THE LEGOLAND 2016 Tips Hints Reviews and Questions answered here!

[HRHQueenMe]

Link to last years thread LEGOLAND 2015 Thread

There are quite a few seasoned Legolanders on mumsnet, and we are all happy to answer questions. The basics are all covered in the first posts of last years thread, otherwise please ask again.

None of us work for or are associated in any way with Legoland. We are all local parents with annual passes.

Please add reviews good or bad to help others! This is a happy friendly thread, now running for the 4th year! Happy Legolanding!

Just to update DINO SAFARi is gone! It was much loved but very dated and needed to go! Has anyone got any idea what is replacing it? X

I believe it's for an extension to the hotel?

Hello all - love this thread, thanks all. We're going on Thursday and staying overnight at the hotel. From everything I've read, the onsite restaurant needs to be avoided in the evening. Any recommendations for anything nearby? Happy to drive - it's me and my Mum (celebrating her 68th birthday at the park!) and 4 yr old DTs.

Oxtail my favourite is Loch Fyne up the road in Woodside (turn right out of LL and head towards Ascot.) its very good and the staff are very legoland kids friendly.
If you want to brave it into Windsor all the chains are there, Bills, PizzaExpress etc.
There is a lovely gastro pup called the Green Oak in Oakley Green (5 mins away) also a nice pub with a small play area in Fifield (7 mins).
If you headto Old Windsor there is a pub called the Fox and Castle that has an amazing outside play area and the food is standard pub grub.
Further up into Ascot you will find the Cricketers Arms which is a real hidden gem of a gastro pub. Very childfriendly.
If you want to go even posher The Belvedere Arms is the favoured hangout of the Royals. No kds menue and Booking a must. Its a nice pub and good food but posh. The Cottage in in Winkfield is equally posh but is really at its best if you can sit outside.
Hope that gives you some options!

I don't think you can? Check the small print.

We went at Easter with the two day offer. These threads were a godsend and the tips made our busy very smooth. Thanks. We are just over four hours away so it was a big deal for the dc to go (6&8).

Hello all. Thinking of spending a day there in early July with 3x dd (9, 7 and 7) and one ds (5 in May). Trying to work out how to do it cheapest. Have had the same discovery as someone else on this thread that the Kelloggs vouchers won't work online. We're in Scotland so it's a big deal for us but can't afford more than one day (time wise as much as anything else) so can't decide whether better to book online (and I think pay extra) or get a second box of cereal and (I think) end up paying less on the door as both of us would be free. Does that mean we'll spend most of the day in queues just to get in? It'll be our holidays but not English ones which I'm hoping will help. All thoughts on most efficient way of doing this very very much appreciated! We'll be staying in Essex (long story) so I think can still manage to get there in time for it to open....

We travelled from Scotland a year or two ago, first week of our holidays, go midweek not weekend obviously. 20 mins was longest queue and many were queue-free. Follow advice on here re arrival time and head to the back of the park (or your favourite ride) first. We got two day tickets as part of package with campsite we were in, that greatly relieved the pressure on the first day!

Thought I'd report back in after our visit last week. HRH thanks so much for your tips, I was all guns blazing to go to Loch Fyne, particularly as we'd seen it on the drive up, but then at the end of a busy day everyone was so exhausted we ended up in Bricks (onsite hotel restaurant). In fairness, the twins loved it, especially the serve yourself mr whippie style ice cream, but good grief the food is awful. Quite painful handing over £60 for the 4 of us when all they ate for their first course was pita bread and sweetcorn (dried up chicken nuggets were avoided).

The hotel is definitely worth staying in, we were in the Adventure rooms which are on the top floor so nice and quiet. I don't think it's worth paying the extra £20 for a view of the park. I think particularly if you have under 5's it is really worth it just because of the proximity to the rides such as submarine and the driving school. And we had a quick break from the park at 3pm when we checked in which was very much needed. Back out at 4pm for a few more rides after a bit of a chill out.

