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Legoland Windsor

Benjsh said:
Just read the reviews from Saturday and Sunday. Doesn't sound like anything has changed from my visit whatsoever. Broken rides, stupidly long queues that don't move quick, park overcrowded (what happened to restricted numbers) and fast pass sales galore.

It's a fabulous brand but it's an awful theme park. Not fit for purpose. