Thomasland

Since just before March the trailers have been on children's TV - 'come to Thomasland at Drayton Manor park'. Originally they said 'for Easter' which led to Luke saying 'we need to go to Thomasland' everytime Easter was mentioned 'because it said so' (I've also been urged to buy CillitBang in the supermarket for the same reason).



We discovered that children under 4 are free and then bought a 2 for the price of 1 token on eBay so when we finally succumbed in mid-June we got in as cheaply as we possibly could (it still cost us nearly £30).



When the day dawned it was very rainy and we packed up waterproofs as well as the suncream. The high entry price made me think it would be as slick and commercial as Alton Towers but we were pleasantly suprised to find that it wasn't on such a grand and imposing scale. Thomasland lived up to all of Luke's expectations but he initially refused to go on any rides - we had an inkling that this would be the case after our Disneyland trip in February and had streesed that rides would have to be at least attempted. So we boarded Clarabel, being pulled by Thomas, and travelled to the other end of the park where we found the Zoo and the best outdoor play area I've ever seen. There were wooden huts, bridges, cars and slides of all descriptions a sand play area and musical instruments to bash - we could have stayed there all day but it was threatening to rain again. We opted for a walk back to the rides through the zoo - with Lee and I bigging up the Thomas rides as we went. One thing I noted was that all the 'feed the animals' and 'meet the keeper' events seemed to be in the afternoon. Luke soon got bored with looking at the animals and got more excited as we headed back to the park. We persuaded him to go on the ferris wheel so that we could 'see Thomas' and get our bearings - he had no qualms about this as he'd been on one before 'when auntie Kay was scared and nanny looked really small on the ground'. We were then finally ready to tackle the rides of Thomasland.



Our first worry was that for most of the rides children had to be a metre tall - we needn't have worried as when we measured him he was 110cm! No wonder he's grown out of all his age 3-4 clothes. The first thing he wanted to go on was Trevor the Traction Engine - parents weren't allowed on. His concentration as he went round corners was a picture and the men running the ride were amazed that he wasn't yet 4. I'm not sure how we managed it but the next ride was the troublesome trucks - a rollercoaster! - we hadn't watched it beforehand so we didn't realise that it went around twice. I pity the people in the queue as he screamed 'no, no not again! I want to get off!'. We struggled to find somewhere for lunch - tough we didn't know about the self-serve resturant up the hill. The first we came accross advertised pizza slices and jacket potatoes on the outside menu but only sold burgers inside, we then found one that only sold pizza (which is what Luke wanted) - this scared Luke as the seating area was done out as a rainforest and all the 'animals' made loud noises but it was raining outside so we had to stay.