A day out at Legoland

We have been wanting to take the kids to Legoland for a long time now. Several friends have been and the children have seen adverts on the TV, and we just knew it would be a fun filled day out for everyone. So when Superbreak got in touch to offer us tickets for a family attraction, we knew straight away we wanted to check out Legoland.

When we arrived the sun was shining, and with rain forecast later, we headed straight for the Duplo Valley Drench Towers to get some splash time in before the wet weather. This was the highlight of the day for Gemma and Jacob – they had seen the Duplo bucket on the TV, and couldn’t wait for it to tip onto their heads!

The splash park area is just lovely, and you could easily spend a whole day just chilling out here. There are clean and tidy changing rooms, soft padded flooring to ensure kids don’t hurt their bare feet and a swim shop for those who arrive without towels/cossies/swim nappies. Duplo Valley features 2 levels of splash park – a smaller ‘younger’ splash area with spouting animal fountains, wheels to turn and sprinklers. Drench Towers itself has the tipping Duplo bucket and flumes as well as all the fountains and games. 

We knew there was so much more to explore so after an hour or so, we lured the kids away from the splash park with the promise of finding some rides. We did the Viking river rapids, Space Tower, the Pirate Falls log flume, Fairytale brook and the sky coaster – all of which the kids loved, although I think the log flume was the favourite, mainly because it was SO funny that Mummy got soaked! The queues were long for all the rides, with waits up to an hour. There is the option to buy Q-Bots that allow you to jump the queues, although I am not a fan of these personally – it is so unfair on the small children who have waited patiently for so long, especially when the same people use them to queue jump over and over again on the same ride.

The rides are all really tailored to children – nothing too scary, and the height restrictions are not too bad either – there is something for most children from 90cm. Gemma was tall enough to do a lot of the rides on her own – but it’s much more fun with Daddy!

After a few rides we headed over to the Driving School. This is another attraction my children has heard a lot about, and they were keen to gain their licences. There was not such a big wait for this as several children can go on at one time. There is a short video first, showing the children the rules of the road, then they are into the cars and away!

They loved the driving school. There are roundabouts, traffic lights and junctions to navigate and they get a decent amount of time on the ride too. At the end each child is given a cardboard licence – you can then take this to the photo booth to have their photo added and a plastic lanyard, but we opted not to do this, as at £10 each it was costly! We have added their on photos at home, and I will laminate the cards for them. There is the option to buy a photo on most rides.

When you need a break from the rides, there are plenty of ‘down time’ areas around the park. Miniland is a gorgeous place to wander around, and Gemma and Jacob really enjoyed pointing out landmarks and places they recognised. There is everything from the London Eye and Buckingham Palace to the NASA Space Station and the Eiffel Tower. It’s amazing. 

One thing I would love to see more of around the park is benches. It might seem like a small thing, but there really are very few places to sit and take 5 minutes while the children play. We actually went back to the car for our lunch as there was just no space to sit and eat comfortably.

After lunch we explored other areas of the park, ending back up near Duplo Valley in the outdoor playground. Here there are climbing frames, little houses, slides and swings to play on. We were also lucky enough to meet 2 Lego bricks who stopped for a chat!

There is so much to see and do, and everything is very family centred. The staff are friendly and helpful, and all the facilities are clean and well maintained. It would be lovely to see a few more baby changing areas though. As it got later, we started to think about tea, and after consulting the very useful Legoland app (definitely worth downloading if you are planning a visit) we discovered that kids eat free after 4pm in a selection of the Legoland restaurants. We opted for Pizza and Pasta, and there is plenty of choice for all ages. It is an ‘all you can eat’ option too, and cost £23 for all 5 of us to have an evening meal plus drinks. Not bad at all!

We finished the day with another couple of rides, before a quick stop in the Lego shop on the way home. The kids were given £10 each to choose a small memento. Jacob came away with a Lego car and a keyring, while Gemma went for a Lego Friends cup and notepad. We also picked up a couple of Christmas presents too – it was nice to see that the prices were not hiked up just because it was part of an attraction.

Legoland is a huge attraction, and we barely scratched the surface with a day ticket. There were so many things we didn’t get a chance to try out. We have already decided we will be heading back there again at some point, and plan to stay in the Legoland hotel and make it a 2 or 3 day mini break. Yes, it’s expensive, but it is SO worth it. If we lived closer, we would definitely purchase an annual pass, you could easily spend half the summer holidays and a lot of weekends there! It was one of the best places we have visited, and the kids haven’t stopped talking about it since.