Legotastic summer fun (Legoland Windsor)

Member Name: Shellywelly

Product:	Legoland Windsor
Date:	30/08/09 (90 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything!

Disadvantages: The cost which is a lot if you have a large family but still worth it!

We were looking for a good value short break within the UK for 4 adults and 2 children, both aged 6, when we stumbled upon a deal with Legoland Windsor. We stayed in a luxury apartment for 3 nights, Tue - Fri, 1 day Legoland tickets including Q-bot for £495.00. This did however include a NHS discount and the regular price was around £550. I found this price very reasonable for a break in August for 6 people.

Anyway back to the park!
Legoland is based very close to Windsor and is within easy reach of the M4, M3 and M25, so it's a great location that is easy to get to. It is also close to ascot and about 10 miles from Bracknell which is much cheaper if you are looking for somewhere to stay.

As you arrive into the car park the first one you come to is priority parking, this parking is charged at £5 per car, but if you arrive before opening time of the park you should be able to get a reasonably close parking space for free.

As you approach the park there are ticket booths to purchase tickets and turnstiles for when you have bought your ticket or for you to swipe your e-tickets. The Lego team members are on hand to offer help here and we found them very helpful.
In August Legoland is open from 10am - 7pm, the hours are reduced at different times of the year. We arrived at 9:50 and the park was already open.

Our Legoland tickets were included in our holiday deal, however the standard price is £37 per adult and £28 per child/senior. There are often reduced price tickets through the website and in the summer you tend to be able to get 2 for 1 vouchers. I believe you may also be able to use Tesco club card deals vouchers for this attraction.

As you go through the turnstiles you arrive at the area named 'the beginning' very aptly named as you are at the beginning of the park. This area is where the Lego big shop is based, full of everything you could want to do with Lego!

You will also find toilets and lockers in this area. We found the toilets were well maintained which was great given the high level of visitors that day. The lockers were £1 and non-refundable, the lockers did go quickly in this area so I would recommend to head straight for them when you enter the park. If however these have all gone there are more lockers in Duplo land and at the Imagination centre.

The Q-bot centre is also based at 'the beginning', this turned out to be the longest queue we had to wait in all day but saved us hours of queuing later. Those that are wondering what I am going on about, a Q-bot is a virtual queuing system. The basic instructions are you select your ride using the key pad, it offers you a ride time and you confirm if you want to reserve your place in the queue for that particular time. Please bear in mind that you are unable to virtual queue for anything else at the same time. Therefore 2 of your party can not virtual queue for one ride while 2 others queue for another. The Q-bot costs £10 per person and up to 6 people can ride on 1 Q-bot. You are also required to leave your card details to enable them to charge a £50 refundable deposit.

Guest services is next to the q-bot station and while you are waiting in line it's a good idea to send a member of your party to obtain some lost parent stickers for your little monsters to wear, these are brightly coloured stickers and you can write your mobile contact number on in case your children lose you.

Legoland is set in 10 main areas. These are Adventure land, Duplo land, Lego city, Traffic, Mini land, Imagination centre, Kingdom of the pharaohs, Wildwoods, Knights Kingdom and Land of the Vikings. I'll tell you about all our favourite bits in each area. Unfortunately due to time restrictions (you really need 2 full days to do everything here!) we did not go to Adventure land, Knights kingdom or Wild woods.

Duplo land

Duplo land in my opinion is most suited for children age 7 and under. Duplo land houses the chopper squadron, which is a helicopter ride (similar to dumbo ride) this is quite a fun and daring ride for younger children. Fairytale brook is a gentle boat ride around a fairytale wood, here you see all the familiar characters made out of lego, such as Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, this ride is shaded under trees so lovely to get out of the sun on a hot day.
Our favourite bit of Duplo land was the waterworks. This is a fountain play area for children, do take swimwear or a change of clothes as they will get very wet! This is ideal to cool the kids down on a hot day and gives you chance for a rest! Beware you will almost likely get wet too when you try and get your kids to leave this attraction, I tried to dodge the fountains and thought I had successfully done so but just as I got back to my partner a load of 'rain fall' came down from the tower and I was drenched!! Just along from the waterworks is play town, it is a play area but just that bit more special with play equipment and climbing frames that you would not find in ordinary parks.

