The UK adition to the Legoland parks (There are more in other European countries) is situated in Windsor, Greater London and is operated by Merlin Entertainments (which owns Thorpe Park and the London Eye.) The park is themed around numerous Lego sculptures and fictional characters and tends to advertise both itself and indulge high marketing of Lego products as a whole. Legoland is a theme park and tourist attraction aimed at younger families.
Before I talk about the rides at Legoland, I want to take a considerable amount of time highlighting what the park really should be honoured for, and that is themeing, so please feel free to skip this next paragraph if it is rides and attractions in general that you are interested in. It doesn't take a genius to work out that Legoland is a theme park centered around the hugely popular Lego brand and the park fully exploits this by cashing out on some rather spectacular sights for Lego fans or those who like to busy themselves looking at unique sculptures. In one part of Legoland they have obviously spent a great deal
of care creating a whole mini Lego town, ala where young children can feel like Godzilla as they peer over the hugely detailed buildings and Lego trees. And almost every bit of architect work in the park is made or features Lego in some way. Even the trains and carriages on the rides are designed to look like they were put together by an eager kid with a block of Lego bricks. Its nice to see a park that primarily concentrates on scenery instead of squeezing as many rides into one square block as possible and leaving the area battered and bare. Many UK parks suffer from this problem, and the look of many of our parks as a whole is much to be desired for. And so, in terms of visual appearance Legoland certainly is the jewel in the crown for the parks in Ol' Blighty. The park gets much credit for upping the visual charter.
The rides at Legoland are probably where that charter starts to fall downwards. Now don't get me wrong Legoland is a nice park and to a child is probably a re-incarnation of heaven, but seriously if you are over the age of 12 then just don't bother. The fact that the largest ride in the whole park is a jungle-themed Wild Mouse type coaster from Mack speaks for itself really (Thorpe Park is half an hour down the road and both Thorpe and Legoland charge about the same for ticket prices so tweens and above are better off going there.) This is quite a fun ride for the younger people in the family, and whilst not being too intense delivers a few nice head choppers to prepare for bigger rides in the future. It is also nicely themed (the cars are themed like Lego trucks with a fitted lid!) Other rides include the 'Dragon' a runaway-mine train type coaster themed as a Dragons lair. This is a nice ride for the whole family and presents some nice scenery to go with. There is an indoor section which will delight kids and the entrance is through a beautifully sculptured castlefort. Legoland also has its own traditional flume ride 'Pirate Falls' which is, as expected themed around Pirates by using Lego boats. This is another nice ride that the whole family can enjoy, but nothing particularly new or spectacular if you are already accustomed to theme parks. My personal favourite ride at Legoland is another water ride called the 'Wave Surfer' which is a fast spinning ride where it is quite possible to get soaked. This is a favourite with guests and tends to pick up long queues.
And so, onto queue times. As you'd expect Legoland picks up a lot of hype (not only through viral marketing but because it is situated just outside the UK's capital city) and is therefore extremely busy throughout the year. There are only a select few rides at Legoland and for this reason queue times on some of the larger family rides can be (if you are unlucky) unbearably long. For example when we visited the queue time for the Jungle Coaster was 1 hour and 30 minutes, which can be pretty mind numbing for the kiddies. This can't be helped, but bear this in mind when choosing to visit Legoland, as it can be a huge problem, especially if you have extremely young children. The park now offers a virtual queueing operation called Q-bot where you may plan to walk straight onto a ride at a given time (much like Merlin's other fast track process Fast Pass) however those not in the know may find this option extremely difficult to use. Another kick I must give the park is for its exceptionally high ticket prices. Legoland is the UK's most expensive theme park, at £36 for adults and £27 for children. Booking online doesn't really reduce these high prices either, as you are still shelling out £32.40 for an adult ticket and £24.30 for a child. The food in the park is also ridiculously high (the most expensive I have seen in any UK park) and if you are thinking about buying a set of Lego for your little darlings then you are expected to hand another £10-£30. Because of these terribly high prices it is always a mumble for adults visiting Legoland (who may be quite surprised by how much Merlin are charging) however lets not forget Legoland is a place for the children and it still manages to be busier than most UK parks. And if you have a Merlin annual pass you needn't worry as Legoland is amongst the listed enter-free tourist attractions!
Would I recommend Legoland? Well, that really depends on who I am recommending it for. If you have children under 12 who are not particularly big on white knuckle vomit inducing thrill rides then yes, I would reccomend Legoland. If you have children who are fans of the Lego brand then yes I would reccomend Legoland. For anyone else though, I would say knock one or even two stars off my overall rating as the high prices, lack of any big rides and long queues are definitively a put off altogether.
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Advantages: Nice Model Village, Some good rides for kids Disadvantages: Expensive, outrageous food and drink prices, big queues, no in queue entertainment, dirty in places
bluejonny 10.07.2007 (10.07.2007)
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Review of Legoland Windsor
Advantages: Good firework display with a story telling and some after-firework activities Disadvantages: Took an hour to get out, even spending an hour after the firework in the park
volcano 31.10.2009 ·
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Review of Legoland Windsor
Advantages: Many different attractions which include unique sculptures made from LEGO Disadvantages: A day is not really enough to explore the whole park.
mummyno4 28.01.2006 ·
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Review of Legoland Windsor
Advantages: Plenty of rides for the whole family to go on together/shoes+special events Disadvantages: You could end up spending a fortune on top of the entrance price
Apr 19th, 2009
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