When it comes to UK theme park Christmas events, I can take them or leave them. With entertainment squarely aimed at children, and a limited ride line-up targeted at the same audience, they’re very much an ‘if I’m in the area’ deal. Happily, I had a spare afternoon in the West Midlands which of course meant the opportunity to check out Drayton Manor’s highly respected Magical Christmas event. I’d heard great things about this event from previous years but had never gotten around to experiencing it for myself for previously mentioned reasons. But with a few hours to spare, the time had come to fix that. As an annual pass holder, admission to the event was free for me with an additional upcharge (£12) for the Santa’s Grotto Experience. I love this way of doing things, essentially extending the season for annual pass holders with access to the zoo and rides, whilst still ensuring the grotto experience is value for money. Nice one Drayton!
The ride line-up for Magical Christmas is pretty impressive, with not only all of Thomas Land available (this is honestly all I was expecting) but Thor, Accelerator, The Bounty, and a handful of other rides around this central area of the park. With the country’s best Disk-O coaster and its best pirate ship on offer, it’s not a bad selection for us adult enthusiasts!
Sadly this wasn’t the case on the day of my visit, with both Thor and Accelerator closed, but I’m sure you can tell from the photo that there was probably a very good reason for this – it was bloody freezing!
In fact, on walking into the park my breath was stolen away immediately upon seeing the park’s iconic lake completely frozen over – respect to The Bounty for sailing on!
With an appointment made in advance for a visit to the man of the hour, the first stop of the day was Santa’s Grotto. Initially, I was hesitant to book this for what I hope are obvious reasons given that I’m 29 years old. But that’s never stopped me doing anything silly in a theme park before, and I was visiting with the ever-wonderful Parks and Pints (who already have a video of this day up on their YouTube channel) who already had it booked, so who was I to say no?!
The Grotto experience at Drayton is more than a simple Santa meet and greet. Here, it’s a 15-minute experience spanning three different rooms with different activities. The whole thing is housed in the wonderful castle used for both the daytime entertainment and nighttime scare maze during Halloween, but it really shines at Christmas! The whole space really does feel magical, and is just the perfect setting for a festive adventure.
The first stop in the grotto was storytime with Mrs Claus, where the group was read a story – complete with actions – and had a sing-a-long. We stood at the back and had a blast joining in the fun, whilst the kids in front of us were nothing short of spellbound. It was just so lovely!
Next up, it was time to write our letters to Santa with a little help from his elves. Again, the cast here were magnificent and were lovely to the children whilst having a good amount of banter with us.
Story read, song sung and letter written, it was finally time for the main event. It was time to meet Santa Claus! I honestly thought this would be a very quick in-and-out job, but Santa was fantastic with us! He made us laugh so hard I was doubled over, whilst at the same time being so genuine that I really felt like he cared about my Christmas. It was just lovely. There was plenty of chance for photos on our phones, but of course there was an official photo too. We actually ended up buying this, paying £25 for a package that included the printed photo in a Christmassy frame, two wooden bauble photo frames and a digital download. Honestly, not that bad!
At the end of the meet Santa handed us each a special token. For kids, this token is their ticket to a brand-new toy! Unlike most Santa meets, the toy here is chosen by the child from an impressive selection at a desk on the way out of the grotto. I was so impressed with this! There were so many toys to choose from and some of them were genuinely very good, and even included characters such as minions. Much better in my opinion than a generic gift! Whilst adults are not entitled to a toy (worst luck), we do still get a token that can be exchanged for a free hot chocolate and mince pie. Not too shabby. You can even upgrade to a Baileys hot chocolate! Now we’re talking.
But we got slightly distracted on the way to find our hot chocolate, as we ended up walking past the bar and discovering mulled wine! For an attraction, it wasn’t too badly priced at just over £5 for a reasonable cup full, and given the extremely cold temperatures, it was very, very welcome. If you’re looking for festive cheer, I cannot recommend sipping hot mulled wine next to an enormous Christmas tree, looking out over the frozen Drayton lake enough. Magic!
Even armed with a hot cup of mulled wine, we were very much keen to get indoors and in the warm and thankfully Drayton had just the thing! For Magical Christmas, the 4D theatre (usually home to a Thomas film) is transformed into a live theatre with a show running every half hour all day long. This show is included in admission for all guests, and I thought it was delightful! Bearing in mind that it’s a relatively low-budget Christmas show aimed at kids, I really enjoyed what felt like a little slice of panto – it even utilized some of the theatre’s built-in effects!
The final stop on our festive itinerary lay a little deeper in the park. In fact, for the full experience, the Gingerbread Decorating Workshop was designed to be accessed by train – Thomas the Tank Engine no less! Of course, this was a very popular attraction in its own right, so we opted for the slightly less magical walk-there-yourself option. Though honestly, if I’d had any kids with me I’m not sure this would have been an option because look at Thomas! He’s so festive!
But anyway, we were content to take ourselves to the workshop, located at the very back of Drayton Manor Zoo. The gingerbread workshop is included with the grotto ticket and we had our tickets checked in order to obtain our gingerbread, I did originally think this was an attraction that was open to all guests, but honestly, with the queue that formed just from guests with grotto tickets, I can certainly see that this simply wouldn’t be feasible.
So, with our tickets scanned we were handed our gear. Between the three of us, we received three full-size gingerbread men, two full piping bags of icing, and one bag of festive sprinkles – as well as an apology for the lack of coloured icing pens. Plenty sufficient to do pretty much whatever we wanted to our little guys.
Personally, I don’t think my little guy in his jazzy festive waistcoat came out too bad either.
Mission accomplished and bellies full of gingerbread, we began our walk back to the park entrance just in time to see the sun set over the still-frozen lake as the Christmas lights came to life throughout Thomas Land and beyond.
Our very last stop was to nip into Thomas Land to pick up our hot chocolates, ready to heat us up on the drive home and I’m so very glad we did, because the Christmassy decorations in the park’s signature land were delightful, especially as the light began to fade.
In total, we were in the park for over three hours and in that time we didn’t do a single thing that wasn’t part of the Magical Christmas event. No rides, no food, nothing but festive joy. And what a three hours they were! With a reasonable ride offering and the whole zoo available to explore, there’s plenty to enjoy at Drayton Manor at Christmas. I’ll certainly be doing my best to return next year!
Speak again soon,
Claire
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coasterclaire.co.uk 