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Family Days Out Product Reviews
The reviews of Drayton Manor below have been written by members of TheBabyWebsite.com. They aren't simply provided by the suppliers or manufacturers, but are a true impression given by someone who has used the product or service. If you own, or have used Drayton Manor yourself, please feel free to add your own review using the pink link above.
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"Fab day out for the whole family!"
We only live about 30 minutes drive away from Drayton Manor, so it's been a regular day out for us every year since we became parents! It's a great day out for all the family, from toddler to grandparents!
The park is very accessible from the M6 & is well signposted too. On arrival there are loads of parking spaces, with disabled spaces near the entrance. There are lots of attendants to point you in the direction of the nearest parking space which makes it fast & easy to park & get as much time in the park as you can.
The park itself opens at 9.30am & the rides start at 10.30am. So, we always like to get there at 9.30am so we can park close to the entrance & then we start off at the zoo. That gives you plenty of time to look around the zoo & Dino Trail before the rides open.
On this particular visit, I was a bit disappointed in the zoo. There were more empty cages than usual. I'm not sure why that was but the kids didn't seem to mind too much as they knew we had a lot more to look forward to for the rest of the day. Dino Trail is quite a new addition to the park & my 3 boys love it (aged 6, 4 & 2)! There are lots of interactive boards there which give you facts about each dinosaur.
Next we went to have a look at the new Ben 10 ride, as my eldest loves Ben 10. When we got there he watched it going round & decided he didn't want to go on it. To be honest it did look quite fast for a kid's ride, but a few of my friends children have been on it & loved it! (My 6 year old obviously doesn't take after me - the bigger & faster the better! lol).
Next we went to my boys' favourite part of the park - Thomas Land! They are all the perfect ages to go on all of the rides. Although some of the queues were quite long for some of the rides, so we didn't have time to go on all of them. Most of the queues go down quite quickly though, which is good when you've got impatient little ones waiting with you! A few of the rides also have a 'Infant Rider Swap' feature, which means that the same adult can stay on the ride & the kids can be swapped over, which is good.
After we had finished in Thomas Land, we stopped for lunch. We bought some foot long hotdogs (the kids shared one)& some drinks. They were a bit expensive, but no more than other theme parks etc. There are lots of places to eat (we've eaten in the fish & chip shop before too) & we've always enjoyed the food at the park. You can also take your own packed lunch, which we have also done in the past & there are lots of benches to sit on & patches of grass if it's a nice day.
After lunch we went around the rest of the park. There are absolutely loads of rides, lots of 'Thrill Rides' for the older, more daring visitor. Along with more traditional rides like bumper cars, a big wheel, pirate ship & lots more. There really are too many rides to do in one day! I noticed there's an option to buy tickets for the next day, which are priced at £9.95, which is good as you could then do all of the rides. I imagine more people will take this up once the new hotel is completed (looked almost ready when we were there). Another thing to mention is they have a caravan & camping site too, but I can't comment on that because as we live so near we've never needed to stay over.
Oh, nearly forgot to mention. There are lots of toilet facilities (including disabled & baby changing) around the park itself & they are always clean & tidy. I never had to queue whilst we were there either (& the park was very busy), which can only be a good thing.
The entrance price is quite expensive but if you buy family tickets or pre-buy online then it is a lot more affordable. Also if you 'like' Drayton Manor on Facebook, they sometimes give details of special offers such as 2 for 1 etc ;-)
All in all we had a fantastic day out at Drayton Manor. It really is a fun-filled family day out for children & adults of all ages! I would definitely recommend it & can't wait to go back next summer with my family!
Member review by Louise - Mother of 3 boys
- review date 13th August 2011
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"a great day out "
We were so lucky to be one of the lucky members of The Baby Website to be selected to go and review Drayton Manor, which has a theme park, zoo, farm and Thomas land.
My mum decided to come along with us we looked online for prices and found it was much cheaper to pre-book online.
The morning of our visit arrived and we all got up really early as it was a 100 miles to travel, the sun was out so off we went, but as we were driving down the motorway the clouds darker which made me really nervous, then it started raining but it soon passed over.
