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What a great day. Our fourth trip this year!
The rain held off so apart from it being rather dull and a few bits of light
drizzle we didn't have to wear coats or even bother carrying any.
Boy was it quiet. Some pre-school kids and one set of really well behaved school
group. We didn't have to wait for anything. In fact we stayed on, on most of the
rides. After going around the Castle Dragon ride for the third time without
getting off we decided we were feeling either hungry or sick. There were about 4
people in the Castle restaurant and we were given "extra" Lego mini-sets while
sitting eating our lunch. As the weather wasn't that warm we managed to keep off
most of the wet rides. We did go on the log flume and we did get wet. We could
have stayed on that and gone around and around but just the one ride was enough.
We watched the 12:00 and 16:00 show. On both occasions Nath & Jon were first to
positions 3 & 4 ready to soak the baddies. Nath worked out that by twisting the
water jet in just a particular way he could get the thing pointing into the
crowd. As the crowd at that point consisted of his brother and Mum & Dad he was
persuaded not to try it during the show!
There seemed to be loads of Playstation consoles running Lego Star Wars at most
of the covered activities. Nath enjoyed himself entering some of the funnier
cheat codes. There were big changes afoot in mini-land with the whole of London
being dug up. Nothing new there then ;-)
Nath went off for a Mindstorm session. I think they only ran one session as it
was so quiet. We couldn't persuade them that Jon at 6 was really 8 so he spent
the 45min building the mini-kits and seeing the 4D show. Of which there always
seems to be something not working. It was the water spray as the racer comes out
of the snow bank. It was quite funny though as there were obviously loads of
kids who hadn't seen the show before as there were loads of screams when things
came close up in 3D.
No real bargains in any of the shops. Mrs. S-J picked up some LLW Tee-Shirts at
half price at the bottom shop. These were full price at the top shop, very odd.
We generally work on the basis that just as something is at the bottom shop
doesn't mean it'll be at the top shop or at the same price. We had a close look
at the new big Bionicle set which looks good and has gone in at Number 1 on
Jon's Xmas list.
The outside warehouse had its usual mix of stuff. Loads of pink things that the
boys avoided at all cost. We picked up an Apollo Moon Lander for £15. The best
buy, however, were the key rings. 50p yes 50p each for pass holders. Compared
with £3 each or £5.40 for 3 for pass holders inside the park 50p was a complete
bargain. They had a good range to. One lady handed us one having spent 10
minutes herself rummaging through one of the crates having found a rare one.
Talking of crates they were even selling the crates themselves. The lids had the
Lego logo on but they weren't anything special.
On the way back “up north” we pulled off the A404 towards Henley and stopped at
the Red Lion Pub. Actually it’s the first pub on the Henley road off the A404.
The food was really good. They were the sort of place that would do anything for
you. i.e. a Kids portion of an Adult meal off the lunchtime menu in the evening.
A fine selection of beer (or diet coke as yours truly being the nominated
driver).
So is that another year over? No way. There's another teacher training day at
the end of October and of course my birthday in December and Christmas yet.
Having just got back I can't wait to go again.
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The kids have teacher training tomorrow so we're off to Legoland.
The wife did suggest that as I didn't have much holiday left she could take them
on without me. What! Anyway I'm going. The kids are happy too as the wife
doesn't like going on any of the wet rides. Bring it on say me and the kids.
There’s nothing like walking around on a cold day with wet pants! The last time
we went we got the restricted pass which meant we couldn't get in during the
summer holidays. As we weren't due to go during the summer this worked out quite
well.
The kids are looking forward to some of the bigger rides. The Dino Safari was
really disappointing last time. It either needs a bit of time to grow or they
need to hide some of the dinosaurs so you can't see them while waiting in the
queue. The dino dipper is a good ride. Last time we were then only people on it
as we headed straight for the bottom rides. As it's been shut the last two days
we're hoping it's not too busy tomorrow. I'll report back.
Meanwhile if anyone knows of any good bargains to be had either inside the park
or in the clearance warehouse I'd like to know in advance. Also can anyone
recommend a child friendly pub somewhere between Legoland and the M40.
Robins
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This is probably old but it was on BBCAmerica tonight.
on BBC's I'm Alan Partridge: "Never Say Alan Again":
Alan (radio announcer): Who're you with and what're you doing?
Caller: I'd like to go round Legoland with Sean Connery and then afterwards we'd
go for a lamb lunch in the center of Windsor.
Alan: Gotta say Roy, I don't think that's Connery's cup of tea. *I* think Sean
would rather do something like wander the wildfowl park in Haverstock with a
*butterscotch.*
Caller: I don't agree, I think he'd go to Legoland. Bye.
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In lugnet.general, Arne Lykke Nielsen wrote:
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It has just been announced on the Danish news, that LEGO sold 70% of the
shares in the four Legoland Parks to American investment company Blackstone.
They will now be placed in Merlin Entertainment Group, together with the parks
Sea Life, Earth Explorer and Dungeons.
