**About and Location**
Legoland is situated just outside of Windsor, Berkshire. It is a family orientated theme park primarilly for families with children aged 3-12. It stretches over 150 acres. It is very close to Ascot (around a ten minute drive). It is one hour away from London and 25 minutes from London's Heathrow airport. The park does special deals for those who catch trains which involve a train and shuttle bus to transport you to the park. Legoland is well signposted with the usual brown tourism road signs and is very easy to find. We used our sat nav but found that we came across Legoland before it told us we had reached our destination. For those with sat navs, the postcode is SL4 4AY.
**Parking and Entrance**
There is a large tarmac car park which I think now charges a small fee to park in for the day, however there is preferred parking for those who want it which is closer to the park, this is at a higher price. Parking attendants direct you to spaces, we found the spaces to be of a good size and the car park was secure. There is a pavement to one side of the car park making it easy for those with children to walk to the park entrance. Upon reaching the entrance there are a large number of ticket booths where you can purchase your tickets, there is also a small food outlet. To obtain our tickets we only queued for around 2 or 3 minutes and the woman who served us was very polite and helpful. She also provided us with a 'Lost Child' sticker to stick on the kids with a mobile number, should they get lost. Once you have purchased the tickets you proceed through the turnstiles with your tickets, for tickets purchased online you go straight to these as you access the park with your special barcode. There are a number of staff here to help you out.
**The Beginning**
The first section of the park that you come across is titled 'The Beginning', this contains a number of things including the Lego Big Shop, Pit Stop Cafe, Annual Pass Room, Racers Discount Store, Lego Creation Centre, Photo Collection, Sweet Stop, Hill Train and Q-Bot Virtual Queuing System Centre (more information about this later). We found this part of the park to be absolutely heaving but there was plenty to look at and plenty to do. There were also toilets here but the queue was out of the door when we arrived, probably due to our poor timing (10:30am), when we returned later there was a small queue but not out of the door. To reach the rest of the park you walk down a long windy hill where there are a number of signposts directing you to sections of the park.
**Land of the Vikings**
This is quite a small section of the park but contains a good proportion of the parks best rides. My personal favourite here was the Vikings River Splash, this is suitable for all children over a metre tall. You sit in a round boat and it transports you down a very wavy, bumpy and bendy river! It is a very fun ride but please do be aware that you will get wet. Also here is the Spinning Spider which is a modern take on the classic teacups.
This section of the park is also home to Loki's Labyrinth which is a maze and Longboat Invader which is a pirate ship that spins around, this is more suitable for younger children.
**Wild Woods**
This is a shady area of the park which is home to a number of benches and also a large play area (The Rat Trap) so is a great place to have a picnic. There is also a BBQ place and hot dog stand here. There is a large water flume called Pirate Falls here which we unfortunately did not get a go on however it does look like good fun. The Enchanted Forest is worth a look, especially for those with younger children and is a great quick attraction as there is no queuing! There are also a number of additional charge features in this section including Pirate Goldwash (gold panning), temporary tattoos. remote control trucks and caricatures.
**Knights Kingdom**
This was a great park of the park and we really enjoyed our time spent here. It is based around a large castle like building which the kids loved. There are 2 rollercoasters here, The Dragon and The Dragons Apprentice. I remember The Dragon from when I was a child and it was the first rollercoaster I went on! Although it is one of the faster rides in the park it is not very scary and most children will be fine on it. The beginning of the ride is very interesting due to travelling through the castle and seeing a large number of Lego figurines which are fantastic to look at! The Dragons Apprentice we did not ride on but I assume it to be a slightly smaller version of The Dragon which allows smaller children to ride too. In this section of the park there were a number of food stalls and also a Turret Shop which stocket a number of medieval souviners including dress up kits for Princesses and Knights!
**Kingdom of the Pharoahs**
This was another very busy area of the park, however do note that the rides here are aimed at younger children. Rides include Thunder Blazer (a traditional swing seat carasoul ride), Aero Nomad (a small ferris wheel) and Desert Chase (a traditional horse carasoul ride). This section of the park is also home to Laser Raiders, we didn't get a go on this due to the massive queue time but I assume this to be similar to Laser Quest at other attractions. There is also a gift shop here called The Bazaar.
**Lego City**
This section of the park had a real town feel to it which made it fun and interesting. There was lots to do here for people of all ages making it a great section for all the family. There was a show showing at particular times of the day, an xbox gaming zone, the Orient Expedition (train ride) and Digger Challenge which gave children the opportunity to drive a real life digger. The digger section of the park had a huge number of lego models and was really fun to look at and watch even if not having a go on the diggers yourself. Also here there was a coffee house, ice cream shop and gift shop.
**Adventure Land**
This area was home to a number of cafes and also a picnic area. Here there was also a couple of rides based at older riders.
The Jungle Coaster is a rollercoaster and consists of sitting in a booth and going round the track rather than just sitting in a regular seat. Wave Surfer looked really good fun and involved people standing on a board and whizzing around on the water! Unfortunately we did not get a go on this due to queue size :-( There ware also a number of fair games here where prizes could be won (the other half spent over £10 trying to win me a giant unicorn-he succeeded-very happy with him!)
