We left early on a Sunday morning during the summer holidays to our children’s favourite theme park Legoland Windsor.
The excitement started when we spotted the huge letters that spell out the word ‘welcome’ as you approach the resort.
You next pass the eye catching Legoland Hotel. We hope to visit here on our next visit but as we decided to go to Legoland last minute there was no availability.
On entrance to the car park there is a choice or parking, £5 for Standard parking and £12 for priority parking. We have always chosen standard parking as if you arrive close to opening time there are normally spaces close to the entrance.
We scanned our tickets at the entrance and walked straight in. There are many staff to assist at the barriers.
The park is split into different sections. The entrance is located at “The Beginning” where the Big Lego shop is situated, along with Q-Bot offices, Guest Services, toilets, Hill top café and Lego Star Wars displays.
Depending on which route you take down into Legoland you may find some very cool ways to get from top to bottom. Legoland have installed slides which the girls loved and is much more fun than going down steps.
The toilets were very busy here so to not waste time walk to your chosen ride and find the toilets located there as these tend to be quieter.
As the children are getting a bit bigger now, we decided not to visit Miniland first but to venture to Land of the Vikings first to jump on Longboat invader and Spinning Spider.
My youngest daughter enjoyed the spinning spider ride on our last visit when she was 4 and it was her first choice today. If you visit this side of the park first it seems to be quieter and you can jump on the rides with little or no queues.
The girls loved spinning the cart making their mummy and daddy a bit giddy!
The girls remembered the fun they had on the Longboat encounter ride last time and were trying to trick their daddy saying that it’s a baby ride and that it didn’t spin very fast. They thought it was so funny when they saw his face when the ride started.
The next ride was my eldest daughter’s favourite The Dragons, located in Nexo Knights Kingdom.
You travel through the castle bypassing Merlin and then venture on a mini roller coaster which my daughter screamed with laughter.
My youngest daughter was brave today and she enjoyed this ride too. We also enjoyed Knights’ Quest another spinning carousel ride .
The girls also had a great time on a smaller mini coaster the Dragon’s Apprentice.
We also enjoyed a meet and greet with a Lego Knight and the girls loved spotting the characters made out of Lego throughout the park.
Another favourite and a ride that usually has little or no queue is Desert Chase and is a favourite of our youngest.
However we next made the mistake of queuing to ride Laser Raiders which we had heard great things about. There was no notice outside of the ride advising of the wait time, or no air conditioning throughout the waiting area so it was a really uncomfortable wait. To makes things worse the ride had broken down and we were stuck midway through a queue that was now over 90 minutes long!
Legoland have introduced a Kids zone in the waiting area for Laser Raiders where the children could sit down and watch a Lego film and the parents could pick up their children at the ride entrance. My eldest daughter decided to stay here but as the queue was so long and we were hidden from her view and she got very distressed in the dark and was completely traumatised.
When we did eventually got to ride Laser Riders I must admit we were all disappointed . The scoring system on our vehicle was faulty and kept resetting itself so by the end of the ride the points were back at zero. We advised a staff member who let us ride again but this happened again, so not a great first impression of Laser Riders.
As we were reviewing Legoland for this article and due to the fact that we had lost an hour and a half of our day my husband contacted Legoland who gave us instant ride access VIP bands to enable us to try to see as much of the park as possible.
Because of the distress our daughter was in after the queuing incident at Laser Riders the girls both received a goody bag. In the goody bag was a mini box of Lego, a t-shirt, Lego drinks cup, Lanyard neck chains with different iconic Lego Friends collector pop badges and other Lego products.
The girls really enjoyed wearing the Lanyards and felt special showing their VIP wrist bands to quickly access the rides.
We took advantage of our VIP pass and had fun on the SQUID Surfer ride, spinning around in the water with water exploding behind you. We were a little wet but it was a good fun ride.
We have never been able to go on this ride before because of the big queues but it was great to try it today!
We had lunch at The Burger Kitchen, the girls enjoyed their kids meals of burger/chicken tenders, drink, chips, fruit bag and a Lego pop badge for £5.95 per meal which I thought was good value.
If you download the Legoland app it is free and there are special offers. On the day we visited some of the offers were kids eat free after 3pm with each adult meal purchased at Pirate Burger Kitchen, City Walk Pizza and Pasta, Farmer Joes Chicken Company or Knights Tale Chicken Rotisserie. We ate at The Burger Kitchen which is not included in this offer. If you do not download the app the offer only applies after 5pm so if you have a smartphone it’s well worth downloading.