We arrived just after 9.30am, it really wasn't busy and parking was very easy although the car park is huge so I could imagine it would get really busy during school holidays.
We had the pick of entrance booths as they were empty, a great start to our visit.
The park opens an hour before the rides start which gives you a chance to explore, so we visited the zoo, this was open already, they had a good variety of animals and you were pretty close to them,
The children loved meerkat manor.
Next we visited Dino trail which was fantastic we all loved it, plus really good as the children love Dinosaurs, I do think they could have had a bit of dinosaur roars playing in the background, as would have made the world of difference though still brilliant.
The train station is just across the way from Dino trail,
we walked over and were second in the queue,
we were delighted to see THOMAS turn up to take us back to the Thomas land , the driver was very friendly and happy waving to all the children .
We arrived in Thomas Land, this was pretty quiet as it was only about 11am the children went on quite a few rides and the most we queued for was 10 minutes, it was starting to get busy and was good to see lots of staff around telling older teenage children were not allowed inside Thomas land without an adult which I thought was really good.
We walked down to the 4d cinema which the queue again was only small, so we waited and then were sent through to another room which was absolute mayhem, there was NO where to form a queue it was just everyman for himself and no organisation what so ever,
I do think something should be done about this as more and more people were coming in and just all pushing towards a door which was locked and it was quite frightening for the younger children.
Michael and Sophie wanted to go on the new Ben 10 ride and as we hadn't really spent much time waiting we assumed the queue wouldn't be too long and joined it how wrong were we!!!
We waited well over an hour in the line and you didn't know how long you would be, you just kept going round a corner and seeing more people, I do think some form of time signs should be in place as people just didn't know how long the queue was, then it was finally our turn and the ride itself was brilliant.
We got something to eat a foot long hot dog and a bottle of pop costing £4.99 which I thought was very reasonable and they tasted great too.
The toilets were really good, you were never far from one which I thought was great as some places you have to walk miles not here you always had one nearby.
Also lots of benches for sitting down and resting or eating these were always available as plenty of them.
The children went on quite a few rides early on, but once the afternoon came it was much slower as we wasted a lot of time in queues, which we didn't have a clue how long we would wait for.
The haunted house was a long wait with only a handful of people going in every 10/15 minutes, when we got inside they played a video.
I was very annoyed that a problem happened and the staff actually swore and my children heard them even though it was said behind a counter it was said loud enough for them to hear, this really shocked me as I'm sure staff are trained to behave in a reasonable manner as its a children's theme park, this was a major let down.
The children picked the final ride and dragged dad onto Stormforce 10 which was a fantastic log flume ride I think this was the highlight of the day as they all loved getting wet and said it was the best ride of the day.
There are also lots of places as your walking around to try and win a prize, which are virtually impossible we tried lots and only won on the ones which said prize every time, we are usually pretty good at these.. we wasted quite a lot of money on these so I would try and steer clear.
The last ride was at 5pm which I thought was really early as we didn't cover all the park with queuing up for lots of Rides in the afternoon.
We had a fantastic day out at Drayton Manor and the new hotel looks great (nearly complete)
I don't think I would like to visit during school holidays though as I think it would be far to busy for my little ones, maybe older children wouldn't mind as much but little ones get a little impatient when waiting around.
Also some simple things could improve visits immensely like time markers in queues, as we wouldnt have waited for some things.
Myself and the children all enjoyed our day out at Drayton Manor and will defiantly be returning to do the things we missed .
Member review by sharon - mum of 3
- review date 5th August 2011
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"a great day out"
WE have been here 4 times in one year as thomas land is our favourite place to go at drayton manor....great value or money.loads of places to eat and once you have paid entrance fee then all rides are free........
the thomas land shop has everything a thomas mad child would want.....
Several toilets and changing rooms about and very clean too.....
the zoo is well kept and all animals are very happy,loads to see too.....
Loads of tables for picnics etc.If you get to hot or cold they do sell some clothes but they sell very quickly.
A great day out for all.you can even hire a pushchair
Member review by teresa - mom of one boy
- review date 21st February 2010
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