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Legoland Windsor

Benjsh said:
Hahahahaha I thought as much.

My little lad really wants to go because of the "Brick or Treat" adverts. FML !!! Bloody tele!!!!
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It's a great park for kids (ignoring the usual Merlin operational problems), just don't expect adult lego fans to be catered for at all.
 
As I often tell people at work when they ask for my "expert opinion" on the best things to do at LLW with their kids,
"I love theme parks, and I love Lego. I loath Legoland Windsor with all my soul."
 
DiogoJ42 said:
As I often tell people at work when they ask for my "expert opinion" on the best things to do at LLW with their kids,
"I love theme parks, and I love Lego. I loath Legoland Windsor with all my soul."
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I don't remember it being that bad. And Legoland Florida was a good day out. Why do you hate it so much?

(I havent been to LLW in about 8 years)
 
Turn up to any of the Lego building rooms without a kid in tow and you'll soon find out why...lol

A friend went a few weeks back and even she said she felt like she was being profiled by staff wherever she walked because she didn't have a kid in tow, they left early because it made her feel so uncomfortable.
 
If you've never been before I'd go with an open mind. The stunt show is one of the best shows in the UK theme park industry, the detail in mini land is impressive and some of the rides are quite innovative. The Dragon arguably is one of the UK's best family coasters. There are also some nice little jokes around the place. I went when I was a kid and thought the driving school was amazing.

26% of people on Trip Advisor say it's either poor or terrible. I suspect it depends quite a bit on when you visit. It gets an incredible number of visitors, the rides generally have low throughputs, plus there's Q Bot. A combination of this means that you can spend most of the day queuing depending on when you visit. Aside from that there's the Merlin homogenisation. If you've been to another Legoland then a lot of the attractions will be quite similar, not to mention the usual Merlin eating outlets. Some parts are beginning to show their age a little now with some of the Lego bricks becoming a little faded.
 
speedy said:
I don't remember it being that bad. And Legoland Florida was a good day out. Why do you hate it so much?

(I havent been to LLW in about 8 years)
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Well aside from the boring ride line up, the quality of the models in miniland is poor at best. I've seen far better fan made models of the same buildings, in a much smaller scale (the bigger the scale, the more detail you can fit in).

Then there's the horriffic queues, the dire throughputs, the screaming brats, the persecution of smokers...
 
Just noticed that they are building a Haunted House attraction for next year. That's a shame it won't be open when we visit in a few weeks. Suppose it's a reason to go back in the future if my lad enjoys it.

I will definitely be visiting with an open mind. Well I'll try my best to. I'm not a Lego nerd by any means but more a casual fan growing up. I enjoy building with my son.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Well aside from the boring ride line up, the quality of the models in miniland is poor at best. I've seen far better fan made models of the same buildings, in a much smaller scale (the bigger the scale, the more detail you can fit in).

Then there's the horriffic queues, the dire throughputs, the screaming brats, the persecution of smokers...
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Hmm I agree the models at the parks aren't the best (my family tend to go anywhere, if there's a lego exhibition on), and I was much younger last time I visited. However Legoland Florida is a really nice park, cool speedboat show as well and wasn't busy that day. I plan on visiting Legoland Malaysia soon will be interesting to see how that compares.

Of course the usual advice of going on a schoolday doesn't work here.

@Benjsh If you like lego even a little bit you'll both love the models. Yes, there's better ones out there but they're still really impressive IMO
 
It's not great for adults but I guess that's not their target audience.

Shame it's not the old Windsor Safari park. Had a good bobsled there
 
To feel really old...I did Chessington Zoo and Windsor Safari Park as a little kid, when the Safari Park first opened.
Photo of me riding an elephant somewhere, but that might be Chester...where they had chimps tea parties every day.
 
I won free tickets to the safari park on the Really Wild Show theatre tour. The animals bored me, but they had a few generic funfair rides that kept me entertained.
 
Legoland Windsor was never built as a typical ride park, it was always about the Lego and Lego experiences.

The original parks were not even built to make business as parks in themselves, but to promote the Lego concept and its entertainment values (provoking the imagination, exploration, simplicity etc). This made for a quite unique and extremely charming park that I remember very fondly when I was a kid.

