Legoland

[Oysterbabe]

On our way to Legoland with a 4 and 6 year old. We're here for 2 days, staying in one of the partner hotels tonight. Does anyone have any tips for making it an enjoyable trip? I am worried about how insanely busy it will be. The fast passes we were going to buy have sold out. We have no appetite to spend the whole day in long queues, I reckon 20 minutes or so is our limit. Luckily we also aren't that bothered about spending the whole time on rides and are happy walking around looking at stuff, going to shows etc.
Have you been? What would your strategy be?

Do you get early entrance with the hotel? Every time I have been has been insanely busy and always mid week during term time. Even during covid when they were supposedly reducing capacity! So, run straight to the popular rides (dragon, ninjago) and save the lovely miniatures for the busier part of the day. The shows were good, much better than expected.

20 min limit on lining up and didn't get a fast pass in time?

Good luck with that

Not sure you will get on anything with a 20 minute max queue time. Do they sell any qbots on the day as well or is it only in advance.

It is a place of insane queues. We joined the log flume queue because the board said 25 mins but it was closer to two hours!! We saw the pirates of adventure bay show twice because our kids loved it so much. We did some smaller rides with shorter queues.

for that age I think Paultons/Peppa Pig World is better tbh.

Oh and I forgot the biggest queue of all - nearly 2 hours to exit the car park!!

Very few rides will have a 20 minute ride time.

Definitely watch the pirate show in the harbour, it’s brilliant! Sit very central and you won’t miss any of the action at the front.

You won't be going on any rides if you want a 20 minute queue time! Most of the schools are still off.

If there are rides you are really keen to go on, head there first even if it's the opposite side of the park. Most people work from the front to back. There is stuff too do with no queues - three pirate show is excellent and mini land. Mine loved chasing the train around.

I think you're unlikely to avoid all queues when going in the school holidays, most will be more than 20 minutes especially in the middle of the day

As you enter do not be distracted by all the rides in front of you like everyone else. Head straight to the back of the park where the submarine ride is and work your way back from there. Opposite to the crowds and likely to get a couple of rides out the way early on.

Have a look at the map before you get there. Find a ride you really want to go on that’s towards the back of the park and then when you get there, run straight to that ride (do not stop to look at anything). You can then work round the park in the opposite direction to everyone else.

Use this website to check queue times, usually pretty accurate. queue-times.com/parks/27/queue_times

We used to get rides done first thing and then from about 4 as people leave. And at the end of the day as long as you are in a queue before 6pm, you will get to ride it, even if it goes past 6.

Have you got swimming kit with you? Drench towers and the smaller duplo park are good when it gets really busy, plus there's a play area too.

Lots to do that doesn't involve rides and as you have 2 days, you don't need to do everything you today.

Paultons is really excellent and queues are much shorter, but that's not much help to op who is on her way to Legoland today!

Use the app and keep checking for queue times. People are very negative on here- we went on a Saturday in July and never queued more than 30mins. Immediately do the popular rides as soon as the park opens.

take your own food if you can, food is awful and expensive.

Yes good idea to bring your own food, we sometimes just stop at a Tesco express in the way and grab picnic stuff and extra drinks to save on overpriced burgers and stuff at theme parks

Head straight to the busier rides at the back like Flight of the Sky Dragon first, then work your way back to the front. I believe hotel guests get an hour each morning in the park before the main gates open?

Get lunch at 11.30 before the restaurants fill up.

We have done been twice for the day and done almost the whole site each time, so you should be fine over two days.

There is also a place near Miniature Land where kids can build with Lego, my DC enjoyed spending 20-30 quiet minutes there building a bit and we had a picnic and the nearby lawn. Shows are good indeed, don’t miss them.

and yes to bringing swimstuff and towels for the water bits. They will love those.

lots of rides had 10-15mins queues towards fhe end of the day. But try and don’t focus too much on rides and keep the kids calm and hydrated to avoid tantrums (saw a few of those 😬) and manage expectations.

Get there as early as possible and you should get time to do at least 2 rides before the queues build up. If you get early entrance then this should give you quite a few more!
Check where you come into as a hotel guest and where the main entrance is. We used to come in through the main gate and run to the back to do the dragon ride, submarine ride etc but these might be much closer to where you are? I noticed that people tended to come in through the main gate then spread out across the park so that the rides at the back were quiet for a little bit longer.
We always timed having lunch with watching the pirates show (is it still on?) which the kids loved.
Then onto the climbing frames when everyone else is queuing for the rides.
The main tip for having fun is managing your expectations, like most things in life! Don’t stress about the queues, remind the kids that they have another day/have already had a day, unlike most of the other people there! I always felt sorry for the families trudging around determined to go on everything in one day, fomo if they didn’t manage it, looked quite stressful. None of that for you! :-)
Bring snacks for the queues, make sure they’ve been to the loo before you get in a long queue, etc.
Hope you have lots of fun!