Arne, Copenhagen
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(crossposting to the various Legoland groups)
This looks like it will be good news - by reading this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4678213.stm
it looks like there may be new parks in the future and they want to make the
park destination resorts - so this is good news.
The offical Lego PR can be found here:
http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=pressdetail&contentid=15584&countrycode=2057
but hey - as long as they keep the Commemorative Brick program at LLCA and FIX
the fabrik machine at LLD I will be a happy man ;)
Mark P
http://www.promobricks.com
(FUT .legoland)
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All I can say is ummmmmmm... what?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=3&ObjectID=10126875
Dubai bids for Legolands as it seeks home for oil wealth
23.05.05
JORDAN - Dubai's Government buyout fund is bidding for Lego's Legoland amusement
parks two months after acquiring London's Madame Tussauds waxworks museum as the
emirate uses its oil wealth to invest in Europe's entertainment industry.
"We will look to consolidate in the theme park sector in Europe through
Tussauds," Dubai International Capital chief executive officer Sameer al-Ansari
said in an interview in Jordan.
"We can't comment on how much we bid for Lego's parks," he said
Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, which is using a windfall profit from
record oil prices last year to double revenue from tourism in the next decade.
Billund Lego, based in Denmark, put its amusement parks up for sale in October
as it tried to revive its business making toys such as Duplo building blocks.
The company had its third annual loss in five years last year.
The Dubai fund in March paid 800 million ($2 billion) for Tussauds Group, whose
London waxworks includes models of celebrities including David Beckham, Brad
Pitt and Kylie Minogue.
The Chessington (England) company also runs theme parks such as Alton Towers and
Chessington World of Adventures.
Legoland runs four parks in Denmark, Germany, England and California. The parks'
attractions include lifesize Lego models of giraffes and hippopotami.
Buyout firms including Blackstone Group, Palamon Capital Partners, Spectrum
Equity Investors and Apollo Management may make offers for Legoland worth more
than 400 million, the Financial Times reported last month, without saying where
it got the information.
"We expect the sale to be completed in the summer," Lego spokeswoman Charlotte
Simonsen said. She declined to give details about specific bids the company had
received.
Dubai may spend US$3 billion ($4.2 billion) to US$5 billion a year over the next
five years to buy assets around the world, al-Ansari said. In January the
emirate bought a US$1 billion stake in the German carmaker DaimlerChrysler AG.
- BLOOMBERG
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The other week the Daily Express ran an article about women with unusual jobs.
LLW's Paula Laughton was featured describing what she gets out of being a
modelmaker and saying that adult fans are scary! (I don't think she was
serious!)
Here's the article:
<http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Psi/lugnetllw/paulamailarticle150405.jpg>
A bit big, but it had to be so it was legible.
Psi
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In lugnet.legoland.windsor, Simon Bennett wrote:
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Legoland Windsor are holding a Legoland After Dark event on 8 and 9 April
2005. The park have invited the Brickish Association to field a 10-person
team to attempt to beat the Imperial Star Destroyer build record.
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So, last weekend 10 Brickish members in the team and a lot of others who were
just along to lend support (and take the pictures) went along to Brickadilly’s
Circus tent and the result was...
1 hour, 13 minutes and 56 seconds
So, not enough to take the crown but never mind, as it was really good fun.
Dean Earley’s photos
Ian Grieg’s photos
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Legoland Windsor are holding a Legoland After Dark event on 8 and 9 April 2005
The park have invited the Brickish Association to field a 10-person team to
attempt to beat the Imperial Star Destroyer build record.
Please come and watch if you can and feel free to reply to this thread casting
aspersions on our chances with which I will wholeheartedly agree ;-)
Psi.
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Well, I finally got to go to legoland windsor last friday. A good day
but I can't help feeling a little disappointed in places :-(
Site itself is great - and bigger than I expected. We had our 3 yr old
and a 3 month old baby so progress around the park was slower than I
would have liked :)
It was a very hot day in July - peak season so I wasn't surprised that
there were hour long queues for rides. What I was surprised at was the
lack of any attempt to entertain the queues on most of the rides.
Standing in a queue for 40 mins with nothing to look at is not easy with
a 3 yr old. Sky rider was the worst example of this. I had expected at
least some models or something to look at - nothing. You could have been
queuing at any theme park.
On rides where there was something to do (boat school comes to mind)
there were several duplo building areas in the queue. Unfortunatly, over
the period of the day all of the bricks had migrated to the last one so
there was nothing to entertain kids for the first 30 mins of the queue
and then when you finally got to the point where the bricks had ended up
there were so many that you couldn't do anything as they were piled so
high. It wouldn't have taken much for them to have someone with a bucket
shifting stuff back a few times a day.
Food. Burger and fries for nearly 7 quid is a bit steap. Theme park
prices I suppose so I wasn't really surprised. Certainly no worse than
many other places. Resturant prices appeared to be similar and quite
reasonable - didn't try this so can't really comment.
