Drayton Manor Resort — Attraction in Lichfield

I emailed twice but never got a reply. We’ve just returned from an overnight stay. We arrived midday and picked up our tickets from reception. The lady was very helpful and said to come and collect our key when we get back from our afternoon at the park. We were staying in a Thomas room and the kids absolutely loved it. We were celebrating a birthday and decided to get a special room for a treat. We were shocked to see that you were offering opened blankets for £20 when we could have bought new ones in the park for £14!! What a con!! We arrived at the park for 10 to access the 30 minutes of rides before the gates opened to the masses. When we were let in the rides at the front of the park we’re all closed with no staff to be seen and ropes across the queues. We thought maybe we had misunderstood and maybe only Thomas world opened early, so we rushed there. When we got there it was the same. No rides were open. We found Rusty walking around and asked him why no rides were open and he said that as far as he know they opened soon when the staff for each ride arrived. It was about 10:10 and Terence driving school opened. We wanted to go on troublesome trucks so we waited by the rope at the start of the queue. There was no one to be seen and a long queue started to form behind us. It got to about 10:20 and 3 or 4 more rides started to go but still no sign of any staff at our ride. At 10:30 someone arrived and a test run was done. By 10:35 they opened the queue and let us in. This is shocking! What a waste of our time! It felt as though it was a massive con to try and get you out of their hotel early. We rushed our breakfast and left our lovely Thomas room to get there for rope drop at 10, only to be waiting by another rope for 35 minutes- which we could have just done at the entrance! This is not how you should treat your customers. Other parks that advertise early entry actually open their rides and have staff arrive on time! At lunchtime we were told they had ran out of all pasta in sodor cafe so we went to the burger cafe nearby. This was an absolute tip! Overflowing bin surrounded by brown rubbish bags, which were also all over the middle high table making it a dumping ground and unusable. We ordered 3 burger meals and waited 45 minutes for the food to come out! There was only about 3 people waiting in the restaurant so I can’t imagine what took them so long. It was like no one knew what to do and it was everyone’s first day. It is unacceptable to have to wait that long for food and not to be warned first of the wait. My final complaint is the fast pass system. We went back to the troublesome trucks to use our passes. There was about 10 people in the fast pass queue. We watched a family enter the regular queue shortly after us and then watched them get onto the roller coaster about 10 minutes before us! We were in the fast pass queue for at least 40 minutes! I understand that fast pass doesn’t grant you instant access if it is busy but it is unacceptable for the regular queue to be faster than the fast pass queue! It fraudulent to sell fast pass tickets and not ensure the fast pass queue is quicker than the regular queue!!! I even heard the lady working there with two coloured hair say “ I don’t know why people use the fast pass queue, it’s much faster in the normal queue” she was only letting in one couple in at a time from the fast pass queue. They were also very very slow at turning the coaster around between rides. No urgency and a lot of chat about irrelevant things. It took 10 minutes to load one coaster. I also understand that they have to ensure the coaster is safe and they can’t rush this, but this wasn’t the case and they were trying to sort out how they were going to put the closed rope up 5 minutes before 5pm. It was just an unorganised shambles. 35 minutes late opening but 5 minutes early closing and priority to the regular queue! I hope you can understand my frustration and can help offer a solution to amend this for the upset it had to my holiday. Many thanks and look forward to...

Came here for a stay&play for 2 days. We had a Thomas themed room with breakfast and 2 day park tickets for £432.

DMR was easy to find, parking was easy as well, you entered the hotel and it was full of Thomas themed stuff which the children loved. The reception staff were brilliant & friendly very helpful, nothing isn't too much for them, my son received a birthday card and stickers for the park so other staff knew it was his birthday and all through the park happy birthday was said and he was engaged with which he loved, the gentleman on reception with very very blue eyes probably needs a pay rise as he was amazing. The Thomas themed room. It was clean, spacious, had 4 tvs in the room one for the parents-this one has channels, one on each bunk bed and one on a little desk that you could attach a console to if you wanted, the childrens tvs do not have signal but dvds which can be hired from receptions for a £5 deposit which is returned when hand them back to reception, if you don't bring them back to reception then you are charge for them. The Bathroom was clean, had 4 huge towels, a hand towel and usual soaps etc, they even offer a service of "if you forgotten anything they can help" this is anything from sanity products to extra flannels.

The rooms come with a Thomas themes activity pack with a drayton manor bear and arefill bottle for the kids, plus the usual in room beverages, plus air dryer iron/board.

We did use the shower/bath facilities and they were great my only complaint is the shower screen isn't long enough or high enough as water went everywhere but a quick wiped up is nothing much to do.

