I live literally 30 minute drive from Drayton Manor Park and its one of my favourite parks with two of my favourite rides. Apocalyspe is one of those and I got to ride it when it first opened (on sit down, not big enough for stand up at that time) with it being my first drop tower. Back then I remember this amazing, atmospheric, ominous soundtrack, like the intro from the Omen almost! It was incredible and really built on atmosphere and anticipation, and yeah...never been so scared on a ride in my life, it still is quite a daunting ride!
However, returning not long after original opening on a school trip I was greeted by radio stations...
so I have two questions, and it would be awesome if anyone knew!
1) Has anyone got this soundtrack somewhere?
2) Any reason they stopped playing it? All I could think of was sponsorship (remember it being sponsored by BRMB) but other than that cant think why.
I thought I'd start a new topic for the Park whilst it's a new year and all. It's a park I personally love.
My First theme park visit of any sort the year is coming on opening day at DMP this Saturday. Most of the park will be shut (thrill rides) but I have a near two year old son who is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine and all of Thomas land plus a bit more will be open. First stay in the Drayton Manor Hotel too (night before) which should be fun.
Hopefully going to try and fit in at least 3 more visits throughout the year as well. One in the summer, one for fireworks and then a Xmas visit which we planned on doing this past xmas but never got around to it sadly.
Now they have the Hotel in place (really looking forward to this) and the extension to Thomas Land, the park is going from strength to strength. Air Race definitely a fun addition too. Is there a better line up of flat rides in the UK? I don't think there is.
Just need that new world class modern coaster now which will take the park to the next level. Shockwave is iconic and still fun but the park does need some fresh steel or maybe even wood. Hopefully over next few years we will see something arrive.
It really is a charming little park and Pirates Adventure is enough reason for me to visit though to be honest. I'm it's biggest fan. Hahaha
NemesisNosh wrote:I thought Pirate Adventure was still 'under refurbishment'.
Yeah it still is I believe. Their website says they "hope to have it back running as soon as possible" though, so fingers crossed for sometime this season.
What I heard is that the Pirate Adventure failed H&S. Colin put cash towards upgrading it for it's 25th birthday but the budget went missing so the ride had to stay shut all season.
They also adding a couple of more rides to Thomasland for this season.
Be an awful shame if that's true then. I'd heard rumors too but not seen anything official.
In saying that.....DMP have just had their best ever year financially (2015) so hopefully they can find some money to get it working this season. They obviously wont just give up on it as It's a brilliant family attraction.
Anybody know if there will be any new attractions for this year I have just recently asked them on Facebook and got a reply saying keep an eye out on the website for new information. I also did hear last year that the farmer mccols farm was being done up or re theme ?
In the new area of Thomasland there still room for a couple more rides. I looked behind some fences and there was ride footers already in place last Nov.
Wouldn't surprise me in slightest if they're looking at the next phase of TL already and the wheels are already in motion. I didn't see anything on Saturday regarding this but it's a safe presumption that they would want to continue to capitalize on the huge success it's been.
Selfishly I would prefer them to put their efforts elsewhere over the coming years.
- Get Pirate Adventure working again (hopefully this year)
- Get rid of Buffalo Coaster and get a brand new coaster no later than 2018 in it's place
- Finally do something with the old Excalibur site. Such a shame to see it go to waste.
- Serious upgrade to Wild West Shoot Out.
- Possibly remove Flying Dutchman and replace with something better
Made a long overdue visit to Drayton last week, Two things to mention, Drayton's "Mississippi show boat" that last been being laying retired for a number of years has now left the park with its foundations still visible from the lake,
Also to mention that they are constructing a "high ropes" course on the triangles, construction is in its early stages however I'm sure this will be completed for the summer
It seems that Drayton Manor are planning to expand their accommodation offering by adding 20 lodges of varying sizes, with a possible future expansion of another 20. Their application is currently awaiting a decision.
What's your opinion of the refurbished Haunting? Because when I went in, I found it quite dull and worse than it was before,
A (Not) Short Review (cuz why not)
just for reference I went 1-2 weeks after it opened,
The pre-show has been replaced and they managed to top DR-X with a genuinely enthusiastic ghost hunter (who's name I forget), telling you that you are here to look for evidence of the paranormal and also tells you to leave feedback on weather or not you think you experienced paranormal activity at the rides exit (more on that later).
Then in the hallway (which has much better lighting now), the same jumpscare from before the refurb happens except this time it's ruined by the ghost hunter telling you where to look before it happens.
The library has seen the majority of the refurb with it looking almost unrecognisable with more of a derelict abbandoned look to it and an entirely new show. The lights go out, music starts and the ghost of the Vicor seemingly not realising he is dead tells you that you shouldn't be here as there is an evil presence in the house that has trapped many before you, while a total of 6 rather underwhelming effects go off (2 of which are from before the refurb except MUCH less effective). This is a real shame as the consept of a ghost being trapped by a demon while not realising he is dead is actually a rather chilling one, but due to pure determined stupidity of design, this happens over the cause of what feels like half an hour as the Vicor vanishes for a full minute between sentence's inbetween which the lights flicker, a mirror and a chair move, and a holographic ghost stalks around the ceiling doing nothing at all untill the scene just ends, (the bouncing floor while still there is VERY under-used and easily missable).
The main problem with this scene is that due to the Vicor's speech being peppered inbetween huge gaps of nothing, it is very dis-jointed and honestly just feels like it's there to fill time rather than entertain and is honestly a bit boring.
The main ride remains largely unchanged apart from different music and more holographic ghosts. The music is more slow and methodical but the ride sequence remains the same resulting in this odd disconnect with the ride and the music, for example, through out the ride the music will sound like it's building to a climax then just go back down to the slow methodical tone resulting in it feeling like it was supposed to end, but kept going, after 3 or 4 fake climaxes, it finally goes into the real climax (which, by this point, had lost any effect as I was expecting it to keep going), at which point the light goes out and...nothing happens. Before the refurb, this is where bats would be flying around from the open coffin, triggering air cannons in the back of the seats, but nothing happens. The coffin doesn't open, the air cannons didn't go off, you just sit there in darkness for a bit then the doors open and you leave as the ghost hunter reminds you about the "feedback"
So, as you exit the house there is a green button and a red one, you're supposed to press the green button if you experianced ghostly goings on, or the red button if you didn't, but when I pressed the button, it seemed to have no effect on the score board, so maybe it wasn't working. Now the 1st time I went through the attraction, I sat down in the main ride room and after staff members left, the exit door opened then closed again to give the effect of something entering the room, which to be fair, was quite creepy but it was only on my 2nd where it didn't happen that I realised that it was the Paranormal activity I was supposed to look out for, which begs the question..why?...how in a ride with holographic ghosts am I supposed to tell the difference between the fake ghostly activity and the real ghostly activity?
While the refurb has better effects and is less silly, the fact still remains that the pre-refurb Haunting was more fun, more scary and just better. My main issues with the old one was that it was hard to make out what was being said in the library, the rides climax could have been stronger and the attraction, as a whole, just needed more jumpscares and just genrally needed to be a bit scarier, instead they tried to fix all the things which wasn't an issue, making the true issues stick out that much more.
I believe the refurbishment of The Haunted was well overdue as the ride was looking very tired and outdated for many years. I like the added theming that's been placed in the queue line. The ride itself does feel like it's been made more "family friendly".
It looks a bit like Sky Walk at Tayto Park (the key difference being that Sky Walk was not an additional charge and was a free bonus). I personally like the idea of incorporating these attractions into theme parks, but I'd appreciate some theming.
Burniel | Great at theme park knowledge, not so great at designing signatures.
