they're nocturnal then why are in a zoo that opens in the morning and closes in the afternoon? You're not going to see the porcupines if they're asleep. Maybe I should go give them a swift kick in the testicles to wake them up.
Or here's a better idea: Drayton Manor should shoot all the animals in the head to put them out of their misery. Then throw their corpses in a big pile in the middle of Thomas Land, next to the hanging corpses. Obviously, with my great ideas (like the one about hanging all the people with fast pass tickets), I should be running the park.
3:25 PM
The park closes in a couple of hours and I still haven't seen the entire park so I ditch Girlfriend, 5-year-old and my dad in the zoo and go walk around the park with 1-year-old in the baby carrier.
I'm feeling hungry when I see a discarded tray of half-eaten fish, chips and mushy peas on a bench. So I pick up the tray and start eating. 1-year-old's hungry too so I give him a piece of batter and some chips. I walk around the park like that, with 1-year-old in the sling, both of us eating chips from a discarded tray. 1-year-old loves the chips. He stuffs entire chips in his mouth and eats them whole, like a hungry seagull. He has ketchup smeared on his face. He doesn't eat the fish batter so I presume he doesn't like it, but when I try to take the batter from him he gives an angry cry of protest and clutches the batter harder.
A dad pushes a giant panda teddy in a pushchair. Cheerful yellow and green bunting, placed vertically on sticks, flutters in the wind. A man dressed as a lion is dancing on a stage. I take it he's the Drayton Manor mascot and not a lion that's escaped from the zoo. I remember Alton Tower's mascot used to be a dog. But who would win in a fight: Drayton Manor's lion mascot or Alton Towers's dog mascot? We should make them fight each other to find out.
I enter Vikings, an area of Drayton Manor themed around, unsurprisingly, Vikings. A seven-year-old shirtless boy wearing a Viking helmet is smacking a plastic axe into the ground. He'll grow up to drink lager and smack his girlfriend around instead.
By the way, I've just noticed that everyone who works at Drayton Manor is a teenager. The ride attendants, the carnival stall operators, the arcade staff: they're all teenagers. It's like Logan's Run. Maybe the workers are children who got lost in the park, and when they tried to leave, the managers in Drayton Manor threw shackles on them and forced them to work on the stalls and rides. No wonder the teenage boy running the hook-a-duck whispered to me, "Help me! Get me out of here!" and had a large shackle and chain attached to his foot. I just assumed it was part of the Viking theming.
I walk up to one of the workers and have the following (imaginary) conversation:
"Excuse me, are you a slave?"
"Yer what?"
"Are you a slave? Are you working here against your own free will? Are you being held here in forced servitude?"
"Yer what mate?"
"Are you being paid to work here?"
"Paid?"
"Yes, you know, with money. A wage."
He looks surprised as if he's never heard of a wage before.
"Nah mate, I don't get nuthin'."
"What? So why are you working here?"
"Well they said if I work 'ere for the whole summer I can 'ave a go on one of their rides." He looks over at the Stormforce 10 ride longingly. "It's me dream to have a go on that big one."
Me too, my friend. Me too.
4:50 PM: Stormforce 10
A sign says RIDES CLOSE AT 5 PM. It's ten minutes to 5 PM and I still haven't been on Stormforce 10. Which means I only have ten minutes to get in the queue.
"1-year-old's asleep in the pushchair," I say to Girlfriend. "Is it alright if I go on Stormforce 10?"
I expect her to say, "You can't, we're leaving soon."
But instead she says, "Okay."
YES! I quickly leg it over to Stormforce 10. And the queue's still open! I run inside and join the queue of parents and pubescent children.
I'm in the queue for Stormforce 10.
I'm standing in the queue between two families. Below us, the boats are going round. Everyone in the boats is soaking wet.
"DON'T GO ON IT! YOU'LL GET PISS IN YOUR MOUTH!" a boy shouts up at us from one of the boats. Then he adds, "I'M NOT LYING!"
I, also, must add that I'm not lying. He really did say this. I'm writing what he said verbatim.
