There are a few extra perks when staying in a Thomas & Friends themed room at the Drayton Manor Hotel. If visiting at the weekend you will be invited to the Drayton Manor Hotel Character Breakfast. This breakfast is also available during the Staffordshire school holidays. Depending on availability, you can also book the character breakfast if staying in a standard room. This does come at an extra cost and is dependent on availability.
Our Drayton Manor Hotel Character Breakfast Experience
Upon check-in we were given an invitation to the character breakfast.
It invited us to have breakfast with Thomas and Friends. The character breakfast was going to take place in the Garden Room of the Parklands Restaurant at 8 am the following morning.
The next morning we went down to breakfast promptly for 8 am. There was a queue to enter the Garden Room but as soon at the doors opened it moved pretty quickly.
When we entered the breakfast room we confirmed our room number and they also asked if there were any birthdays in our party. This is where I had a mum fail moment as I didn’t mention that it was Little E’s birthday coming up in the week. My head was in work mode as we were visiting Thomas Land for a press event.
The Breakfast
The breakfast available during this experience is self-service buffet style. It consists of all the items typically found in a full English breakfast. You will also find cereal items, pastries, fruit,
The Whistles
On your table, you will find whistles. These are whistles for the children so that they can ‘peep, peep’ along with Thomas. This makes the character breakfast a very loud place to be, especially when all the children are blowing the whistles at the same time.
Thankfully Ethan is a seeker and coped with this noise. If your Thomas fan is noise sensitive just be aware that at times the breakfast can be a loud place to be.
The Character Experience
The character we met at the Thomas and Friends character breakfast was the Fat Controller, Sir Topham Hatt. He came into the breakfast room at about 8.30 am. This gave us enough time to enjoy our breakfast and eat without interruption. The Fat Controller then made his way around each table saying hello and telling us what was going to happen next at the breakfast.
After the Fat Controller’s introductions, he then announced the birthdays being celebrated in the room. Queue me feeling guilty for not telling them about our little lady’s birthday!
Then it was time for the dancing. Sir Topham Hatt and his assistant called the children to the front of the room and taught them the Thomas and Friends dance. It was lots of fun for the children and they danced twice to the song. Each child was awarded a Thomas and Friends activity pack for taking part.
It was soon time to say goodbye to the Fat Controller but before we did that the children collected a certificate and had their photo taken with Sir Topham Hatt.
Our Thoughts of the Drayton Manor Hotel Character Breakfast
At 8 am in the morning we did find the whistles a bit much. This was a running joke with the Fat Controller, he liked to ask the children to make lots of noise!
Little E loved the dancing and meeting, Sir Topham Hatt. She happily joined in with the dancing and having her photo taken. Ethan was more reserved and played on his iPad. I did wonder if he is perhaps getting a little old for character meals. Darren thinks he was just a little overwhelmed with the noise.
The Drayton Manor Hotel provides a lovely cooked breakfast and we all enjoyed our food.
Below is the video of our time at the Drayton Manor Hotel character breakfast…
