Days Out, Paid For by Play and Stay

So they say that LEGOLAND is aimed at children aged between three and 12 years old. I am 26 years old and quite clearly out of the targeted age range but I still loved it. But then I feel that I should let you in on a little secret: Roller coasters terrify me. One of my earliest memories was climbing out of a carriage after being on Disney World’s most extreme ride at the time, Space Mountain in floods of tears. The hysteric kind. That’s right, I absolutely hated it and I was damned if I was ever going on another one.

Fast forward ten years and here I am on a school business studies trip to Disneyland Paris. And here is Space Mountain, staring at me and my friends, egging us on and mocking my terror. Of course, at the age of 15, you have to go with the flow and do what everyone else is doing. If not, you face complete mockery and possible disowning from your piers. So I embarked, and soon realised as we began ascending the first lift hill, that I still wasn’t cured of my fear of rides. Needless to say, I chose the constant ripping that I got from my colleagues instead of going back on Space Mountain.

A little more history: In 2007, I started as a copywriter for Holiday Extras and one of their sister companies, Play and Stay. This means I have to have a certain amount of knowledge about what I am writing about and inevitably, after six months my first educational came up. It was only Thorpe Park, the home of the UK’s most extreme roller coasters… “Oh great,” I thought (Well, it’s not exactly what I thought, but I shouldn’t really be swearing whilst writing for work).

Luckily, my companion on the trip was a lovely man, who never once poked fun at me for being scared and was ever so understanding when I told him I didn’t want to go on the Slammer…. pause… NOT! (Have any of you ever met James Carson? He’s the man that was on Graham Norton’s show with the “McBeautiful” chat-up line. His ambition is to go on Channel 4’s Shipwrecked and he is obsessed with munging.) He completely destroyed me and practically forced me to go on every single ride that was likely to leave a brown stain in my underpants. Starting with Stealth, then Colossus, then Rush… Tidal Wave, Slammer, colossus again, X: No Way Out, Nemesis and finally back on Stealth one last time. I have to admit though, as much as I disliked the man for doing this to me, he did cure me of my fears, and enabled me to make the trip to LEGOLAND for my stepson’s fourth birthday. (Oh and did I forget to mention the look on his face after getting off of Nemesis? “That one made me feel a little sick” he quietly whispered in my ear. What a picture.)

But anyway, history lesson over, this blog is about my trip to LEGOLAND Windsor, not about my good friend, Carson. We have a replacement now, anyway. We call him Carson 2.0 and he is much more jovial and forgiving. And he likes Poetry.

So we left home at 8 o’ clock in the morning, hoping to beat the rush hour traffic and get to the park for its opening time of 10 o’ clock. For his birthday, Stan got a Sportacus outfit (The main guy from Lazy Town) complete with hugely annoying sound effects which he insisted on pressing all the way out of town and along the first part of the M20. After a brief stop at our local services to fill up and buy some travel sweets, we continued to make our way along the M20 with the music turned up a little louder than Sportacus in the back.

In between bouts of Lazy Town sound effects, we managed to squeeze in a game of ‘I Spy’ which involved Stanley giving the answer away every time (”I Spy with my little eye, something beginning with car”). We arrived at the park five minutes before it opened and the weather wasn’t looking great for the day. We had already been through a few showers on the way up (”I Spy with my little eye, something beginning with rain”) so we loaded the buggy up with jackets, cagouls and spare shoes just in case. Of course, it turns out that the weather was glorious all day and I actually ended up getting burnt in places.

Joanna is six months pregnant and as a result, was unable to go on many of the rides. This didn’t dampen her day though, she had a great time snapping us on the rides and making various films on her phone. I think the longest we had to queue was half an hour to get on Pirate Falls, so she wasn’t left alone for too long.

One of the best things about many of the rides is the entertainment along the way. There are work stations with literally hundreds of blocks of DUPLO to play with. We had great fun making the world’s longest skateboard ramp while waiting in line for Boating School and The Dragon is decorated with LEGO models of witches and wizards set in the heart of a medieval castle backdrop. These activities and pieces of eye candy are essential when aiming your theme park at the younger audience.

