Our day out at Legoland, Windsor

On a grey, miserable, slightly wet Saturday in September we took the children for their first ever trip to Legoland Windsor. Looking out of my window now at the glorious September sunshine I'm starting to think we should have waited a few weeks however after hearing horror stories about queuing times and not experiencing any real queues perhaps we were better to chance it on a bit of an iffy day.

I have two Lego-mad children and luckily for them, it's a habit that I don't mind indulging them in. They're aged 7 and 6 and I thought this was probably the right age for their first trip to Legoland. They've always wanted to go but I kept this a secret right until we got to the gates. They thought we were going to a far-flung DIY shop so had miserable faces on them. Wicked parents. As mentioned, the weather was on the dodgy side so the park was probably quieter than normal, by no means empty, but quieter than I would have expected. This meant we managed to get a good few rides done in record time.

We merrily bobbed past the Vikings River Splash (it was way too nippy for rapids, though there were a good few hardcore Brits giving it ago...) and my daughter had a go on the Spinning Spider with my husband. Me and the boy just watched, he doesn't like spinning things.

After this we went on the Jolly Rocker pirate ship. The little lad didn't really want to but I persuaded him on and then had to pretend like I was really enjoying it - it felt much higher than it looked! Both children enjoyed it but weren't keen to give it a second go! 

We headed into the Knights Kingdom and took a ride on the Dragon's Apprentice which is a smaller roller-coaster. Turns out, the little boy doesn't like spinning things but he LOVES a roller-coaster. He screamed in my ears with pleasure the whole time. As he liked that one we took it as a good sign and headed into the castle to have a go on The Dragon which was also a big hit!

After a wander around here we headed into Kingdom of the Pharaohs and waited in line for the seemingly very popular Laser Raiders. The ride broke down whilst we were queuing but after a few minutes it was up and running again so we were glad we stayed put. This was a good fun shooting game that everyone enjoyed.

We decided to have a snack break at this point and stopped for a cup of tea and some rather tasty muffins. Whilst we were munching, the Pirates of Skeleton Bay Stunt Show started right opposite and the children rushed out to watch it. I could barely tear them away as they enjoyed it so much but we decided to head off and beat the crowds to the next ride which my son had already decided was Atlantis. Atlantis is a Lego submarine ride that takes you on a underwater adventure. You venture through a deep secret passage on a journey to the bottom of sea and spot lots of amazing creatures on your hunt to find the ruins of Atlantis. The children both loved this ride as they're big fans of sea creatures and really enjoyed looking at all the fish. They also enjoyed the little SeaLife experience when they came out and got to hold their first sea urchin.

We back tracked after this ride and went back to the Dino Safari at my sons request. I kind of wish we hadn't as this was where we experienced our worst queue, it took forever, and it really wasn't worth the wait. Saying that, he enjoyed it so I suppose it was worth it but we queued for over half an hour for what amounted to about 2 mins in an automated car looking for Lego dinosaurs. 

There were other things we avoided due to big queues like Hero Factory Build + Test and the Driving School but felt like we saw and did enough to keep everyone happy. We all really enjoyed the Lego Chima 4D Movie Experience and walking around the Miniland display of famous landmarks - which I must say is looking a bit old now however it is obviously regularly updated as is evident from the Jubilee Pageant boat!

The only other thing we wanted to do but couldn't was the Sky Rider, this was closed just as we were about to go on due to the rain forecast (that never actually came but it did look decidedly dodgy!).  We took a few trips on the Hill Train then headed up to the Hill Top Cafe to grab some food. I have to say, I'm usually a bit meh about theme park food but the sandwiches in the cafe were absolutely delicious! After this we went into the Lego Star Wars Miniland Model Display as on our way into the park this was rammed. It was empty now so we got a good chance to look around and I have to say this was probably one of my sons favourite parts! The models were excellent.

After this we decided it was probably time to head home after a long day and also a long journey ahead of us, so it was a quick trip into the BIG shop to lose a few pennies (or £50, whoops) and then homeward bound with two very happy and tired children.

We really enjoyed our trip to Legoland, it's a fun day out for all the family and if you time it right you can probably avoid a lot of the queues.  If you've got young children under 1.3m you really need an adult per child to get the best out of the rides.  My only real downside was  that some of the rides were really short. We didn't have to queue very long for anything but if I had queued for a long time in the height of summer I might have been a bit miffed that some of them felt over before they'd begun. I guess an upside of this is if your child really hates something they're not on it for very long! Another thing I'd like to see incorporated is Lego Friends. I'm sure they're working on this somewhere as it's really only a recent product but my daughter would have really enjoyed a Lego Friends ride/experience so I hope to see that in the future!

Celebrate the end of Legoland season with a bang this 26, 27 October and 1, 2 November with their spectacular Lego DC Universe Superheroes Fireworks extravaganza which will be lighting the skies above the resort. Check out their website for more information about the event including details of how to book your tickets.

I was provided with day admission tickets for two adults and two children in return for this review. All words, images and opinions are my own.