legoland tips

[ThingOne]

Planning a trip to Legoland in early May. DS1 will be 5.5 and DS2 2.11 (yup, sneak in before his birthday ;) ).

What's the best value way of doing this? We are thinking of going for two days with one night in a hotel. Do you get good deals through legoland holidays or are there smarter ways to book?

All ideas gratefully received as I know nothing about it apart from the fact it's a pricey trip .

You can buy either day or annual passes through your Tesco clubcard vouchers. Annual passes seem to work out about the same price as 2 seperate day passes so great value. Marriott Hotel in Slough does a good package.

I don't have a tesco nearby. I was planning on getting deliveries to get points for a trip in September (school usually has an inset day at the start of term) but have just had notice of a May inset day. So nowhere near enough points for anything!

I've now trawled through hundreds of posts and have gleaned quite a few tips.

Get there before it opens, stash stuff in a locker, head to far side first using train, do miniland and duplo soft play last, do all wet things at once, change wet clothes and restash in locker, take picnic, take swimming things/towels/spare clothes. Check website and register that your nearly three year old is less than 90cm so prepare him in advance for disappointment .

Quite tempted by annual passes as don't live so far away and could consider a day trip in the summer.

Working on my specific questions!

err.. why would you get there before it opens?

Because of the queues to get in!

We have annual passes. You can buy a day pass and have the option to upgrade to an annual while you are there. Quite often they do a "2 days for the price of 1" entry scheme.

We tend to book ahead and stay in travelodges. Often the travelodge is only £19!

Sometimes lastminute.com and others do cheaper tickets.

Do the busier rides first!

yes i have an annual pass to and have never had to queue very long!

with the annual pass anyway you only walk through and scan your pass so queue goes down very quickly.

But there are also queues at the barriers before they open the park but after you've been through the turnstiles...

I'm really not sure I could spend two days straight walking round legoland! Agree that travelodge hotels are cheap and there are a couple in bracknell.

The worst ones for queues are the driving and boating schools, so I personally wouldn't get the train, I turn left and walk straight past the train and head towards those.

Ideally the best thing to go is go on an inset day or something, then the queues are so much shorter.

The queues after the gates are just for the barriers to open when the park does.

Annual passes are really good, because you can have quite nice days out there without trying to go on too many rides, and so not queueing. Mine love the shows, the lego to play with, miniland, the water park, etc.

Eat your picnic at 12 when the show is on, but get there early for a space to sit on a busy day.

Don't waste £5 paying for priority parking, it's really not worth it. Around b6-8 is the closest rows.