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Legoland Windsor

We are doing Legoland and Chessington on 4th and 5th October and have just spotted that it's likely to be the start of Brick or Treat and the Chessington alternative. Are all the usual rides open at this time for those who know more than me? Are the opening times also expected to be extended or would they be as currently advertised? Thanks in advance.
 
Wilko said:
We are doing Legoland and Chessington on 4th and 5th October and have just spotted that it's likely to be the start of Brick or Treat and the Chessington alternative. Are all the usual rides open at this time for those who know more than me? Are the opening times also expected to be extended or would they be as currently advertised? Thanks in advance.
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Attractions should be open as normal.

Traditionally Chessington’s hours would be extended, but given they appear to have a blanket 5pm close across the season this year I wouldn’t bank on it.
 
Wilko said:
We are doing Legoland and Chessington on 4th and 5th October and have just spotted that it's likely to be the start of Brick or Treat and the Chessington alternative. Are all the usual rides open at this time for those who know more than me? Are the opening times also expected to be extended or would they be as currently advertised? Thanks in advance.
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Water rides won't be open at Legoland but everything else will be.
 
Anyone have any experience with sell out days at Legoland ? We booked tomorrow nearly a month ago and when we checked today for some restrictions we have seen that the park is sold out, tbh I’m expecting a very difficult day !
 
Well kinda not as bad day as expected but safe to say we didn’t get much done ….. but one would hope the thoughts and prayers are with Merlin’s owners after the amount of unhappy people yesterday seeking the revenge for the sadism they inflicted on everyone from crowds to the new clunky harbour show that was just torture to follow/watch
 
Rob F said:
Well kinda not as bad day as expected but safe to say we didn’t get much done ….. but one would hope the thoughts and prayers are with Merlin’s owners after the amount of unhappy people yesterday seeking the revenge for the sadism they inflicted on everyone from crowds to the new clunky harbour show that was just torture to follow/watch
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Unfortunately, I suspect it wasn't the owners they took their revenge on. It was probably the 16 year old on a zero hour contract. And the managers probably came out the office at the end of the day and told everyone, 'You've got to have thick skin in this job'.
 
Anyone have any ideas what sort of crowds are likely mid September on a Saturday? Yes I know there is the "crowd calendar" for a rough guide yet I prefer anyone's actual experience, I obviously know it would be busier than say during the week
 
Mattie boy said:
Anyone have any ideas what sort of crowds are likely mid September on a Saturday? Yes I know there is the "crowd calendar" for a rough guide yet I prefer anyone's actual experience, I obviously know it would be busier than say during the week
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My experience is Legoland is always busy, outside of a few winter visits.

You can download the app and see the actual queue times this Saturday if you want an indicator of what to expect.
 
Thank-you , that's what my thoughts were, we would usually do a mid week September visit yet its closed this year on the dates we are going that way.

Yes I will get the app
 
Had quite the day at Legoland today with a lot of observations too.

- Bizarrely, a show has been built IN THE QUEUE for Haunted House. This is completely ridiculous. Now on the one hand, it's a brilliant idea to have entertainment in what is otherwise a cattle-pen queue. On the other hand, it means people can't actually watch the show. Definitely the strangest thing i've seen at a theme park in a long time.

- Speaking of shows, there's a Halloween show by the water too, though i can't speak of the quality of it. The small stage by Duplo has also reopened and looks pretty much the same as far as i can tell, though it now seems to be more of a meet and greet location with a rabbit i didn't recognise but assume is Duplo related.

- The cinema has gone from cycling 4 films throughout the day to 1 Halloween film all day. Temporary i imagine but my son was very upset by this and it's not advertised on the website or reflected in the app.

- Back to Haunted House, it broke down twice when we got to the Pre-Show. The first time they didn't say anything for ages and because the show was going on i assumed they had paused the ride for the show, which would have been just as rubbish. Then they evacuated, which again resulted in tears.
The second time we got through the pre-show but then evacuated again. This time i asked to speak to a manager, who gave me 2 fast tracks without me saying a word. Fine. When we came back later the lady operating remembered us and kindly let us to the front anyway.

Oh and when we did finally get on they left the bloody lights on during the ride. The mad houses of Europe all seem to be crumbling simultaneously.