Thursday / Friday in term time meant minimal queuing, I think 15 minutes for Coastguard HQ (previously known as Boating School I think) and Fire Academy was the most. The layout of the queuing system made me feel ill, I dread to think how it is queuing say for example the Laser Raiders in peak time. The ride is over so quickly, my DS loved it and we were lucky to just stay on if we wanted to (which he did) but if I ever have to come back in holiday time I'd certainly invest in a Q-Bot. If you have under 5's and are coming in through the main entrance (not the hotel), I'd get down the hill towards the other end of the park where the newer section is and there are more pre-school rides.

Despite the fact they haven't been in their pushchair for maybe a year, I'm so glad we took it. Practically everyone brings one, so we had no strange looks even though DS looks about 6 (he's 4).

All in all, a brilliant 2 days. Would absolutely love to go back.

Firstly hello and thanks for the thread, tips duly noted!
We're visiting tomorrow (booked before knowing about Star Wars weekend - the dds won't be interested at all but I'm assuming it'll be busy!) and want to race over to Coastguard HQ (or whatever it's called now!) as soon as the park opens...is it better to turn left or right at the entrance? Last time we went we came from the hotel direction and walked straight onto the ride but obviously this time won't have the advantage of the 9:30 opening or closer entrance. The map isn't really that clear about the best route to take and we want to minimise queueing. We're thinking of then heading towards Atlantis - good plan?
Thanks

Hi all - thanks for the tips and advice. We are going tomorrow to celebrate DS 6th birthday. Thecold- was it busy today? We didn't know about the Star Wars thing either?!

Oh - can anyone tell me if you have to pay for parking?

Sorry for only just seeing this! Yesterday wasn't as busy as I expected, today was a busier day but still manageable. I may have felt differently had we not had QBots though, we avoided pretty much anything not on them. We got there early and got as close to Lego city as possible before opening which worked really well on the first day when we virtually walked straight on to coastguard HQ, this morning we watched the opening show and that few minutes delay cost us around half an hour of queuing. Atlantis was closed pretty much all day today which was a disappointment and I'm of the opinion that Heartlake City could have been done much better (the Express is virtually unchanged since it was thr orient train and Mia's Ride is far too scary for the target audience, I'm sure something similar to Georges Dinosaurs in Paultons would have been better) but we had a fantastic weekend

This is a fabulous thread, thanks so much I have tons of questions.

Have 3 DC 8, 4 and 1. Thinking of taking the 8 and 4 yr old on a day when the little one is a nursery. Both into LEGO but not necessarily into rides.

Planning to use Tesco vouchers - if I do that do I have to specify the date of the trip in advance?

Silly question but is there any Lego play area? What is there apart from rides? If we don't mind not doing rides what is the best area to go to?

I am presuming the Qbot is a must? If we go with 2 adults and 2 children do we all have to have a qbot (I don't like rides very much so might watch while DH and DC go on). Does a Q bot actually mean no queuing, or do you just end up in a 'Qbot Queue'

How do pushchairs work when you go on a ride? Is there a park at each ride?

Is the shuttle bus from Windsor and Eton Riverside easy to get?

Hi
Apart from rides there is the duplo play area in duplo valley and pirate play area near the pirate ship, the enchanted wood is there too. There are rooms to build with Lego near the start and miniland is nice to walk around. And the pirate show of course! Regarding qbots it depends when you go but I wouldn't do it without one if you can afford it. Sometimes there is a small qbot queue but when we went I think the longest we waited was 20 minutes. There are places to park buggies by all the rides.
No idea about shuttles sorry! I hope that helps

Hi, I am so glad to have found your threads on LEGOLAND. I am taking my three children this Friday (inset day) and staying in the hotel so doing Saturday too. My children are 8, 6 and 3 and I'm a single Mum. Any tips on the best rides I can take all three on with me. The older ones are not that bothered on big rides so I plan to do all the lego themed stuff but any tips for ones not to be missed. Trying to put together a plan to have minimum stress and lots of fun :)

We are staying at the premier inn at Bracknell which way do we need to be exiting the park?
Is the carpark a pain to get out of?
Thanks

This might be a bit of a random question but I've just realised that the day we've booked for our first trip to Legoland (17 June) is also Ascot Race Day. Anyone have any idea how busy Legoland will be? Will it be a nightmare to get in in the morning? We are coming from Derby.

