Legoland

Nicklt

This is a hard annoyance to justify but hay.

Went to legoland at the weekend and it was very very busy, wait time of nearly 1 hour + for each ride.

Now on a busy day you should expect this, fair enough. Say you are there for 5-6 hours you only get to go on 5-6 rides, there is a lot to do at legoland to so you end up missing out a lot.

What annoys me though is the charges, yes you can get the adult entry free voucher, but for a family of four legoland are saying they are woth close to £200 - now if we had paid full price I would have been very angry as the kids go to do/go on so little.

OlliesDad

Nicklt wrote: »

This is a hard annoyance to justify but hay.

Went to legoland at the weekend and it was very very busy, wait time of nearly 1 hour + for each ride.

Now on a busy day you should expect this, fair enough. Say you are there for 5-6 hours you only get to go on 5-6 rides, there is a lot to do at legoland to so you end up missing out a lot.

What annoys me though is the charges, yes you can get the adult entry free voucher, but for a family of four legoland are saying they are woth close to £200 - now if we had paid full price I would have been very angry as the kids go to do/go on so little.

I agree it is very expensive for what it is, but it is always rammed so I doubt there is any incentive to lower the prices. If the price was much cheaper, those 1 hour queues would be 2 hours instead!

Also, it encourages people to pay for the 2 day overnight stay at the onsite hotel.

ukjoel

They make it worse by closing for the winter. I dont know of any of the other big theme parks that do this.

Means all staff are seasonal so will not be as well trained or as experienced as other parks.

Its the one theme park we wont go to for all the reasons mentioned above.

I agree that for a £200 bill for a family of four, is horrendous.
Appreciate many dont pay full price but I still find it incredible.

p00hsticks

ukjoel wrote: »

They make it worse by closing for the winter. I dont know of any of the other big theme parks that do this.

Alton Towers closes from early November until late March

Searcher

p00hsticks wrote: »

Alton Towers closes from early November until late March

So does Thorpe park

peachyprice

And Chessington.

Lip_Stick

The price of the Ultimate Q-bot is ridiculous. £70 is obscene!

Hated Legoland when I went with my son. I bought the regular Q-bot for us both on the morning we arrived, after asking if it would be worth it. I was told that it was very busy but when we got in it was dead. Some rides we just went straight on to as there was no queue.

It rained all day, a lot of rides you got wet on, and my son fall asleep for a large chunk of the day leaving me bored to tears.

My son said he loved it. :silenced:

Nicklt

Ah these line jumper things. What a scam. You end up paying extra and either don't need it or end up waiting just a long as everyone else because everyone and his dog has bought one.

Doubt we will go back, would only go back if I took the kids out of school to go on a quite day.

WestonDave

Our trick is to go on an inset day or if you've got pre-school kids on any school day. Bank holiday is probably the worst time to go even if its wet - I think last year they stopped letting people in because it was too full! By contrast we went on the last Friday in April and the only ride we had a long queue (45 mins) for was the laser quest thing - probably because we worked back from the castle towards the entrance and hit the big crowd coming the other way. Other tips are - take a packed lunch in an accessible bag because you can then eat sandwiches in the queues, and if there is something busy you want to go on, wait for one of the pirate shows by the lighthouse as a lot of people gather for those and obviously aren't in the queues!


(We did stay overnight onsite and although its not cheap when you factor 2 days in the park its not so bad either - plus you get slightly early entry into the park via the hotel albeit to a limited set of rides) We've been a few times carefully choosing our days - probably getting to the point now where the kids are getting bored of it and too old for some of it.

olgadapolga

ukjoel wrote: »

Means all staff are seasonal so will not be as well trained or as experienced as other parks.

A lot of the staff return to work at Legoland year after year - we've been going since 2008 and many of the staff who we first met then are still employed by Legoland (albeit on seasonal contracts).

barbiedoll

I've been to Legoland a couple of times and the trick is to go out of season, i.e. during the week and early or late in the year.

Bearing in mind that Legoland is for young kids, we used to take ours out of school for a day and we would use the vouchers where the adults go free with a paying child (or the other way round, I can't remember?) Kids between the ages of 3-10 aren't going to have their education ruined by skiving off for a day out, so I didn't feel too guilty, I don't take mine on holiday in term time!

I used to get up early and fill some baguettes with tuna and cheese, bake them for 15 mins or so and then wrap them in foil and plastic bags. We would take crisps, fruit and sweets etc and get the early train so that we were there by opening time. We didn't take drinks as they were heavy to carry around all day so we budgeted for drinks at the park.

Our best day there was during a rainy October, the kids were wrapped up in their anoraks (as were we!) and we had a whale of a time. All of the rides were mostly empty so we didn't have to queue for anything for longer than a few minutes. We sat watching the Pirate show after treating ourselves to a hot drink and some doughnuts and the tuna baguettes kept reasonably warm until lunchtime. We were wet anyway so we spent the last couple of hours on the ride which spins around whilst the spectators press buttons to activate the water sprays, we all got drenched and had a ball!

I find it hard to understand why people spend their hard-earned Bank Holidays queuing up for a kids ride, we asked one of the staff about the notices which show the queue wait times, they told us that parents do indeed expect their kids to wait in line for an hour or more to go on a ride! :eek: I've never been to any attraction during the peak times after once spending a day at London Zoo, most of which was spent staring at the back of other people's heads.

I used to love Legoland but I wouldn't go near there during the school summer holidays!