After lunch it was off to the Driving School. The girls always love testing their driving skills at the Lego City Driving School. It’s a fantastic course, with traffic lights, junctions and plenty of other vehicles to test their driving skills.
After this we went to Coastguard HQ, a fantastic ride which we all enjoyed.
You had to drive and navigate your boat around the course whilst trying to avoid other boats. My husband was shocked how well our youngest drove the boat, so good in fact that he didn’t get a chance to take control.
We also loved the craziness of Fire Academy, it was the first time we have been able to go on this ride.
After a quick introduction from the Legoland attendant you had to race to your fire engine and then pump the lever to move the fire engine to the building that was on fire. You then had to jump out and pump the water so the girls could put out the pretend flames. It was a great ride for family teamwork!
We also enjoyed Balloon School. You had to pull the rope to make the hot air balloon rise and you had some great views over the park.
As the girls are massive Lego Friends fans we loved the Heartlake City.
Firstly we explored Olivia’s House. Inside there is a Heartlake City made out of Lego and you can use an I-Pad to view the city in an interactive game. However apart from this I was a little disappointed with it, I think Legoland could do a lot more in here to make it even more interactive and interesting for children.
The girls were so excited to have a chat and their photographs taken with the Lego Friends characters at the Meet and Greet.
We then got to watch them live in the Lego Friends to the Rescue Show, which the girls really enjoyed singing and dancing along to. They are big Lego friends fans and it made their little day seeing these characters on stage and meeting them.
My eldest daughter loved the new Mia’s Riding Adventure ride. It was a fast spinning ride that moved from side to side and went really high but was fantastic fun, and this is a really great addition to the Legoland park.
My youngest daughter was too small to ride and also too scared but there is a section outside the ride where you can wait and build Lego creations.
We wanted to experience the water rides and headed straight to Viking’s River Splash. We enjoyed the twists and turns and big splashes on this fast river ride and the unexpected squirts of water as people on the side soaked us with water guns.
We also enjoyed the Raft Racers ride. This is a very fast two person dingy ride. You are lifted up and shot down a waterslide. It was lots of fun but be warned you will get a completely soaked bottom on this ride and remember keep your mobile phone safe.
As it was getting later in the afternoon the children were nagging to visit the Duplo Valley Splash and Play. The end of the Raft Racers ride takes you straight here. The girls loved spending time at Splash Safari and Drench Towers.
We brought our own swimwear with us and you can purchase Legoland towels in the shop as a souvenir. We had brought the Legoland towels we had purchased on our last visit.
We dried off, and had a quick play in Brickville playpark then headed for Duplo Valley Airport which is a great ride for younger children.
Just before the rides closed we went on Fairytale Brook for a fun filled Fairy Tale relaxing boat ride. This is a very nice for younger children where they can guess which story the characters are from.
We also had time to bypass the long queue at Sky Rider for a bird’s eye view over Imagination Centre and Miniland.
During our visit there were lots of meet and greet opportunities and they loved meeting the Legoblock.
With only a short time before the park closed we had a walk around Miniland a Legoland version of the world made cleverly out of Lego blocks. It was surprising how many landmarks the girls could identify, and they had great fun doing so.
The girls were a little cold from their fun time in Duplo Valley so enjoyed a warming cup of Starbucks tea and fabulous chocolate brownie cookie from the Hill Top Café.
There was a big queue at the car park ticket machine as you need to have a ticket to leave the car park. I managed to pay for my car parking at Guest Services where there was no queue.
As we tried to leave the car park it was so disorganised and busy and we were stuck for over an hour trying to leave the car park.
Every car was trying to leave and it was complete gridlock. There needs to be a revised look at how the exit can be faster moving and there were no Legoland staff directing traffic so it was very chaotic. At the exit all the barriers ended up being lifted so that the cars could get through. We have never stayed until closing time before and you can see why it would be beneficial to stay at the Legoland Hotel.
We would love to be welcomed back to Legoland to stay in the Legoland Hotel to review this experience.
It was a very busy day and after the trouble we had encountered at Laser Riders, Legoland told us that they wanted to turn our frowns upside down into a smile and the girls did have smiles on their faces in the end, and had a fantastic day.