I didn't even like Lego. Before visiting, I thought of Legoland as rather twee compared to the big boys Chessington and Thorpe Park. In the end some of my fondest memories visiting parks with friends were at Legoland Windsor.

But both Lego and Legoland have massively changed direction. Lego is now one of the most crass, generic childrens brands and most the Legolands are simply Merlin Entertainment theme parks 'themed' to Lego IPs. The exception being the original Legoland Billund, which has mostly stuck with its original vision and is wonderful.

The once beautifully landscaped park with all its humour and charm has been totally tarmaced over, in favour of soulless commercialism, gimmicks and copy-pasted attractions, squeezed in any space.

The change of direction was deliberate in selling off to Merlin, who had a reputation in the industry even then. Lego was poorly managing its finances in the mid 2000s and decided it simply wanted to make money out of the parks, rather than keep them as a promotional tool.

There has long been a claim that the parks were failing, "not actually that popular", so the sale was inevitable. But I remember Windsor being extremely popular (even with rubbish additions in the mid 2000s like Fire Acadamy) and a wonderful park, as many others remember too.

The alternative story others will tell you is the parks were doing absolutely fine, but that Lego's falling toy sales around the time of the financial crash was the source of its problems. They either had to close their other ventures or turn them into cash cows to rescue the company.

Seems like both versions of events are true to some extent, but either way – it's clear that Legoland Windsor stagnated in the mid 2000s and has now lost all atmosphere under Merlin. The most obvious part being that there is barely any actual Lego there now, other than nasty mass-produced or humourless models.

The park still has high attendance thanks to 'the power of the brand', but is squarely not a good value day out for the average family. Most its good aspects are simply inherited from the park's past (the stunt show, its setting).
 
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DiogoJ42 said:
... the quality of the models in miniland is poor at best. I've seen far better fan made models of the same buildings, in a much smaller scale (the bigger the scale, the more detail you can fit in).
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I’ve had chance to meet some of the original Model Makers from back when the park opened and some of the projects they’ve worked on are spectacular. I’d go as far to say photo realistic when placed side by side. Sadly they haven’t had much Input at Windsor for at least 10 years (not a result of Merlin I should add but it was around the same time).
 
I don't question their tallent for a second. But the truth is that Lego sculpture has come a long way in the last decade or so, thanks to the ever increasing selection of curved bricks and SNOT brackets available. Building sideways or even at weird angles is now the norm. Unfortunately the pixilated, "basic bricks stacked on top of each other" style of the older models looks very dated these days.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
I don't question their tallent for a second. But the truth is that Lego sculpture has come a long way in the last decade or so, thanks to the ever increasing selection of curved bricks and SNOT brackets available. Building sideways or even at weird angles is now the norm. Unfortunately the pixilated, "basic bricks stacked on top of each other" style of the older models looks very dated these days.
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Exactley. Maybe I should have made it clearer that it is their more resent models I’m refering too. They still build, some of them professionally, but not for Windsor.
 
speedy said:
Take that back! :mad:
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Have you seen their TV shows and advertising though? It's always the same cliches with a different wrapping churned out again and again. Entertainment designed to totally overload childrends senses rather than provoke any imagination, for the sake of selling more overpriced sets to kids. It's strayed so far from Lego or the creativity of the toy. Bar the first Lego Movie, which was a notable fun change for a family movie.

I can definitely see the appeal of Lego despite not being a fan of the toy personally. Just a shame how Lego has headed in the same direction as Disney, where it's become more about being a global empire than creating kids toys.
 
TakeYourMedicine said:
Have you seen their TV shows and advertising though? It's always the same cliches with a different wrapping churned out again and again. Entertainment designed to totally overload childrends senses rather than provoke any imagination, for the sake of selling more overpriced sets to kids. It's strayed so far from Lego or the creativity of the toy. Bar the first Lego Movie, which was a notable fun change for a family movie.

I can definitely see the appeal of Lego despite not being a fan of the toy personally. Just a shame how Lego has headed in the same direction as Disney, where it's become more about being a global empire than creating kids toys.
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Yeah, they're branching out and I don't care for some of the themes. But there's still the core Creator, City, Technic. No I don't watch any of the TV shows, only the Lego News YouTube channel and a few Lego sites (eg Brickset).
 
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