On more positive points, miniland is fabulous. We didn't have much time
to look at it in detail as it was 7:30pm already and the park had
allegedy shut 30 mins earlier. Plenty of rides for little kids. My 3 yr
old had a great time (bar the queues!).
Duplo land water playground was a huge win for my son. He would have
spent the whole day there given the chance :)
By the time we got to the shop on the exit it was getting on for 1hr
after closing time. The staff didn't seem to care and there was no rush
at all. Also got to have a look at the new technic lego truck box. Big
box and pretty heavy as well. I *need* one of these I feel ;-)
Car parking seemed incredibly organised and worked very well. We arrived
at around 11am so I'm not sure how it was coping later in the day - it
was fairly full when we got there.
All in all, pretty good as a theme park for younger kids. Whether we
would feel that we had our moneys worth if we had had to pay the 60 quid
entry fee for the 3 of us I'm not so sure (we used tesco clubcard
vouchers for free entry - a very good deal).
Will we return? YES! We are planning to return late in the season
hopefully when the schools are back. Hopefully this will be a bit more
relaxed and give us chance to see a bit more lego this time!
Darren
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I’ve finally got some images for the .windsor sidebar...
These are from an insider and show the new Jungle Coaster under construction.
The first is now on the sidebar.
Much more information on events for this year coming soon
Psi
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"Simon Bennett" <simon.bennett@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Hu3tu7.17A8@lugnet.com...
> In lugnet.mediawatch, Scott Arthur wrote:
> > .... sorry if this is old news
> >
> > <<http://www.littleblue.ndo.co.uk/temp/nce_ll_feb_2004.jpg>>
> >
> > Scott A
>
> How did I miss that? I hang my head in shame!
>
> Cheers Scott
>
> Psi
I didn't miss it but forgot about scanning it.
.. hangs head in shame!
Thanks Scott
--
James Stacey
------
www.minifig.co.uk
Lugnet Member #925
I'm a citizen of Legoland travellin' Incommunicado
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In lugnet.mediawatch, Scott Arthur wrote:
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.... sorry if this is old news
Scott A
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How did I miss that? I hang my head in shame!
Cheers Scott
Psi
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In lugnet.general, James Brown wrote:
> Hmm. I'm pretty sure they don't actually make you live at the park. You could
> probably commute from Windsor. :)
>
> James
> (though I don't recommend walking to work; it's a long haul)
When I said 'in one of the most expensive places to live in the UK' I was
referring to the entire South East! I had a friend who used to be a model maker
and I think one of the reasons he had to give it up was that he couldn't afford
to buy any sort of place to live in the area, not even in Slough!
I've just had to move up to practically Northamptonshire to be able to afford to
buy a house with a garage, and if that's the case, how am I going to get
somewhere with enough Lego storage room in Surrey or Berkshire?!
Having said that I wouldn't mind living at LLW - the mansion is rather nice!
Psi
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In lugnet.admin.curators, Simon Bennett wrote:
> If appropriate - I'm not sure if curatorships have been thrown open outside .loc
> and themes - I'd like to offer to curate it.
Hey! That sounds great. I am the curator of the legoland.california group and am
having a blast with it. I really do wish there was more traffic in the other
Legoland sections - I would love to know whats going on over in the other parks
to see how it measures up to LLCA. Like are they having the Duplo Promo Brick
program like LLCA is?
I know the UK has other sites they do most of their talking on, but if some of
that info can filter down to here that would be great!
So go drop a line to Todd saying you would like the job. :)
Mark P
http://www.landofbricks.com
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Dear all,
It just came to light through discussions amongst us in the UK that the sidebar
for the legoland.windsor group is a tad out of date - most importantly that LLW
has changed the rules for the discount entry for this year. The file for the
discount offer was hosted by Huw at Brickset but he has now removed it so the
link is now redundant. Lawrence Wilkes has also stopped hosting his pics.
If appropriate - I'm not sure if curatorships have been thrown open outside .loc
and themes - I'd like to offer to curate it.
Psi
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In lugnet.mediawatch, John Gerlach wrote:
That’s cool! It can’t be every day that Prince Phillip stops by and says “no,
we get our milk through that door there.”
James
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Hello all visitors to The other Legoland parks! I have a question for you. Since
LLCA is starting up a huge Duplo Promo Brick program ( see
http://news.lugnet.com/legoland/california/?n=561 ) I was wondering if any of
the other parks are going to do the same thing, or if they are offering ANY
Duplo promo bricks anytime soon.
Any and all info would be appreciated!
Mark P
http://www.landofbricks.com
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In lugnet.legoland.windsor, Tracy McDonnell writes:
> Can anyone tell me if it will be more crowded at LLW during the Royal Ascot?
>
> Thanks.
I find attendance at LLW is mostly down to weather forecasts and school
holidays. Traffic may make it more difficult to get to from the M3
direction though.
XP to loc.uk in case someone who lives closer can help more.
Psi
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