Coasterfreck
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Drayton Manor Trip Report
The 7th June 2025, marked my first visit to Drayton Manor. I had fantastic company as I was joined with one of my best friends; @TalTheMajestic as it is their local theme park.
I set off roughly at 6:30 from a rainy Surrey, picked up Tal at roughly 8:45, stopped for McDonalds Breakfast, and then after a pitstop break continued onwards to Drayton.
Arrived at the park at 10:10, and then into a holding area by 10:15, got into the park before rope drop, which lets just say was a lot more erm unique than the other parks if you know you know, at 10:20 we were let into the park. Initially we had planned on Gold Rush being the first ride of the day, but unfortunately it had a delayed opening, so instead we headed to Adventure Cove.
We started off the day with my 50th Cred - The Wave at 10:38, a coaster with a nice little whip to it especially through the zero-g roll. The lap bars were very nice, and I was grateful they didn’t push down during the ride cycle. Minus slamming hard into the breaks, this was a really good start to the day.
Then we did Troublesome Trucks, and while we was in the area for the 11am, Knapford Station Live show we decided to watch it as it was the 80th anniversary of Thomas and Friends, and I grew up with it, and the show was themed to it’s 80th birthday this year, the show would be perfect if you had kids. When the show finished we re-rode Troublesome Trucks as we were still in the area, then Thomas pulled into the station so we had to give it a go, it would have been rude not too. While we were on the second train ride, the rain came down heavily, but thankfully by the time we reached the station that shower was over.
Then we noticed that Gold Rush had opened, so we rushed to it, managed to get a front row row on cycle 1 it was just pure fun and a clever layout, annoyingly it was only on one train. While we were on the coaster going down the first drop we noticed that the other train (train 1) was currently off the track sat next to it’s maintenance shed, possibly as a result of a recent valley or other issues.
Then we hit up Accelerator my first Vekoma Junior Boomerang and got the front row, then completed the creds with Jormungandr by 12:30.
We then hit up Gold Rush for a second time on Cycle 1, this time we did the backrow, on cycle 1. I feel like this slightly edged the front row and this was our final experience of Cycle 1. We then did Accelerator for a second time, and we did it on the back row.
Next up we did Thor, and a re-ride on Jormungandr this time on the front then the Wave and we got the backrow, then we broke for Food at the Sodor Cafe.
Afterwards we caught the show again to let food go down, before hitting up our third ride on Gold Rush but for the first time on Cycle 2, of which also got the front row for the first time of this experience, I did enjoy this cycle more than the first cycle, and am glad that you do get to experience both cycles during the course of the day instead of it being pot luck.
We then did a third Accelerator, then we headed back into the Viking area, so that Tal could do Loki while I re-rode Thor, however Loki had downtime when we got there so we both did Sleipnir, which was definitely an experience.
Then as Loki was still broken when we got off our horses, we did Jormungandr for a third time, this time on the back row, once we got off Loki had reopened so Tal did Loki while I re-rode Thor.
From here on out we just spent our time re-riding the coasters, we rode The Wave and Troublesome Trucks both one last time and did a total of three more rides on Gold Rush brining that to a total of 6 cycles, Accelerator a further 5 times for a total of 8 cycles.
My Ratings:
The Wave - 4/5 - Theming of the external station building is brilliant, the billboard was a nice near miss, the zero-g roll was fantastic.
Troublesome Trucks 2.5/5 - Perfect family coaster for the younger riders.
Gold Rush - 5/5 - Theming was good, station building was ascetically nice, the layout with both cycles was a lot of fun, very re-rideable.
Accelerator - 4/5 - Fun layout, the station was looking rather tired, and out of the main coasters this is the one that I felt could use some tlc.
Jormungandr - 3/5 - Another decent family coaster for all ages, nicely themed train, love how it interacts with the water.
Drayton Manor was a nice park, and seemed to be well looked after, operations for what we experienced seemed to be fairly on point. I look forward to visiting a couple more times in the season, and I’m glad that I decided to buy their annual pass back in February.
The highlight coaster for me was Gold Rush, followed by The Wave. Me and Tal have this thing were we’ve been doing eyes close riding if we experience coasters multiple times in a day. Which we did on four of the five coasters, the one we didn’t do it on was Jormungandr.
The weather was not looking on our side in the build up to this trip, but luckily for us the weather was mostly on our side, and it made the park a lot quieter.
The 7th June 2025, marked my first visit to Drayton Manor. I had fantastic company as I was joined with one of my best friends; @TalTheMajestic as it is their local theme park.
I set off roughly at 6:30 from a rainy Surrey, picked up Tal at roughly 8:45, stopped for McDonalds Breakfast, and then after a pitstop break continued onwards to Drayton.
Arrived at the park at 10:10, and then into a holding area by 10:15, got into the park before rope drop, which lets just say was a lot more erm unique than the other parks if you know you know, at 10:20 we were let into the park. Initially we had planned on Gold Rush being the first ride of the day, but unfortunately it had a delayed opening, so instead we headed to Adventure Cove.
