Legoland - resort or castle hotel?

[whereaw]

I am thinking of booking a birthday trip to Legoland for my sons birthday- but trying to work out where to stay.

The castle hotel works out at £100 more per night (we would stay for two!) But is it worth it??

My son LOVES staying in a hotel more than anything as he's only done this, and butlins a couple of times in his life. So it would be a big treat.

Has anyone stayed before? And do you have any recommendations? TIA!

Depends on how old your son is? We’ve stayed a few times, and found that the resort hotel has more babies and under 5’s there, it’s a lot noisier and the food is dire. It does have some evening entertainment there, which you may prefer, but you can go to that if you’re at the castle hotel too. The castle hotel is quieter, and the restaurant is much nicer too.

I don't think the Castle is worth the extra. I found the food pretty dire at both, and you can wait forever too. The advantage at the Resort hotel is that they can watch the entertainment while they wait for the food, but it is very much geared at younger ones - I suspect my 8yo won't enjoy it for much longer.

100% book the resort hotel. The swimming pool is in that one ( it’s fab) as well as the main entertainment area. You could always book dinner in the Castle hotel. The food was overpriced but fine, I think PP are overreacting. Make sure you book all meals at the hotels in advance though as they book up quickly. Not sure if you still need to book the pool (you did during Covid) so just double check.

enjoy!

Thank you for the comments!! Maybe resort hotel is best then, he is going to be 6 but we also have a 2 year old, and he's still quite into the little kid type stuff!!
If the food is dire Its probably the sort of thing he will love! I'm thinking of it as a weekend for the kids as can't imagine it's great from an adults point of view. Although the swimming pool does look great!

Both dc have worked there. Both hotels are a massive rip off staffed by youngsters earning minimum wage working 10-12 hour shifts. The food is diabolical ( again not cooked by proper chefs) and very expensive. There are lots of much nicer hotels that will cost you a lot less in the local area!

Bit of mixed reviews then...

We stayed in the resort hotel at Easter with DC 5 and 7. No issues, room was great, food not great but we went out for food 2 of the nights we were there in Windsor as we were with friends. So if you're bothered about the food then a taxi into Windsor to eat elsewhere is easy. At the end of the day you stay at the hotel for easy access to the park, themed rooms etc and not for the cuisine. I wouldn't pay £100 per night extra though. That's a lot!

😂😂😂

Other people’s opinions and experiences are different.

Personally, we stayed in the resort hotel for two nights on our first visit. DS loved it, and it was great to see him enjoy it so much. But, the dinner was a huge virtually inedible buffet that was so bad we went for pizza in Windsor the second night. We also had very little sleep as there was someone in the room next door coughing loudly the first night, and a baby that woke and cried every three hours the second night. Then kids running shrieking along the corridors from 6 ish both mornings. 😫

We’ve had a few visits since then, always staying in the castle hotel. Haven’t had any problems there with noisy adjacent rooms/kids in corridors. The restaurant food isn’t great, but it’s cooked to order, and McDonald’s level of edible/quality. For us the extra money per night is worth it for a good night’s sleep, and not necessarily having to go somewhere else for dinner.

Of course they do, I think you might have misinterpreted what I meant by that comment, to be honest I mostly wanted to bump the post Food does sound a bit of an issue though! Maybe we could do one night elsewhere.

For me, I don't ever sleep well away from home anyways, but kids have a sound machine which is pretty good at drowning out most things apart from slamming doors!

From the reviews I'm now thinking to do resort, whereas before I had been thinking the castle. £200 extra is quite a bit for us. Thanks so much for the advice. We don't go away often so it's a big deal for us.

Sorry!! I was kind of laughing at the differences of opinion on the whole thread, and it maybe didn’t come across like that. ☹️

As much as a stay at Legoland obviously isn’t all about the food, expecting an edible meal at dinner after a busy day in the park, isn’t making too much of a fuss??

As bloodyplanes has said, the staff are all young, and sadly lack certain elements of good customer service. Eg on one of our visits with DS, he forgot his Legoland activity book (an in-room gift) at dinner and left it on the table at the castle hotel, (table booked, and not rocket science to know who it belonged to). Any decent child centred resort would have left it at the reception desk opposite for a couple of days to see if it was claimed. We asked the next morning, but no, it hadn’t been handed in, and no offer of a replacement, which would have cost pennies.

I hope you enjoy your visit, and agree with a PP to definitely try to book breakfast and dinner asap after booking the hotel. IIRC the reservation email states they will send links nearer the time to book, but they don’t.

I hope you managed to have a lovely time. We got takeaway delivered due to restaurant reviews and prices.
We stayed at the Legoland resort hotel it was brilliant because you get 30 extra minutes in the park. Lego building in reception to keep kids busy while you check in. Lego themed rooms really added to the excitement of the holiday. Plus the bonus of not having to drive in each day and pay for parking.

We stayed at Slough Premier Inn instead of paying out for the Legoland hotels, there’s a direct bus there. We had a great time.