We're going on Saturday with 2DC, DD2 & DS4, can anyone let me know which places have the kids eat free after 3pm offer, if it's still on? Thanks.

We went Sunday and Monday, stayed in the hotel. Other than the food I couldn't fault the hotel, the rooms were so well thought out, the pool and gym were fantastic and the children's entertainment offered dp and I a little bit of a rest. Dd loved bricks restaurant but I didn't feel it was worth the cost. We tried to use skyline yesterday afternoon but it was over an hrs wait for 2 sandwiches.

Despite it being very busy we managed to get on all the rides dd wanted to go on. Having the extra time in the park was great for driving school and coastguard as ques were an hour long at points in the day.

I was pleased that they had toilets I could use my key in when needed, this had been a massive concern for me, so was very relieved.

Only area that let the whole thing down was the food. Ate at the pirate burger place, tiny burger and soggy chips, it was expected. The worst bit was the still frozen sandwiches in the friends cafe by the lake. We ended up leaving the park earlier than planned yesterday just to make sure we got a meal in before a 4hr drive home.

We will definitely go again, but be better prepared with the food

We went Sunday and Monday, stayed in the Holiday Inn in Slough.

We managed to get there for 9.30 the first day which was useful. Our children are 8 and 4, and we did some of the big rides, but they were not hugely keen to be honest, my daughter didn't really enjoy the Dragon roller coaster and my son got upset when he was hit by quite a powerful jet of water on the Viking boat ride.

DS did love the Star Wars experience and went both days.

They both liked the smaller splashpark and the playpark next to it in Duploland, also the pirate playpark.

The second day was totally heaving, I think a lot of schools had inset days, and it was very sunny.

We got there a bit later, 11am, having packed up and driven in. We spent too much time having a comfy hotel family breakfast, I think next time I would ask to pack up some rolls with sausages and pains au chocolat so we could finish breakfast in the car on the way.

I did have snacks aplenty, including lots of fruit, we took 2 big M and S coolbags with us. I replenished from Tesco in Slough for ham and berries for the picnic on the second day. It was great having picnics outside, while watching shows etc. We split up both afternoons and arranged to meet in Miniland which was interesting from a model building 8 yo POV and also green and pleasant.

We did get ice creams, the queues for those and the prices made me relieved we were sorted otherwise. We still have a buggy for my daughter, we could have done with a 2 litre bottle of water or 2 in the bottom, we drank all the water we came with quite quickly.

I did wonder about Qbots but my children did not seem that enthused by some of the big rides. I felt a bit irritated by the apparent queue-jumping and thought that I didn't really want to queue jump myself either.

The second busier days, we spent a lot of time in the sunshine watching shows, the pirate one, the Lego friends one, the Celebration tea time one and a puppet show. There were no queues for these!

I was really pleased they stayed open an extra hour on the Monday to help with the extra demand. We had a look round the shop after, we did 'nt leave till nearly 7 and there were not too many problems with queues by then.

Mumsnet info was vv useful.

For the poster who asked about going on ascot day, look at the traffic trying to get out of legoland. This was taken in the afternoon and we hadn't even reached the main road. It took over an hour just to get to roundabout at the bottom.
If i were you I'd leave home extra early and find out when the last race is. We got caught in everyone leaving ascot as well as legoland

We're going to Legoland on Sunday. I think DS will be slightly more interested in the displays than the rides!

I've taken note of all of the hints and tips given here so far (we'll definitely be taking a picnic, and turning left when we leave!), thank you so much for taking the time to post them.

How busy do you think it will be? And which rides would you recommend for a tall 9 year old who isn't crazy about rollercoasters?

TIA

Hi me and my best mate want to take our 7 year olds in August. Can anyone recommend a nice but cheapish hotel to stay in nearby but happy to drive a bit and is it cheaper to get a package deal off the net? Any recommendations of good websites to get the hotel from? Thanks so much.