Haz
Member
indeed i poked behind the fence last year and found some of the boats was suprised to see them just abandoned this is also where the pirate adventure boats reside!
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Excalibur: A Dragon's Tale
- Thread starter Harry
- Start date
Themeparksandy1981
Member
I think they could be the boats that were taken out of commission as the good boats were all painted for the 2015 but it only operated for a few days of the season. Last I heard they were still in the maintenance area of the pirate adventure building.
Thanks for sharing. I was there that day in my early teens. Drayton were running an exclusive event which we were lucky enough to be part of. We had exclusive access to the ride after Atomic Kitten but before the public, for an hour or so.
I remember it raining that day. But during this event we had access to the indoor section of what was the teashop but is now a staff room. Where the medieval show was and a spread of food and drinks. It was a good day.
Themeparksandy1981
Member
It’s a shame there’s no pictures or videos of this show or the other show that was in the fish and chip restaurant.
I may have some somewhere, ill have to have a look. I'll be doing a archive dig on Excalibur soon. I've got some great photos of the ride under construction.
Themeparksandy1981
Member
Was it u that use to run the website UDMP?
No it was not, I was a far too young school child then. Although I did happen to be in the right place at the right time a few times on afterschool visits to the park and manage to talk my way into construction site tours of Excalibur. You could back then, being a kid sort of helped too I guess.
Themeparksandy1981
Member
I was the 2nd owner of Drayton Manor Plus after the original owner didn’t have the time with uni also. We got exclusive construction pics of Drunken Barrels, Bounty, Thomas land, 4D cinema, Hotel and Ben 10 then I had to give up on the site as didn’t have the time with work and my daughter been born in 2012.
We did lots of closed season updates.
Themeparksandy1981
Member
Something failed on the big turntable and it would have cost the owners millions to repair and it wasn’t a easy job so they decided to decommission the ride and spend the money on it becoming a indoor paid Christmas event. It was originally called the knight before Christmas. Now the looping have decided to use the building for Halloween and Christmas.
Immelmanloop
Member
Also the ride had been suffering with issues with the audio lining up, or even playing at all, and with reliability of animatronics and effects. This had lead to low customer opinion of the ride, and probaby contributed to teh decision not to renovate it.
Definitely remember this.
The audio would cut out and just not play in places.
The effects, always remember there were problems with the water curtain and the dragons in the lair (poor dragon last time I was on the ride didn't move at all)
Would love a ride like Excalibur back in the park but the work required to make the area workable again would be crazy
It was also natural land if I remember right... So the ground is a bit swampy
Themeparksandy1981
Member
They really should have themed the boats used on the jungle cruise and they still could have themed it to include knights and dragons. The sound could have been positioned around the scenes.
How different were the boats from the two rides?
Very different. Not to mention, the Jungle Cruise boats were driven by a member of staff at the back using an outboard engine. Where as Excalibur's were pulled around the ride using an underwater rope which was powered from the rotating station platform.
Themeparksandy1981
Member
1 of the original jungle cruise boats is still sitting round the rapids area painted Blue. They had 4 motorist boats but only ever used 3 at most at any 1 time.
The tow rope system after they sorted out the problems in the opening season worked well but been out in the open and been a maintenance headache. It was such a waste of money and hopefully in the next 5 year plan 2027 to 2032 we will see this area reused.
The tow rope system after they sorted out the problems in the opening season worked well but been out in the open and been a maintenance headache. It was such a waste of money and hopefully in the next 5 year plan 2027 to 2032 we will see this area reused.
Themeparksandy1981
Member
The boats still haven’t been moved
