This week sees the opening of Gold Rush, a new family thrill coaster at Drayton Manor Resort! Attraction Source were fortunate to be invited to the Launch Event on the evening of Wednesday 24th July, ahead of the public opening day on Friday 26th July.
The event began at 5:30pm with guests gathering outside of Frontier Falls, the newly overhauled area of which Gold Rush is the headline attraction. A variety of western-themed entertainment was presented upon the resort’s main stage including two alternating country music bands, alongside a variety of roaming actors who brought the park to life throughout the evening.
Elsewhere, we were treated to a variety of Tex-Mex style food and whiskey-based cocktails as the excitement built for the imminent opening of the coaster. Following a full 90 minutes of entertainment and dining, Victoria Lynn, Managing Director of Drayton Manor Resort, took to the stage – introduced to us all as the mayor of Frontier Falls – to present an opening speech.
During the speech, Victoria emphasised how Gold Rush, and Frontier Falls, are emblematic of the intended direction of the park. The resort’s aim is to ‘make Britain smile’, and they hope to do this by offering the best family experience in the country.
Following Victoria’s speech, we were led up to the entrance to Gold Rush, the new Intamin Family Lift & Launch Coaster. Here we were held as we witnessed a dramatic showdown between the cowboy characters we’d seen throughout the evening, even leading to the intervention of two characters on horses! With everyone in attendance participating in a final countdown, it was then time to enter the queue line and ride!
Guests enter through an entrance portal which takes the form of a grand archway, adorned with a large hand-painted ride sign and crowned with a mine cart atop rails. The main queue is then off to the left, whilst guests utilising Easy Access (the resort’s accessibility programme) and Fast Pass are directed right. Before entering either queue, guests are greeted by a large theming element first seen on Shockwave in 1994, a masterful piece of recycling! Near this is a flowing water feature and the first taste of the extensive landscaping found throughout the entire queue.
When entering the main queue, guests pass under a carved wooden ‘Entrance’ sign and immediately into a mine-like enclosed queue. The dark walls are adorned with on-theme lanterns and posters (printed onto wooden panels) advertising the various merchants of Frontier Falls. On emerging from this indoor queue, guests move into the only fully outdoor section, passing through a small cattle pen and zig-zagging through the landscaped gardens surrounding the ride. The queue then moves back under shelter, with a fully open view of the ride, before moving into the main station building and up the three flights of stairs into the station. It’s noteworthy that the Easy Access line runs parallel to the main queue up these stairs, and the park has stated that this attraction is not accessible to guests in a wheelchair. The ride area has been fully landscaped, with plentiful planting, rockwork and fully grown grass creating a very pleasant environment to wait in. This is, of course, aided by being surrounded by the coaster. There are no nets in the queue, with a roofed portion of queue being created every time the queue passes underneath the track. The entire queuing experience is, in our opinion, one of the best in the country, with genuine thought given to the guest experience whilst waiting for this sure-to-be-popular attraction! A nice touch is a dedicated grave stone to Apocalypse, the Intamin drop tower that was situated in the same spot that this piece of theming is located on.
After ascending the staircase, guests are batched and enter the station. The station is well-themed throughout, with heaps of barrels, ‘gun powder’ and ‘dynamite’. Themed lighting in the shape of upturned buckets is used to illuminate the space, and the operators were even wearing waistcoats and cowboy hats. After placing any loose articles and bags in the shelves located on the opposite side of the platform, guests take their seats on board the train. There are two trains, consisting of four carriages each which in turn seat guests in three rows of two across – a train therefore has a capacity of up to 24 riders.
The trains themselves are themed to wooden mine carts, with pickaxe and headlight detailing on the front car – whether these headlights are functional remains to be seen! The trains are very comfortable, with plenty of leg room and a lap bar restraint. For guests unsure whether they’d be able to ride, a test seat, fitted with a traffic light system, is available next to the entrance of the attraction.
Upon the train being dispatched, it descends a slight drop and turn to reach the lift hill. The coaster has two settings, with the train either proceeding up and over the lift hill, or using it as a reverse spike! This leads to two unique ride experiences, also dictated by the clever switch tracks.
One of the most hotly anticipated parts of this mysterious attraction has been the launch section, located inside a barn which has been filled with theming, smoke and lighting to simulate an explosion. Combined with the excellent themed audio, this makes for a very fun show scene mid-ride, one that can be experienced in two different ways depending on the cycle.
Throughout the development of Gold Rush, the coaster has continued to surprise, and the ride experience is no different. Whether it’s the choice of cycles, unexpected lateral forces or surprising pops of airtime, the coaster surprises and delights throughout the entire – extraordinarily lengthy – ride experience. It is a fantastic family thrill coaster.
After returning to the station and disembarking the ride, guests are directed through the Gold Rush store, themed to the town’s undertaker. As well being able to purchase an on-ride photo, there is also a range of western-themed merchandise on sale including mugs, t-shirts, hoodies and keyrings. There is, however, no ride specific merchandise.
The opening of Gold Rush sees the first coaster installed at Drayton Manor since 2011, when Ben 10 – Ultimate Mission (now Accelerator), a Vekoma Family Boomerang, opened. The addition is the latest part of a multimillion-pound investment plan, that has seen the park’s line-up expand over the last few seasons under the ownership of the Looping Group. The development was first acknowledged alongside the announcement that Apocalypse, the world’s first stand-up drop tower, would close in October 2022 and then be removed over the 2022/23 closed season. The confirmation that it would be replaced by a family thrill coaster came in early 2023, with it subsequently confirmed to be an Intamin Lift and Launch Coaster ahead of the arrival ride hardware towards the end of the 2023 season. The ride was installed over the following months, along with the transformation of the surrounding area into Frontier Falls, which opened on 24th March 2024.
The coaster did suffer from some downtime during the evening of the launch event, although such teething issues are to be expected given the nature of the ride system. The park also extended the event long past its announced finish time in order to offer further rides to remaining attendees, for which we were very grateful.
Overall, we loved our rides on Gold Rush, and would say that it is definitely a contender for the most unique and enjoyable family coaster in the UK! With a minimum height restriction of 1.0m, this allows younger guests to experience what is a relatively thrilling coaster when compared to others with a similar height requirement. In addition, the coaster is beautifully presented, offering, in our opinion, the best finish of any of the major 2024 coasters on their opening day.
When do you plan to visit to ride Gold Rush? Will you be there on opening day? Be sure to let us know via our social media channels!