We started off the day with my 50th Cred - The Wave at 10:38, a coaster with a nice little whip to it especially through the zero-g roll. The lap bars were very nice, and I was grateful they didn’t push down during the ride cycle. Minus slamming hard into the breaks, this was a really good start to the day.
Then we did Troublesome Trucks, and while we was in the area for the 11am, Knapford Station Live show we decided to watch it as it was the 80th anniversary of Thomas and Friends, and I grew up with it, and the show was themed to it’s 80th birthday this year, the show would be perfect if you had kids. When the show finished we re-rode Troublesome Trucks as we were still in the area, then Thomas pulled into the station so we had to give it a go, it would have been rude not too. While we were on the second train ride, the rain came down heavily, but thankfully by the time we reached the station that shower was over.
Then we noticed that Gold Rush had opened, so we rushed to it, managed to get a front row row on cycle 1 it was just pure fun and a clever layout, annoyingly it was only on one train. While we were on the coaster going down the first drop we noticed that the other train (train 1) was currently off the track sat next to it’s maintenance shed, possibly as a result of a recent valley or other issues.
Then we hit up Accelerator my first Vekoma Junior Boomerang and got the front row, then completed the creds with Jormungandr by 12:30.
We then hit up Gold Rush for a second time on Cycle 1, this time we did the backrow, on cycle 1. I feel like this slightly edged the front row and this was our final experience of Cycle 1. We then did Accelerator for a second time, and we did it on the back row.
Next up we did Thor, and a re-ride on Jormungandr this time on the front then the Wave and we got the backrow, then we broke for Food at the Sodor Cafe.
Afterwards we caught the show again to let food go down, before hitting up our third ride on Gold Rush but for the first time on Cycle 2, of which also got the front row for the first time of this experience, I did enjoy this cycle more than the first cycle, and am glad that you do get to experience both cycles during the course of the day instead of it being pot luck.
We then did a third Accelerator, then we headed back into the Viking area, so that Tal could do Loki while I re-rode Thor, however Loki had downtime when we got there so we both did Sleipnir, which was definitely an experience.
Then as Loki was still broken when we got off our horses, we did Jormungandr for a third time, this time on the back row, once we got off Loki had reopened so Tal did Loki while I re-rode Thor.
From here on out we just spent our time re-riding the coasters, we rode The Wave and Troublesome Trucks both one last time and did a total of three more rides on Gold Rush brining that to a total of 6 cycles, Accelerator a further 5 times for a total of 8 cycles.
My Ratings:
The Wave - 4/5 - Theming of the external station building is brilliant, the billboard was a nice near miss, the zero-g roll was fantastic.
Troublesome Trucks 2.5/5 - Perfect family coaster for the younger riders.
Gold Rush - 5/5 - Theming was good, station building was ascetically nice, the layout with both cycles was a lot of fun, very re-rideable.
Accelerator - 4/5 - Fun layout, the station was looking rather tired, and out of the main coasters this is the one that I felt could use some tlc.
Jormungandr - 3/5 - Another decent family coaster for all ages, nicely themed train, love how it interacts with the water.
Drayton Manor was a nice park, and seemed to be well looked after, operations for what we experienced seemed to be fairly on point. I look forward to visiting a couple more times in the season, and I’m glad that I decided to buy their annual pass back in February.
The highlight coaster for me was Gold Rush, followed by The Wave. Me and Tal have this thing were we’ve been doing eyes close riding if we experience coasters multiple times in a day. Which we did on four of the five coasters, the one we didn’t do it on was Jormungandr.
The weather was not looking on our side in the build up to this trip, but luckily for us the weather was mostly on our side, and it made the park a lot quieter.
The Wave x3 (2xBack) (1x New To Me)
Rows: 4,6,6
Troublesome Trucks x3 (1x Back) (1x New To Me)
Rows: 8,9,10
Gold Rush x6 (3xFront) (3xBack) (1x New To Me)
Rows: 1,12,1,12,1,12
Accelerator x8 (4x Front) (4xBack) (1x New To Me)
Rows: 1,10,1,10,10,1,10,1
Jormungandr x3(1x Front) (1xBack) (1x New To Me)
Thor x2
Sleipnir
Thomas Train Ride (Thomas, Rosie, and Percy Engine Tours) x2
Knapford Station Show x2
Rows: 4,6,6
Troublesome Trucks x3 (1x Back) (1x New To Me)
Rows: 8,9,10
Gold Rush x6 (3xFront) (3xBack) (1x New To Me)
Rows: 1,12,1,12,1,12
Accelerator x8 (4x Front) (4xBack) (1x New To Me)
Rows: 1,10,1,10,10,1,10,1
Jormungandr x3(1x Front) (1xBack) (1x New To Me)
Thor x2
Sleipnir
Thomas Train Ride (Thomas, Rosie, and Percy Engine Tours) x2
Knapford Station Show x2
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