“Join Thomas & Friends as they embark on a legendary movie adventure! The steam team’s quest begins when a special guest arrives on Sodor with a big surprise and important jobs for Thomas, Percy and James. The engines meet new friends and discover suits of armour, coats of arms and legends of long-ago heroes. Then their bravery is put to the test when their new friend Stephen goes missing. Will Thomas find him in time? Will the engines discover the truth about the Island of Sodor’s biggest mystery? It’s a crusade of knightly proportions for Thomas & Friends in this epic movie!”
During the last week of the summer holidays we were invited to spend the day at Thomas Land, Drayton Manor for an exclusive screening of the new Thomas and Friends movie, King of the Railway.
If you cast your mind back you may remember we first saw Thomas and Friends Blue Mountain Mystery at Drayton Manor was a big hit with the tiddlers although they weren’t so keen on the 4D cinema experience, in particular the part where they were sprayed with water. As soon as we arrived at Drayton Manor again, they said “are we going to get squirted again?”. I had to laugh as we went to find our seats, they each began planning what they would do and where they would move to if any ‘water scenes’ came on. In actual fact there was only one such scene and the only ones who got a little wet were Beanie Boy and my cousin M. Little Bean had dropped to the floor just in time and I managed to get my foot up in time to displace the water so that it didn’t spray on Jelly Bean who was enjoying his afternoon feed.
Once the film was over we were free to enjoy the rest of the day at Thomas Land and Drayton Manor, and enjoy ourselves we did!
Going on the rides with the children is usually Daddy’s job but since he was at work, it was down to me. As you can see, perhaps I was having a little ‘too’ much fun!
I did managed to convince M to take the tiddlers on a couple of rides but only if they stayed on one level. It was nice that we were able to take Jelly Bean on some of the rides too so that he didn’t spend his whole day in a pushchair. That said, you can’t actually see him on any of the photographs.
I am NOT a fan of the Carousel, but the tiddlers are and sometimes a Mummy’s gotta do, what a Mummy’s gotta do!! At least they enjoyed themselves and they thought that Mummy was amazing.
Once the children had been on the rides they wanted to go to the other end of Drayton Manor to see the Dinosaur Trail. The idea was that we would get the Thomas railway but at that moment Jelly Bean fell asleep and I was told that I would need to take him out of his pushchair. Not wanting to wake him up I walked whilst the tiddlers travelled with M on the railway. Literally the second that I arrived at the station at the other end Jelly Bean woke up – the little tinker!
I was sooooo proud of Little Bean as we walked around the Dino Trail. At school they did a project on Dinosaurs which Little Bean loved so as we walked around the trail she asked me to ask her the questions on the board. She managed to get all of the questions right apart from two which were about ‘fish eating dinosaurs’ and I have to say, I didn’t know the answers to them either as I had never heard of their variety either!!
The last time we visited the play area at Drayton Manor, Little Bean had a rather nasty accident so I was a little apprehensive about her going in again and to begin with so was she. As you can see from these pictures though, she soon got into the swing of things and had a blast.
We finished off our trip to Drayton Manor with a gentle walk around the Zoo which the children loved. I’m not usually a ‘cat’ person but honestly I could stand an look at the Black Leopards all day long they are sooooo beautiful. Because it was a hot day many of the animals were hiding or sleeping but we had fun looking for them nonetheless.
The tiddlers really loved the birds which surprised me, they thought they were “so bright and beautiful” and they were right. They thought it was really funny when the red Parrot said “hello” to them and then tipped his head upside down.
Jelly Bean finished off his trip to Thomas Land with his first taste of Ice Cream, he was such a fan he got extremely cross with Mummy when I took it away and began growling at me. He could have had his own cage in the zoo he was that scary!!
We had a thoroughly enjoyable day at Drayton Manor and Thomas Land and it was the perfect end to our Summer Holidays.
In addition to the DVD, a large selection of brand new ‘King of the Railway’ tie-in products, including engines, playsets and books, will soon be available at retail based on this engaging new story.
THOMAS ONLINE:
Follow Thomas’ engine escapades on the Thomas & Friends website: http://www.thomasandfriends.com/uk/Thomas.mvc/Home.
You can also keep track of all the latest Thomas news on Facebook and Twitter:
https://en-gb.facebook.com/ThomasandFriendsUK
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DISCLAIMER: We were given free entry to the Theme Park as well as goody bags and a contribution to our travel expenses for the purpose of this post. All words, images and opinions are my own and may not be copied without my permission. I have not been instructed what to write.