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Hi all,
During April 2007 I stayed with my family in Denmark for one week. We visited
the park with our season passes. As you all know it is possible to visit one of
the other parks with this season pass (during the same season).
Now we finally decided to go to the United Kingdom for the very first time: a
really big adventure for us all.
With the car on a train (Euro tunnel), for the first time in my life driving on
the wrong side of the road (!), to pay a first visit to LegoLand Windsor.
According to the route planner it is less than 400km, according to fellow
BeLUG-members less than four hours to get there.
Thursday, August 23: the big day!
5.00CET: Out of bed for the big trip.
6.10CET: Leaving home.
7.40CET: Arrival in Calais. We were half an hour too early for our
train-reservation. We were lucky: we could embark on the previous shuttle,
immediately at our arrival. At this point we gained half an hour…
7.30GT-11.00GT: Trying to survive the traffic-jams south of London. What should
have been less than two hours turned out to become a nightmare: will we ever
reach LegoLand before closing time…
Driving on the wrong side of the road wasn’t so difficult after all. English
roundabouts on the contrary really were a big obstacle: we didn’t know that
English roundabouts had completely different rules than elsewhere in Europe. If
you need the third exit on the roundabout, you should’ve been on the third
stroke before the roundabout (in Belgium you can drive circles on a roundabout
for as long as you like, until you find the right exit). I was on the wrong
stroke of the very first roundabout, and I got pushed off by a large truck. I
was forced to take a different road to Lego Land (at times like this the
GPS-system I don’t have comes in handy!).
11.30GT: Fortunately I have good sense of direction, so we finally made it to
the park (after more than six hours!).
When we were driving on Winkfield Road, my wife was wondering if there’s a theme
park in the middle of a village. But the environment suddenly changed when we
drove uphill towards the parking lot.
At the entrance of the park you don’t see anything at all. But 50 metres further
you get this amazing view over a valley: a huge park stretching over the entire
valley. This park definitely is a lot bigger than the ones in Billund and
Günzburg.
Because we arrived this late, there were already long queues on all the
attractions. We queued more than one hour on the Jungle Coaster and the Vikings’
River Splash! The queue on the River Splash was mainly the staff’s fault: every
boat had nine seats, but the average number of people on each boat was less than
four!! (by the way, it wasn’t as good as the Vikings’ River Splash in Billund).
There are so many attractions we didn’t even get a chance to see them all.
I took lots of pictures in Miniland (of course), even if some of the buildings
were exactly the same as the ones in Billund. Brussels (town hall) and London
(Big Ben and Tower Bridge) were new to me.
What I really liked about the park is their non-smoking policy (well, not
everybody seemed to be aware of this…).
The Pick-a-Brick section is comparable to the one in Billund (£4.50/100gram),
but here they still had lots of 1x1 plates in old-gray from the Mosaic Maker
Set!
The children were very disappointed because they couldn’t find Lego-shaped
French fries, but before we left they settled for a takeaway kids menu ;-).
19.40GT: We really have to get back or we will miss the train…
21.45GT: We arrived one minute too late at Folkestone to catch the shuttle we
made a reservation for. We had to wait one (!) hour for the next train. I was
very tired but I tried not to fall asleep, otherwise we would miss the next
train, too.
2.30CET: Back home! That was a really long day (without rain!!!). I wonder if we
would ever do something like this again. My wife insists of taking an entire
vacation in the UK next year….
Maarten
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Maarten,
It looks like you had a decent day despite the traffic. We went to the Lego Club
day on the 16th Sept. With the weather being good it was far busier than our
previous visits this year. Lego Club members got to chat with some of the
builders in the Creation Centre. But seeing as you could sign up at the desk
everyone could have got in. I think most thought it really was just for members
so that area was quiet. Mindstorms had some exclusive bookings for members and
we were told to get booked in early as on the 15th it was all booked by 10:30.
The Brickish Assoc were there with some great models. We enjoyed trying to find
the characters in the castle model. The camera in the train carriage was also
fun.
The new ride for us was the Viking Splash. Wet & Wild!!! It's still in its
shakedown period. That is why they were limiting the numbers to 6 a float rather
than the full 9 capacity. And boy do you get wet. You can also come out with
missing teeth as you spend so much time dodging sprays of water that you crash
into you fellow passengers heads! I also managed to bang my leg as I was taking
a photo just as the float crashed against the side of the ride and I hadn't
braced myself enough. The queue was quite long but went slightly quicker than
the notices. There was one notice that said 2.5 Hours from this point! We went
back at 5:30 to 10 minute queues so we went round twice. I'm not sure the entry
and exit routes are very sensible but it'll settle down once the rest of Viking
Land are sorted. It also set a new height restriction which is now at 1.3m. So
beware of this when promising smaller Lego kids the ride. It seems quite unfair
to me to make small kids queue for ages just so their parents can parent swap a
ride.
Everthing else was quite busy but the only long wait was for the Dragon Ride
where we got to the front just as it broke down for 15 minutes. All part of the
experience I suppose.
Lunch was the usual frantic queue to try and pay for the stuff before it goes
cold! But with 20% discounts it wasn't bad value. Especially when compared to
prices in London itself. Mum & Dad kept topped up with coffee during the day as
the kids went into Mindstorms giving us a break as well.
With each trip we seem top see less and less which was the case this time as
well. Over the years, as the kids have grown up, we have found there is still
loads to do with the complete age range being catered for.
The shop actually had some bargains this time. The old Mindstorms kits were down
to £99 and the new NXT was at £149, so was pretty good with an extra 10% annual
pass discount. There were quite a few Batman sets at half price but as yet the
£250 Star Wars Destroyer is yet to be discounted. On daye , one day.
As ever we came away looking forward to our next visit. We have promised to go
to Billund with our annual pass one day so we can reply to your comments on
Windsor.
Robin
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