Legoland Windsor with 5yo on bank holiday - advice?

[sunnydayhereandnow]

I booked a two-day break at Legoland Windsor for me and DS 5.5, and failed to notice that the first day is the August Bank Holiday. Oops. We have park entry both days (Monday and Tuesday), will probably arrive mid-morning.

I know that many people have low opinions of Legoland, but I'm sure my son will love it. He's never been to a theme park before, and the only ride he has ever been on is a small carousel.

I'm happy to stick to the less busy rides as I think he'll enjoy anything but I don't want to spend the day queuing and I'm not interested in forking out a huge amount for the shorter queues. Any recommendations about which rides are likely to have shorter queues? And if we pick one thing to head to at early opening time on the second day, what should it be? Something fun but relatively tame as he's not a thrill seeker.

All other advice very much appreciated - thanks! (Planning to bring our own food/order to the hotel).

yes, take loads of food, we went and half the food outlets in the parks were not open, one big one by the water was closed for a private event.

If I had known, I’d have bought a car plug in / electric cool box and taken stuff to make sandwiches for the two days. I was looking at people’s packed lunches with envy!

Take metal flask bottles and fill them with coffee in your room for the day as coffee shop queues also huge. I wish I’d taken our cafetiere or Tassimo machine to make nice coffee to fill the bottles with to last all day.

We tried one of the castle(?) restaurant one evening and were there till easy 10pm waiting for food we had ordered.

We ordered deliveroo to the room the next evening but of course had no plates, cutlery, cups etc so take your own of those too (pizza express or zizzis from memory - I remember it was excellent pizza!)

Theres a Lego playroom downstairs with a bar in it but I think there was some rule about booking to get in it, so look into that - it was nice to follow my 5yo around whilst he played Lego with a glass of wine in my hand after a long day. Don’t worry if you miss out on booking in for the pool, it’s tiny and not worth the effort.

Take stuff to keep kids entertained in the queue, we play Heads Up on the phones for example.

Flight of the Sky Lion is the most popular and always has the longest queue. Pirate Falls also gets very busy in the afternoon. The queues at the spinning spider, fairy tale brook, raft racers, carousel, spinning chairs and Duplo train all seem to move quickly.

Thank you so much! We live overseas (hence not changing the dates of our Legoland trip!) so won't be able to bring coffee machines but will definitely fill up in the room. Good advice about cutlery and cups. Thanks also for the advice about rides. Tbh sky lion looks a bit scary for my kid. Pretty sure he'd prefer the little kid ones anyway :)

If you’re staying at the hotel on site, I’d head to the submarine ride first thing. It’s really cool and gets busy very quickly.

The hotel buffet was absolute carnage when we went, Deliveroo wasn’t a thing then but it’s a great idea!

Miniland is always fun to wander around.

Honestly, rethink. It's really not that great and unless you have fast passes completely pointless. I took my son for his 7th birthday and it was a long, hot day of waiting and waiting for a 2 minute ride.

He went on 2 things all day and we only saw maybe 1/4 of the park.

I really really hate theme parks. They promise so much and deliver so little.

You can download an app that will show you queue times for all the rides. Queues tend to be a bit shorter around lunchtime. Sky Lion and the driving school always seem to have big queues so I'd skip those.

There's lots to do that aren't rides as well, there's a great play park in the pirate area and places dotted around where you can make stuff out of lego or you can look around Miniland, or watch a show at the 4D cinema.

If you're in a Legoland hotel there's a swimming pool that's pretty much empty because everyone's in the park.

The smaller rides are like young toddler rides. The ‘big rides’ are all fine for kids age 4+. At 5 he’ll be able to go on almost everything, I think, just not the riding school one. Sky lion isn’t remotely scary, it’s like a more sophisticated 4D cinema. Don’t bank on thinking the smaller rides will be fine and a 5YO would be happy with them. Bank holiday weekend you need the reserve and ride or honestly it’ll be awful. Just get the cheap one, think it’s £15, then it can queue for you whilst you do playgrounds, snack break, the lego building areas etc.

Legoland do offer a ride reservation pass that isn't too expensive - it doesn't cut your waiting time but it allows you to queue 'virtually' rather than standing in line so you could wander round, get lunch etc. rather than standing in a queue. You pay a lot more for the actual fast ride passes, of course.

We normally do one day reserve and ride (book in advance) and focus on getting on the rides and the other day focus on the non-ride stuff like the cinema and play park, and only jump on rides if we spot a short queue. Check the weather in advance! If it’s raining then there will be fewer queues anyway.

I would get there for opening time (I think it’s 10 am). There’s a quieter hour or so first thing.

Really builds up by lunchtime.

I would consider the fast passes. Makes an enormous difference imo.

Edit - I mean the reserve and ride - queues virtually for you. This made all the difference for us.