**Traffic**
This was probably one of the most memorable sections of the park simply due to it being home to the Driving School! This is truly fab and I can remember getting my own license when I was a child! Depending on age, children visit either of the driving schools and get to drive their very own lego car around mini roads, these roads even have traffic lights and zebra crossings! At the end of it they are presented with their very own Legoland Drivers License. In this section there is also Boating School where you get to drive your own boat (very slowly!) around a track, this was quite fun but each boat only holds 2 or 3 people meaning families get split up. There is also the Fire Academy where teams get the opportunity to be firefighters, putting out the fire, this looked great fun but again, the queue was so long we didn't get a turn!
**Duplo Land**
This is aimed at the younger visitors to the park. There is lots here including Waterworks which is a splash zone for kids, a Duplo theatre which shows a puppet show and Duplo Playtown. It also contains Fairy Tale Brook where you sit in a slow moving boat and travel through some woods looking at a number of lego creations which reflect a number of fairytales, for example you see Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel. Although our party was really a little too old for this section we went on this and really enjoyed it.
**Miniland**
We didn't manage to visit this but it is home to model scenes from Europe and the USA, remote control boats and trampolines.
**Imagination Centre**
Unfortunately we didn't get to visit this either but it consists of the Space Tower, Build and Test Workshops, Sky Rider, Imagination Theatre, Mindstorms, Robolab Workshops and an ice cream and coffee shop.
**Q-Bot**
Q-Bot is a new virtual queuing system bought to you by Legoland. For the charge of £10 per person you are given a small machine where you can pre-book rides. You can only book one ride at a time but it means you do not have to stand in the queue waiting for the ride and instead are free to visit other parts of the park. We did hire this and I am sad to say that I really do not believe it was worth the £40 we paid. The rides included on the list were primarily childrens rides and were no use to us. Rides which had a short queue time were on the list whereas we waited for over an hour to go on the Jungle Coaster due to it not being on the Q-Bot. The Q-Bot allowed us to book a total of 4 rides throughout the whole day due to such long waiting times and I really do not recommend it.
When hiring the Q-Bot they also take imprints of your debit cards incase you return the Q-Bot broken where they will automatically take £50 from your account.
**Food and Drink**
As I have stated there are a great number of places to eat and drink around the park aswell as there being a few picnic areas. There are a great range of foods including BBQ, Burgers, Carvery, Fried Chicken and Pizzas however as with all places these are rather expensive. There are also a number of small stalls where food can be purchased. These are very pricy for example, a small waffle dipped in chocolate and sprinkles cost us £2.50, a small pot of candyfloss cost £2.50 and a regular popcorn box cost £3.50.
**Shops**
There are a great deal of shops dotted around the park and each stock different things. For general gifts I would recommend the 'Lego Big Shop' as there are a number of things in there. However, there were not many small gifts and instead the majority of things were very pricey. A small teddy bear (approx 15-20cm tall) wearing a Legoland t-shirt cost £8.95 and a keyring was £2.95. Here you also get the opportunity to buy singular lego bricks and a number of lego sets. Other shops include 'Kids Wear and Funky Fashions' which stock a number of branded childrens clothes, 'Cuddles Corner' which stocks swimwear, kids clothes and personalised gifts and 'Rocket Racers Discount Outlet' which stocks a number of Lego sets.
**Admission Information**
The park is open at different times depending on the year, currently the park is open from 10am-7pm daily. One day ticket prices are as follows:
Adult: £37
Child/Senior: £28
Online you can receive a 10% discount. These ticket prices are very pricey but it is worth noting that you can often come across vouchers offering 2 for 1 discounts or you can use Tesco Clubcard Vouchers!
**My Opinion**
I have to say, I did not enjoy the day as much as I thought I would. The park was very busy and therefore we didn't get a chance to go on even half of the rides. The majority of the staff were very polite and helpful however I did find a couple to be extremely rude which did put a slight downer on the day. The rides were always well attended with plenty of staff and these tended to be young however they were fantastic with the kids and were keen to chat to them whilst we were waiting or answer any questions they may have. Although we hired the Q-Bot we did queue up for one thing (the Jungle Coaster) and we were stood in line for over an hour for a ride that really was not worth it! Queue time meant that we only got on around 5 or 6 rides which was extremely disappointing, especailly for the price you pay and the time you spend waiting around. As you can imagine, Legoland is a very long day and one thing I did notice was that there were very few benches or places to sit (other than restaurants) around the park, this meant little feet (and big feet!) tended to get very achy and tired. Although the park has a number of slopes which are described as wheelchair friendly I can imagine it would be extremely tiring pushing either a wheelchair or a pushchair around all day.
As a family, our favourite sections of the park were Knights Kingdom and Land of the Vikings. This was due to how interesting they were, especially when you were waiting about for rides. There was plenty to look at and the appearance of these places were very fun, magical and exciting.
We did enjoy our day at Legoland but it was very disappointing that we didn't even get to see some parts of the park due to the sheer size of it. I would certainly recommend getting 2 day tickets if possible or getting a deal where you can stay overnight as there is just too much to do in one day. I would imagine that it is much less busy during the winter months and therefore we may look into visiting again in the future. I remember visiting as a child and remembering what a fab time I had, as did my niece yesterday so maybe children find it a lot more interesting. It is awfully expensive for a family day out and if you have older children from aged 8 upwards then I would instead recommend a visit to alternative theme parks in this price range.
Lets go to Legoland! 
E review