To bloody HATE Legoland

[InSpaceNooneCanHearYouScream]

Urghhh. Is it just me or do theme parks only exist to extort money out of us? The entry prices for Legoland today were £46 per adult and £41 per child.Plus £4 to park. Since when do you have to pay to park at a theme park??
Luckily I had a half price offer, but even so it still cost £71 for 3 of us. 3 of the rides were shut and there were 45 minute queues for all the bigger rides, most of which are not a patch on Chessington or Thorpe Park.
I paid £2.75 for an ice cream, which was about a third of the size of a Mr Whippy cone. The staff were visibly embarrassed handing over these extortionately priced mini ice-creams.
At the end of every ride there was the opportunity to purchase a dark grainy photo of yourself on the ride for 'only' £10. WTF?
At one of the numerous shops, I was going to buy my two older boys a tub of pick and mix sweets each. Until I saw that they cost £7.50 per tub! Even so people were falling over themselves to buy them. Not to mention the 'ponchos' on sale for the wetter rides- basically a bin bag for £3.50 each. And don't forget the 'family driers' if you get a bit wet- only £2 a pop! What a bargain.
I've always thought theme parks were not good value for money, but today's experience at Legoland really takes the biscuit. How the bloody hell do people afford to take their kids to them regularly?

I agree Chicken, you don't have to buy all the extras. And I didn't. I bought one ice cream, no sweets, no ponchos, didn't use driers or lockers. But it's not the point. I don't like the feeling that they are trying to fleece you at every turn.

inspace depending on school district and how many days out, we do get fined for school absences. One expat here paid about $500 and had to go to court, you get a record of some sort as well.

We enjoyed the Windsor one when we went but think the Orlando one is better. Barely any waiting, great rides, and we used the free child ticket on the Lego polybag packet. Out of all the parks in floridly we went to it was our favourite.

I see herRoyal.

Sorry sent too soon. Was going to say the USA theme parks sound a lot better

I agree. Legoland is the worst value for money theme park. I queued for an hour and a half for one of their main rides, and the ride itself wasn't even a minute long!
We now never go there. Chessington and Thorpe Park are great, but still a rip off they charge for parking.

We took our two a couple of months ago and the first day was brilliant , weather forecast poor , so not nearly as busy , took our own drinks and food and had a great time. Second day it was heaving , but still enjoyable , had been to lidl first and stocked up on food and drinks again . We got a special deal which included non park hotel accomodation which cost £150 for the four of us for two days . My very Yorkshire husband moaned all the way round at how they excelled at getting every penny they could out of you , but said it with a certain amount of awe

I agree about Chessington. Much nicer than Legoland. Also worth visiting Adventure Island in Southend and Blackpool to. I won't ever go back to Legoland. Would rather swallow battery acid.

I love Legoland but it is shocking in August. It is also expensive, even with 2 for 1 vouchers. We take a picnic and use nectar points / Tesco clubcard points.

If you shop at Tesco a lot the Merlin passes are very good value with clubcard points but I never have enough.

At the parks on Florida the ride lockers are all free. They are right next to each ride and you have an amount of time for free - linked to the wait time for said ride. Always plenty of time allocated.