When the next boat comes along, a shivering woman inside the boat shouts up at us, "IT'S REALLY COLD!" She's wearing a string top and she looks drenched.
Another boat passes us. A nine-year-old boy inside the boat stares at us mournfully as his boat goes past. "I'm soaking," he says. He looks like he's just been rescued from the sinking of the Titanic. Sitting next to him is a ten-year-old boy with red hair and a red ruddy face who just says, "Help me. Help me."
The warnings continue. "GET OUT OF HERE WHILE YOU STILL CAN!" shouts a teenage girl from one of the boats. "WE'RE FREEZING!" adds her friend. One guy shouts, "GUYS, DON'T GO ON! I'M SERIOUS!"
Yeah right. He's just saying that so he can have the ride all to himself.
Finally I reach the front of the queue.
The teenage girl working on the ride looks at me and asks, "How many people?"
"Just me," I say.
"Okay, go sit in the next boat, please. Oh, and take off your hat."
So I go sit in the boat, in the third row, near the back. Four preteenage girls and their moms clamber into the other rows, making us seven people in total.
I take off my baseball cap. This is going to be fun.
With a sudden jerk, the boat moves forward. Then we're falling down the first of the ride's three drops. It's the smallest drop, just ten feet high, and we barely get wet at all. We let out relieved laughter.
The only people to get wet are the unsuspecting spectators standing next to the ride entrance. A huge wave crests over the flume and drenches them. Ha ha. Fuck 'em.
Everyone on the boat is in good spirits. We're all having a jolly good time.
Next our boat floats between two waterfalls. There's the din of torrents of water falling on both sides of the boat. But the water barely touches us. It's nothing more than a little spray. I really don't know what those other people on the ride were complaining about. Obviously they were wusses.
But when the boat climbs up the next hill, I begin to have doubts. My memory of Stormforce 10 is a little hazy, but isn't the second drop the worst one?
Also, I think you're supposed to wear a poncho on this ride. And I'm only wearing shorts, sandals and a T-shirt.
At the top of the hill, the boat enters a fake oil rig where a turntable turns the boat around. Now we're facing backwards. Then, without warning, the boat falls backwards. Everyone on the boat screams, except me, of course, because I'm tough. The boat crashes down in the water below, sending a huge wave of water into the air. A second later the water comes back down, right down on top of us. It's like having a giant bucket of cold water thrown over you. Everyone screams, including me this time.
We're all completely soaked, beyond anything you could call enjoyable. Maybe coming on this ride wasn't such a good idea.
"I can't stop shivering," laughs one of the girls.
"I didn't expect there to be so much water," complains a girl sitting at the front.
Our wet clothes are clinging to our skin. One woman wrings water out of her wet t-shirt.
A second turntable shunts our boat forward again, and then the boat climbs a 60-foot hill. When the boat reaches the top, cold water runs over my feet.
We're high above the park and all shivering. There's a cold wind blowing, which isn't ideal when you're drenched with water. My teeth are chattering and I'm shivering uncontrollably. This isn't a ride. It's a torture device. Because what kind of ride would drench people in the water and then take them up into the air to freeze them half to death?
"I think I'm literally dying," says a girl sitting in the row in front of me.
I wonder if I should tell them that I've been on this ride before, and it broke down at this very spot, and I was stuck up here for 25 minutes. But then I decide it's probably best not to.
The boat plunges down the final drop, resulting in a splash that fortunately doesn't match the intensity of the last one. Just a few drops reach us. Which doesn't matter because we're already drenched.
As the boat floats towards the exit, I look around at the lake. The water doesn’t exactly look clean. It's dark green and there's algae floating in it.
"I've got algae under my nails. This lake's disgusting," complains one of the women.
Finally the boat returns us to the docking station and we all get off the ride. When I exit the ride I find Girlfriend, 5-year-old, and 1-year-old waiting for me.
"I'm a bit wet," I say, as water drips from every part of my body.
Girlfriend smiles and tuts.
"You should go use the dryers," she says. "There's big dryers you can stand in to get dry."
Fuck that. They cost two quid each.
It takes three hours before I'm dry again. But it was completely worth it.
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