You are allowed to order food the premises and the reception staff will provide you with plates/cutlery etc and ring you when it has arrived, this is through the hotel phone, you can call other rooms if you are with another party. You can also order your breakfasts the night before through a card you hang on the door as long its out by 1am it is then delivered to your room. if your staying more than 1 night and don't request a room clean then you can recieve a free pint at the bar through reception again only if you put the door hang tag out by 1am the night before. The restaurant. We did only have the breakfast here, and it was lovely, a continental selection of:- Sausage, bacon, mushroom, hash browns Whole tomotos(not tinned),;br wn/white bread/toast, 2 different butter spread plus jams/chocolate spreads, scrambled egg-i believe you can ask for poua ed from the staff. Also available is selection of fruits, hams, cheese, pastry, cereals and pancakes and drinks where oranges juice, apple or tropical plus the usual hot drinks.

Again the staff were really friendly, Cleared the table when you finished and wanted to collect more.

We did look at the evening menu the night before, and it looked like a good selection but a bit on the pricey side, but that is usual, i think, for hotels.

Now on to the park. We went for the Thomas land part, honestly I wasn't expecting the kids to be able to go on anything other than that of Thomas land but I was wrong my my son is 1.00m my nephew is 1.2m in the height scale which ment they could go on lot of the rides, Huge ride selection, and some have renamed over the past few months for what I understand. Again staff where friendly, yes there were queues, which was not that bad longest we waited was 15 minutes, You can purchase a fast track band -we didn't bother on this occasion, you can also purchase a photo pass for all your photos as that can end up being pricey.

The Thomas train takes about 10 minutes and takes you around the back of the zoo, which you can get off and explore that area, it had a cafe and a play area the train will also take you back to thomas land and the little ones love it. There is another train that takes around the back of the adventure cove, and this takes about 15 minutes.

My only complaint about the rides is not as disabled friendly/accessible as they could be rides doors are small or narrow, a lot won't fit a bigger...

Went today with child's class from school. Even though there were loads of other coaches with school kids there was no wait to park or enter the park. We arrived at 10:30 at what seemed like the same time as 100's of other kids. The nearest ride we found was the pirate ship and literally no queue so after 10 minutes we were on and it was one of the kids favourite rides of the day. They wanted to go on the accelerator after but there was an hour wait so we headed to some small rides that had no queues. Sheriff's showdown and one next to it which I can only describe as similar to the waltzers but you spin yourself. The kids really couldn't walk straight after that! By the time they had done that there was only a 15 minute wait for the accelerator so we waited and it was fantastic. The only disappointment was the length of the ride was really short. After that we headed to the Viking area and got in line for Thor but unfortunately it had technical difficulties so we lined up for Loki. It only took about 20 minutes of waiting until the finally got on. Half the kids were strapped in and sent up in the air so the others could get strapped in. It was at this point they had technical difficulties with the seatbelt or harness. They tried swapping people into different seats and after about 20 minutes of trying they got everyone at the bottom off the ride but the other kids were still at the top. After another 5-10 minutes those at the top made it down and all kids on the ride were give fast passes for a ride of their choice. We decided this would be a good time to stop for lunch and there were plenty of benches and picnic tables to chose from. Luckily we had taken packed lunches, it was £3.50 for a small bottle of Fanta so I dread to think what the food prices were like. The kids wanted to eat at the picnic table next to maelstrom. This ride made my stomach turn just looking at it and I was worried sat on the benches when the ride started as it seemed to come right over us. I had images of being hit with shoes or vomit 🤮. It can't of been that bad as the kids went on about 3 times. I think the longest we queued was about 40 minutes for stormforce. It probably would have been faster if people didn't keep skipping the queue and there were delays as school children were trying to ride without a teacher and lying about being part of a school trip! This obviously caused delays while tickets were checked and teachers were found. This ride was also delayed due to technical issues but was rectified in about 10 minutes. The ride itself was really good, but unless you want to be wet for the rest of the day I would advise waterproofs top and bottom or take spare clothes and even shoes! It was like a wave hit me straight in the face and there wasn't a piece of me that wasn't wet! I paid £4 in the stand up dryers but they did nothing so I don't recommend them. The hand dryer in the toilet is more powerful! We decided to use the fast track passes on the wave as there was quite a an queue. I always knew it as shockwave and was disappointed it wasn't stand up anymore but it did mean the reduced hight restriction allowed the smaller kids to go on it and judging by their faces they loved it. If you can go in the week during term time I highly recommend it and if you do have to buy drinks you can buy the refill cups which would save you a fortune. They also do these for hot drinks at about £7. Considering it was £3.20 for 1 small coffee you'd soon have drunk your...