On board the Orient Expedition

Queues are long and boring places to be, and to be completely honest, you spend way more time waiting to go on the ride than you actually spend riding the damn thing. Two things I did notice whilst queuing was 1) how well behaved our little boy was, and b) how grumpy parents get when they are forced to stand in an orderly queue for more than five minutes. So many times, I caught poor kids being threatened with “we’re never coming back” and/or “we’ll be leaving in a minute if you keep that up!” Maybe the creators of LEGOLAND should take note, and provide the adults with something to do while they queue - this way, there would be a lot less arguments and bad tempers.

The rides themselves were absolutely fantastic, if a little too light heart hearted for the more experienced theme park go-er. The Dragon was great fun; the first part (where you slowly navigate through the castle’s tunnels) was a little bit scary for Stan with its flashing lights and loud sound effects but as soon as we got outside and the ride began in earnest, he absolutely loved it. His description to Joanna straight afterwards went something along the lines of “mummy, mummy, we went on a ride up a big hill then down a big hill and round a corner and it went vrrrrooommmmmmm!!!” before looking round at me and saying “can we do it again?” Haha, it was quality, and to be honest, a relief that he enjoyed it so much.

After a bite to eat and a tasty ice cream, we decided to tackle The Dragon’s sidekick, Dragon’s Apprentice. This one went round the short track twice and the little man proudly pronounced that he was “going to scream REALLY LOUD” on this ride. We then navigated round to LEGO City and took part in the Digger Challenge, Boating School, and the fairly tame Orient Expedition. Boating School was great fun. We let him take control of the steering as we happily smashed, crashed and splashed our way around the short track. (Apologies to anyone who we bumped on our way round).

Joanna took him on the slower rides, the carousel and the Digger Challenge. I had, after all, played the proud father figure all day and thought that maybe she was missing out on the fun. So the two of them happily played on the smaller rides while I took the time to check out some shops and grab a ridiculously expensive drink or two.

It’s at this point that I feel Ishould pipe up about the price of the place. We did get our tickets for free (I have just written the copy for the LEGOLAND Holidays redesign) but the cost of food and drink once inside is ludicrous. I definitely recommend packing a picnic and taking advantage of the many grassy areas. We must have paid out more than £40 on drinks and snacks and we didn’t even sit down in a restaurant to eat.

One of the last rides we went on that day was the Dino Dipper. The gentleman who operated this ride (Mike, I think it said on his name tag) was the most cheerful chappy I had met all day and did a fantastic job of getting the crowd going. Was this because it was nearly home time and he knew he was nearly at the end of his shift? No - I genuinely believe this guy loves his job. Shouts of “Do you wanna go faster?” and “have you had enough yet?” came echoing out of the small arena and literally pulled the crowds in. If you are going down to LEGOLAND any time soon, check him out, he really did make the ride that much better.

So the park closed at six, and hoards of people headed towards the park exit. Luckily, the cafe and shops were still open long enough to grab a bite to eat and get a couple of souvenirs from the day’s events. We ended up leaving the park at gone seven and we headed back home to the not-so-sunny Folkestone and the pikey seagulls that live on the roof opposite our house. After obtaining his driving license at Learner Drivers, Stanley proudly declared that he was driving us home and that I was to spend the journey in the boot. If only. He was actually asleep within 5 minutes of leaving the park allowing Mummy and Papa a peaceful journey home with no Sportacus sound effects. Job done.

Would I go again? Definitely. Would I recommend it to friends? Oh yes. Even if I didn’t do this for a job? Even more so. LEGOLAND was great fun and there was so much to see and do there. We didn’t even make it to Land of the Vikings, and we briskly walked through Miniland without stopping to show Stan what Amsterdam looked like. I would definitely recommend getting a two day pass and staying overnight and maybe even hiring a Q-Bot. I think it would take two days just get around and enjoy the full majesty of the park. Everything, and I mean everything is superbly sculpted in the LEGO style and offers something for all ages. My wife and I may be 26 years old, but we got just as much out of LEGOLAND as our four year old boy.

Next up I’m on the hunt for some free Alton Towers tickets, although I will settle for Drayton Manor and Thomas Land. Watch this space…

Tags: theme park, theme parks, rollercoaster, legoland, uk theme parks, lazy town, sportacus, alton towers, thorpe park, legland windsor, legoland uk, lego land, lego, duplo, windsor, play and stay, dragon, rollercoasters, roller coasters