Traffic

Traffic was the area that our party favoured the most. The kids headed straight for the driving school, this is a driving track that has junctions, speed cameras and traffic lights. The children had to watch a safety video first explaining about driving rules, ie driving on left side of road, following the traffic lights and to stop at junctions. A photo is taken of your children on this ride and you can then purchase a driving licence for £5 which our children loved as its just like a grown up photo licence.

We then went on to the fire academy, you had to have a race to put of the house fire, warning don't let go of the pump to make the engine move until you have come to a standstill as I did and fell and hurt myself quite badly! The kids enjoyed this ride but for the adults its very high impact with all the pumping!

Then on to the balloon school this was hot air balloons attached to a big track and the children can pull a cord to make the balloon go higher or lower. This was a nice relaxing ride and gave us adults chance to recover after the hard work of the fire academy.

Mini land

This land was amazing it had model scenes from London, Europe and USA made out of lego bricks, given chance I could have spent hours here as the models and detail were fantastic.

Lego city

The show revenge of the Aztec queen is held here, we didn't see the show but apparently it is a stunt show where one of the characters falls off a building. Digger challenge is basically a digger and some balls and the kids have to dig the balls and try to collect the most. Easier said than done. Orient expedition is a nice little train ride that follows a track around the park, you also get to see the lego 'zoo' where all the animals are made from lego.

Imagination Centre

This is where the 4D theatre is based, We opted to watch Bob the Builder and it was amazing, we even had snow at the end of it (made of soap suds) and we got a little wet as spud spilt water on us! The skyrider was based outside the theatre and gave panoramic views of the park.


Land of the Vikings

This was the home to the Vikings river splash which was our favourite ride, we were grateful to have a Q-bot for this ride as the queue was 2 hours by the time we arrived at the ride. This was just the traditional rapids ride but we all had so much fun and our party ranged from age 6 to 68! Be warned you will get soaked on this ride!

Kingdom of the pharaohs

This is the home to the well advertised laser raiders the queue to this ride was very long and if you don't have a q-bot I would recommend heading here as soon as you enter the park or you wont get on this ride without a very long wait! In this ride you had to shoot mummies and skeletons with a laser gun to obtain points. My little boy who is usually scared of everything loved this ride but my partners usually brave niece hated it!

The thunder blazer was a swing ride which our niece found boring, much suited to younger children. The aero nomad is a smaller version of a big wheel and the desert chase is a slow carousel ride so again suitable for young children.

Eating and Drinking

Legoland have joined forces with Annabel Karmel and now offer healthier options on the menu, we however after reading some reviews of the food chose to take a picnic, therefore I am unable to give you any opinion on the food. We did however get ice cream and for the 6 of us it came to around £10, so about averagely priced for theme parks. Legoland also did a refillable drinks bottle for £4.99 which they can then take home after, in theory this is a good idea but the drinks on offer are only fizzy drinks, which as the average age of children at Legoland are of primary school age I was surprised that there was not a squash option, also these bottles were wasp magnets!
The restaurants on offer were a carvery, burger ranch, ribs, pizza, pasta and rotisserie. As well as the usual ice cream, donuts and sweets for sale.

Baby facilities

Not something I required on this occasion but when my son was little I always checked out the facilities before visiting anywhere!

Every set of toilets had baby change facilities. Pit stop café and city walk restaurant have feeding stations with microwave and bottle warmers, there is also a baby care centre in Lego city which has a private area for feeding.



I hope I have managed to give you a insight of what Legoland is all about without boring you too much! As you can tell Legoland is a big place and I recommend that you plan ahead what you wish to go on before you arrive so that you ensure you make the most of your day. Legoland is also very tiring and if you have children who are just out of pushchairs it maybe worth hiring one for the day!

Cash machines are available on site and are located near the entrance. Designated smoking areas are dotted around throughout the park and are set away from the rides which is great

All in all we had a fantastic day and we really feel that Legoland is a magical theme park, the best we have been to in Britain and I highly recommend it.

Summary: A great magical family day out