in thinking why would sixth formers want to go into Thomas land??

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Went to drayton manor today with DS who's 4, literally thousands of school kids on school trips. Thomas land had staff on the gate and a sign saying 11-17 year old were only allowed in if they had an adult over 18 with them. There was a group of primary school kids in there with their teachers but the rest of the school kids seemed to stay in the main park.

There was a group of teenagers arguing with the staff on the Thomas land gate and getting in the way of everyone trying to get in and out. Their arguement was that they were in the upper 6th form and 18 and should be allowed in but the staff still wouldn't let them in. Couldn't understand why they would want to go in so much they would stand there arguing about it, all the rides are for little kids, i certainly wouldn't go in there if i went without DS.

Because they've paid adult prices to use the whole park and want their money's worth.

Dh and I went to Disneyland Paris when we were 18. We went on every single ride we could find. Ditto Alton towers a few years later.

yeah but they don't pay adult prices on a school trip they get it really cheap

It's kind of fashionable, retro-cool. They were the ones who were Thomas mad originally 14 yrs ago.

Some of the Thomas rides are quite exhilarating even for adults (cranky crane made me cry) and the queues would be massive for everything else.

If they were on a school trip then they should have had an adult with them in which case they shouldn't have had a problem getting in according to your op, and as some of them were upper sixth then they will already have left school. So they probably paid full price.

I'm 34 and it was my generation that was originally Thomas mad in the 80s! And the books are very old.

The troublesome trucks roller coaster is really good.

For a bit of a laugh, because they used to love Thomas so much.

My step son went Peppa pig land at Paultons park at college (same level as sixth form ) was something to do with his business course.

Maybe they had younger siblings and wanted to get them a gift in the Thomasland shop, or they wanted to go on the Troublesome trucks (which is actually quite good fun) or they wanted to get the train to the other end of the park because their legs were tired. Who knows, but if they've paid for a full price ticket, then they're within their rights to want yo go in there

Pourquoi> Most of the kids on school trips were going round in small group rather than actually with an adult although i supposed that had a supervising adult somewhere in park that they could have gone and got if they were that desperate. (kids weren't allowed on the cable cars without an adult either and saw quite a few teachers going back and forth on those). They hadn't paid full price as they had school tickets and thats why they were trying to argue they were 6th form at school, TBH they looked younger than that anyway so may have just been trying it on.

I'm 20 and was obsessed with Thomas when I was little, so was my cousin. I think if you put us somewhere with Thomas Land, you'd struggle to keep us out

(Obviously we wouldn't ruin things for the smaller children)

I want to go to Thomas Land and I'm in my 20s. Thomas is awesome.

I went a few weeks ago and enjoyed all of the rides in there. OK I was with a 3&5 year old but I really like the troublesome trucks, and the helicopter ride. I wonder if having the kids was just an excuse...

I'm rising 43.

That makes more sense then. Still don't think they should automatically restrict access to the park just because they're teenagers though. If they cause trouble then fair enough of course.

It was probably just to be silly...getting selfies with the fat controller would have been a larf right?

Thomas is older than those teenagers. I used to watch it in the early 80s - I'm 34!

I was at Drayton manor today with our year 6 children. I know one group went into Thomas land (perhaps the ones you saw) because they didn't like the big scary rides. The queues on all the big rides were absolutely horrible though. 4 rides in a whole day, ridiculous! I could also rant about how they hide the majority of the queue in buildings / round corners so that you cant gauge how long it might take. Never again for a school trip.
Anyways, I agree, the 6th formers should stick to the bigger rides. They should also stop pushing ahead of younger kids.

Saltakatten>> it was really busy with school kids today wasn't it, there was a warning on the website last night and i was in two minds about going and the fact that thomasland was restricted was only reason we actually decided still to go. I was talking to a teacher on the cable cars and they said they had brought 11 coaches from their school, over 500 kids!! That was just one school.

Was your school the one with the burgendy coloured shorts?? I also saw a few of the kids with t-shirts with 'class of 2014' and all the names on the back.

Do some people on this thread really thing sixth formers are supervised by teachers all the time on school trips? That a teacher should have followed them around the park?

My kids got left to navigate major European cities alone by their sixth form in their free time - on the expectation that they got where they needed to be on time for the activities they had booked to attend!

This is honestly standard practice, I've found.

Mine were in regular clothes, we brought 36 11 year olds and walked around with them in small groups. We didn't think they were sensible enough to go around on their own =)

By some people I take it you mean me?

I've never been on a school trip to a theme park, so I don't know what happens on them and yes I assumed there would be supervision.

I went to Paris with my sixth form we were supervised all the time so I assumed supervision was standard practice, not the other way around.