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Legoland Windsor

I must say the Legoland Windsor store at the park entrance is much better than Paultons' main entrance toy store, though it may be unfair comparison with the IPs involved (Peppa Pig's not aimed at me), and you're forced into squander money on premium prices (though Paultons' entrance complex and beautiful entrance plazas are newer and more pristine).

I think Merlin Entertainments in perhaps the next 12-18 months are aiming to totally revamp the now tired, slightly grotty main entrance...

You can see the fascinating designs for Legoland Windsor's new entrance here.
 
Bert2theSpark said:
So you're telling me that Aramark, a company that mostly serves prison food, somehow has developed a more complex and advanced system than Amazon Go? A system which relied on workers in India to verify purchases from a tech giant with almost unimaginable resources and got shut down within a few years...
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The amazon ones are still ongoing, used the one in Wembley last month.

Used the Legoland one on Sunday, seemless no real issues, the only problem the staff seemed to deal with in the 30 mins or so I people watched, was people needing to wave their hand over the sensor to open the exit gate.

The pre auth was £1 and the completed transaction posted within 5-10 mins, compared to the Amazon one which took > 30 mins..

Went through twice, one for coffee, once for a bottle of coke, the coke visit took less than 30 seconds, very impressed, that said, the system implemented is using this company (https://www.getzippin.com/) rather than being Aramark's own implementation.

Totally went in expecting the worst, especially given the service and quality of food at the Hungry troll! (the battered sausage with the texture of porridge was very strange!) but was pleasantly surprised, the coffee machine output a pretty decent coffee, certainly better than the handmade attempts elsewhere!

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Elsewhere, this was our first ever visit to Legoland, and I was actually impressed! The staff were all friendly, and the queues whilst long, seemed relatively accurate

There is definite improvements needed, and you can see the Merlin attention to detail in places. (The sun bleached mini land etc) but overall a great day with some very fun rides.
 
Just returned from a 2 day, 1 night stay at Legoland and the Legoland Hotel.

On the whole, my wife, 5 year old son and I had a great time with pros far outweighing the cons.

We stayed Monday to Tuesday in the hope of avoiding the weekend crowds. Monday was warm and dry for pretty much perfect themeparking weather. Tuesday was pretty wet until mid-late afternoon. I've not been back for 30 years, whereas my wife and son had never been before.

Our pros
  1. Stayed in a pirate room at the hotel and thought this was brilliant - better than all of the Disney hotels I've stayed at in Paris and the US
  2. Staff all friendly, though quite a few were out of their depth especially in the restaurants in the park and the hotel
  3. Park was very clean
  4. Selection of rides were spot on for my 5 year old, where he would probably age out at 10-11
  5. Quality of rides were on the whole very good - all looking presentable with most or all elements working - I can see why the Dragon still commands a lot of attention from visitors

Our cons
  1. Dreadfully slow park operations, slow dispatch and unload etc with no effort to fill up empty seats

That one and only con could have been a killer for us had we not have stayed for 2 days. We really would have struggled to have gotten much done on day 1 without paying for one or some of the Reserve and Ride options, which did make me wonder whether park operations have been historically slow, or whether this is to encourage people to upgrade? Out of curiosity, I looked at the options for Sky Lion and saw within 30 seconds the price changing before my eyes from £10 per person, to £12, before settling on £14!

We feel like we've done all the park had to offer and now have little reason to return again, which is a shame as we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves but feel the place lacks repeatability for us.
 
mrandyyu said:
We really would have struggled to have gotten much done on day 1 without paying for one or some of the Reserve and Ride options, which did make me wonder whether park operations have been historically slow, or whether this is to encourage people to upgrade?
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I very much doubt there is any illicit thought going into operational decisions like that. For one, the Operations and Commercial teams are entirely separate, Operations being judged more or less entirely on guest feedback (thus a huge incentive to improve operations), unlike Commercial being judged on revenue.

Return visits and recommendations to friends and family are both hugely important, so they'll always try to have operations as slick as possible. Why they don't succeed at that, then, is another question...
 
Seems to have gone under the radar that Legoland are now running behind the scenes tours on the dragon! Called "Behind the Bricks: The Dragon" you get to walk around the indoor dark ride section, then outside through the tunnel for a track walk. It's crazy the amount of detail that's missed when going through the dark ride section.

thedragonbehindthescenes-034.jpg


I love this photo showing how windy the track is

thedragonbehindthescenes-081.jpg


Walking into the maintenance shed / area was cool.

thedragonbehindthescenes-019.jpg


Geek shot!

