After 10 years of being standing but not operating at Drayton Manor Resort the Mack Rides boat ride Pirate Adventure has a fate to be decided in 2025, refurbish or remove.
Opening in 1990 the ride was built to compete with Disneyland Paris’s version of Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s safe to say we know the winner of that particular battle and in 2015 Pirate Adventure closed and has stood standing but not operating ever since.
The ride featured one drop and scenes include a village being tormented by pirates and a giant pirate ship with a walk-the-plank scene with multiple animatronics scattered throughout.
Over the last couple of years, there has been some movement around the site. Here’s what we know so far:
Are you team REMOVE or team REFURBISH? Here are the points for each team!
REMOVE
- It’s been standing but not operating for nearly a decade it needs to go and make space for a new development
- It wasn’t entirely that great to begin with
- Getting the building up to a modern safety standard (including sprinklers and fire doors) would be costly
- The parks 5-Year plan didn’t mention any new ride coming in 2025 or 2026
REFURBISH
- Why clear the area around the building and tidy it up if the building is being demolished?
- Why repair the roof of a building that’s set for demolition?
- The cost of demolishing the building could exceed the cost of refurbishing the ride
- IF the Mack boats are in fact being restored this could be the strongest hint of a refurbishment yet
- The ride could be modernised, updated and something rather special with the right theming
- Five-year plan wasn’t final and was always ‘subject to change’
2025 will mark 10 years of Pirate Adventure standing but not operating and now that Frontier Falls has been completed the only area of the park (outside of the zoo) that needs development is the Pirate / Excalibur area of the park.
The Looping Group loves bringing back magic to old areas but at the same time, they’re not opposed to removing very popular rides (RIP Apocalypse) so it really could go either way!
For me, there is more evidence leaning towards its return and with other work looking to be put into refurbishing / retheming The Haunting which makes sense now that it’s firmly in the western area it seems The Looping Group are pumping in some major investment again to bring the park a new lease of life.
I’m very excited to see what the future holds for Pirate Adventure at Drayton Manor. The UK needs more dark rides! Watch this space.