Can you not buy the cheapest reserve and ride passes on the day? We did that once when the more expensive advance ones had sold out. Check online again when the park opens and fingers crossed you can get them! They didn’t shorten the queue time but at least you didn’t need to stand in it so you could use the wait for the big playgrounds, snack breaks, watch the shows, go on the smaller rides etc.

You're going to queue for more than 20
Mins if you want to go on anything, sorry that's just fact. It's always busy, I've never seen it quiet actually - and it's the last week of the summer holidays.

When you get there, walk straight to the very back of the park and work your way forwards. People will run for the rides at the front to get on first so they back will be quieter. Other than that, prepare to queue.

It sounds like you’ve done no planning or research at all, which means you won’t get on anything if you’re only willing to wait 20 minutes.

You should have booked earlier if you wanted fast past and rather than ask on the way there, you should have been looking at the park map and planning routes, must sees etc.

Long gone are the days where you can turn up to any theme park with no planning or fast pass and just wing it and do whatever you wanted.

I've been twice in summer and it's not been that bad, we mix up queueing with the other non-queuing things to do and it's been a really good day. I'd suggest you download the app and keep an eye on queue times. There are loads of rides that usually have shorter queues like the spinning spider, the deep sea adventure and the smaller childrens rides so we tend to mix in lots of those then walk around mini land or play on the adventure playgrounds. There's a building called 'the brick' with just loads of Lego in to play with too.
If you stay till the end of the day the queues seem to be shorter then too, and apparently once you're in a queue at closing time you can stay in it till you ride, eg join a queue at 5.55 if the park is closing at 6. I've never done this though so can't be totally sure!
If you're staying in the legoland hotel ask if there's an early entrance in the morning for hotel guests and check if the ride you want is opening early or on time, the most popular one is usually the new one the flight of the sky lion, that usually has the longest queue - usually over an hour, but check it'll be opening on time before you queue there.
I've also bought a pack lunch and top trumps for a long queue which worked well. I'd bring food if you can as it's expensive, and usually busy. There's supermarkets (Asda in Slough if you're coming off the m4 or a small sainsburys in ascot if you're coming off the m3) that are close ish that you could get food from. It's very hilly. Enjoy your days and I hope you have fun!

Thank you to those who had helpful comments and suggestions.
We'll head straight to the back and try and go on a couple of things early then go with the flow a bit. We'll definitely watch the shows. Like I said, we're not desperate to go on any particular ride and have brought a picnic. We'll treat the first day as a bit of a fact finding mission and come up with a strategy for tomorrow.

Double check age and height requirements for the rides. We went with a toddler and he could only go on the things in Duplo land. Not what you want to find out after spending an hour in a queue 😅
There are also some shops fairly nearby if you need a picnic tomorrow, probably worth driving ten minutes rather than paying inflated prices.

As others have said just concentration on enjoying the parts that's aren't ride's.
Try and do the new one asap as queue really build and it's the best one.
The other ride's are so short and you queue for ages!

However there are non ride things to do

We had a really lovely couple of days.

Both children wanted to do the driving school so we headed straight for that and they got straight on. We were then able to get on Coastguard HQ next to it with a short wait. They both liked the play areas, mini land, the pirate show and the new Mythica exhibit. We also spent some time just playing with lego. We got on Spinning Spider and Merlins Adventure with a short wait and a couple of small fairground type rides with no wait. During the day we got a notification that we could now buy a fast pass, they weren't available before, but we decided not too, we didn't feel like we needed one at that point and were happy doing what we were doing.

On the second day we decided to spilt up first thing and DH would take our 6 year old to the Dragon and I'd take 4 year old to the Dino coaster. 6 year old got straight on the Dragon and then the Dragons Apprentice. 4 year old and I got straight on Dino Coaster, Airport and the Fairytale Brook with no wait. 5 rides done before 11. Result!
I think we would have been happy doing the same as the day before, enjoying non-ride things and watching the queues for an opportunity to pop on something that wasn't too busy. However, 6 year old had had a blast of adrenaline on the Dragon and she liked it and was desperate for more. We again got a notification that there were some fast passes so we decided to buy 2. We spent £100 buying the midlevel ones, you don't have to queue and they halve the wait time, and they were brilliant. We took it turns taking them on stuff for the rest of the day and they had a great time, we went on pretty much everything. 6 year old went on the Dragon 3 times.

I think it worked out really well. Everyone had a brilliant time, we didn't do any excessive queuing and we only had to buy 2 passes.