- SkyLion queue was carnage, the RAP/FT was the longest i've ever seen it, up to the lion statue outside to the point they were warning off people joining the main queue despite it not actually being very long. They also weren't scanning till entry so RAP users were getting screwed with a double wait time, probably more complaints and more fast tracks so a day of exponential problem making.

- The new entrance is the biggest waste of money i've seen in a long time. Don't get me wrong, it's quite cool... except nobody can actually see it because you enter by the side through the security marquee. Such awful planning, i don't know if there are further plans to move the actual entry point centrally so people go through it, otherwise an almighty waste.

We made the best of it but we were up really early and genuinely wish i'd just driven to Plopsaland instead (where i checked and all rides were operating and with 5-10 min queues).
 
Bowser said:
Had quite the day at Legoland today with a lot of observations too.

- Bizarrely, a show has been built IN THE QUEUE for Haunted House. This is completely ridiculous. Now on the one hand, it's a brilliant idea to have entertainment in what is otherwise a cattle-pen queue. On the other hand, it means people can't actually watch the show. Definitely the strangest thing i've seen at a theme park in a long time.
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To be fair, where it’s positioned means that it can both be watched from within the queue, and without joining the queue from outside.

Add to that the fact that it’s a show with no real story, but rather just Lord Vampyre performing a DJ set so you can start/stop watching at any point.

I think it works quite well 🤷🏼‍♂️
 
Been once and vowed never to return ever again despite our family being big Lego fans.

We got on 3 rides all day thanks to ridiculous queues and constant breakdowns.

Personally feel like the rides there dont live up the world's number 1 toy brand.
 
Benjsh said:
Been once and vowed never to return ever again despite our family being big Lego fans.

We got on 3 rides all day thanks to ridiculous queues and constant breakdowns.

Personally feel like the rides there dont live up the world's number 1 toy brand.
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I think it's very much a Merlin park, in that so much of your day is determined by luck. You can have a great day or you can have a terrible one and it's generally out of your hands. What you describe is something people will have experienced across all the Merlin parks. I'd say at this point i'm a seasoned Legoland veteran and we still got caught somewhat short today. Not enough to ruin it but i heard other people saying they wanted their money back and if you're not a MAP holder i can understand that.

That's my issue with the Merlin parks in general, the baseline quality is so much lower than a lot of other places and feels very much reliant on MAP to justify themselves. Imagine the current parks but everyone was paying £50+ per person! Personally my expectations are fairly low from the offset and i'll let things like today slide because we'll just go back again in a few months.

That being said i do still think Legoland is the best of the parks in terms of reliability/availability. You almost never see full day ride closures compared to the others and they're the most weather resistant too.
 
Bowser said:
That's my issue with the Merlin parks in general, the baseline quality is so much lower than a lot of other places
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You say this, but then you read absolute horror stories from other multi park operators. Six Flags in the US, and Wallabi in Europe spring to mind.

If we remove the single park operators, like Efteling and Paulton's Park from the equation, in addition to the behemoths and arguably identikit parks of Disney and Universal (at least in repeating attractions), are Merlin the worst offender compared to the rest?
 
Bowser said:
I think it's very much a Merlin park, in that so much of your day is determined by luck. You can have a great day or you can have a terrible one and it's generally out of your hands. What you describe is something people will have experienced across all the Merlin parks. I'd say at this point i'm a seasoned Legoland veteran and we still got caught somewhat short today. Not enough to ruin it but i heard other people saying they wanted their money back and if you're not a MAP holder i can understand that.

That's my issue with the Merlin parks in general, the baseline quality is so much lower than a lot of other places and feels very much reliant on MAP to justify themselves. Imagine the current parks but everyone was paying £50+ per person! Personally my expectations are fairly low from the offset and i'll let things like today slide because we'll just go back again in a few months.

That being said i do still think Legoland is the best of the parks in terms of reliability/availability. You almost never see full day ride closures compared to the others and they're the most weather resistant too.
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Not enough to entice us back even if we visited on a quiet day. My son is now 11 and enjoys thrill rides these days. I dont think he'd get much out of a return trip anymore and neither would we.

Do love lego though. I have almost every single Lord or the Rings set there is, only i get them from China for 1/5 the price. Exact same sets too down the tiniest details. Hahahaha.
 
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