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Walking the outside track was cool, gave me throw backs to the ultimate at light water for some reason

thedragonbehindthescenes-122.jpg


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The VIP hosts had a lot of facts about the ride.

Due to the tight spaces it was also limited to 4 people so you feel like a proper VIP

More photos and facts on my mini review if anyones bored :p

Legoland Windsor The Dragon Behind The Scenes | Theme Park Guide

The Behind the Bricks: The Dragon tour at LEGOLAND Windsor offers a remarkable deep dive into one of the park's most iconic attractions. Run by the LE
themeparkguide.co.uk themeparkguide.co.uk
 
Had a last minute trip to Legoland today (as mentioned in the RAP thread).

Probably the busiest i've ever seen it there. Most of the major attractions were hovering around 60 minutes all day and it was very hot.

Operations were really bad on Sky Lion and most notably there was no staff member inside which was very surprising. We boarded and put our belts on and the ride just started which was a first, someone always visually checks and asks everyone to pull their seatbelt normally.

Didn't seem to be much downtime on rides which was good.

My son still had a fun day (mostly thanks to my military level organisation) which is all i really care about and fortunately he likes going in Lego Cinema mostly which you're virtually guaranteed entry each cycle.

The lack of seating was more apparent than ever though. People were sitting on steps, sitting on barriers, sitting under the bridge even! It's not like there isn't ample space for more benches, my RCT vision was going into overdrive.

As i said, my son was happy so i'm sure we'll be back but felt so second rate after Efteling this week. Took our own food with us at least 😂
 
James Watkins said:
Construction walls have been put up around the Viking River Splash
Photos from @ItsAllGood 's brilliant website

vikingriversplash2024-23.jpg
vikingriversplash2024-27.jpg

What could we expect to replace this? I believe Merlin are working with Intamin on coasters in the American Legoland parks and Mack at Legoland Korea.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t these fences been in for a while now? I seem to remember fences being up when I went in June.

As for what could replace it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some sort of coaster. Maybe one themed to Ninjago would fit nicely seeing as the land below Vikings River Splash’s site is Ninjago-themed?
 
Matt N said:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t these fences been in for a while now? I seem to remember fences being up when I went in June.
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Yes probably Matt, hadn't seen it covered on the forum.
Matt N said:
As for what could replace it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some sort of coaster. Maybe one themed to Ninjago would fit nicely seeing as the land below Vikings River Splash’s site is Ninjago-themed?
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Yes I reckon a coaster as that would work best with the terrain. Korea are getting a Ninjago spinning coaster from Mack, so maybe something like this?

new-coaster-in-legoland-korea-2025-v0-2h1w5p85f2rc1.png
 
I definitely think the space would be best used as a Ninjago coaster of some description. I’d personally go for a family wooden coaster as the structure would go a long way in hiding the Ninjago show building, but a Mack Spinner would make sense if the concept already exists for another park. Either way it’s important that they find a way to make a coaster there accessible from the bottom of the hill, not the top
 
tayspru said:
LLWcoaster.png
The established Ninjago land is pretty tight, however there's definitely space to integrate a coaster entrance into the land without too much disruption (The pink square is where I'd convert some of the extended Ninjago queue into an exit shop). If they take advantage of the existing terrain work, they could end up with a really exciting family wood coaster. I say wood, as not only is that still fairly unique for the south of the UK, it would also do a lot to mask the Ninjago dark ride warehouse.

Exciting times for LLW !
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Sorry to double post but just bringing this idea back up for reference
 
I'd have love to known the throughputs here today as they were some of the worst i've ever seen (except Speedway which they were smashing out).

NinjaGo had an advertised 50 min wait yet the host was dawdling so much that carriages were leaving empty!

SkyLion was the worst i've seen, endless waiting in the pen, in the pre-show, waiting for the ride to start. Similar story with Haunted House. I don't know if these were staff or customer related (or neither) but it was very noticeable.

But it wasn't all doom and gloom, they have a new (i think) Halloween film in the 4D cinema which is brilliant! Probably the best i've seen and staff were very friendly there too.

Speedway went down at least once which i've not seen before but we lucked out walking past as it reopened and got a walk on!
 
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