Are the official legoland hotels really worth it?

[KitKat1985]

We were thinking of booking a weekend Legoland break. My original plan was to book one of the official on-site Legoland hotels, but the price seems to be about £550 for one night / 2 days park tickets at the Legoland resort hotel and £650 for the Legoland castle hotel. Conversely the off-site travel-lodge / Hilton partner hotels come in at about £250 for one night / 2 days park tickets, which is a huge difference.

So is staying on site really worth it? Are the hotels that great? Or is just so expensive because you are so close to the parks?

The hotel IS very pricey, but if you are travelling from far away and staying over, it is worth the splurge. It added so much to our kids experience than had we been staying at the Travel Lodge, and if you're already spending a fortune on travel costs and park tickets, it is worth paying the extra to stay there and make your kids' experience extra special.
We arrived at 9.30am on Saturday, parked 100m across the road, walked under the iconic dragon entrance to be greeted by a very helpful porter who offered to take our bags until we could check in at 3. We had left them in the car, so just went to the Park entrance. 

The level of detail in the standard themed room was excellent. Logo Models all over the place, a separate children's bedroom area that could have slept 3 bigger kids, plus the travel cot that was supplied. It was clean and very well kept. My little boy had great fun cracking the code to get in the chest where 2 lego sets were waiting for him to build and play with.
The Swimming pool area is great, the splash zone was even suitable for my little girl and they loved it. Towels are supplied and the changing room are clean and looked after. 
We had dinnner at the Bricks Buffet and I will say my expectation for any all you can eat are never very high but this exceeded that greatly. There is a kids food station in the middle, which has the usual although good quality food. The Popcorn Machine and chocolate fountain was a really nice touch with loads of fresh fruit available. £53.00 for a family to eat out and have a 3 course meal is not expensive unless you compare it to fast food. We didn't have any booze, so that may put the price up if you did.
Between 6 & 7p.m in the park, we got on lots of rides as the day trippers were starting to leave. and we hit the hotel pool/splash area at 7.30p.m, which was great fun and very clean.
The extra 30 mins in the park in the morning is a godsend, and we ran straight over to Atlantis, Boating School and Driving School. It was 10a.m by then and the park was opening so we hit the 2 rides not included on our QBot: Squid Surfers and Laser Raiders, so we would have them done before the masses reached the bottom of the hill!

Thank you. That does sound good. Maybe we will do it then as a treat.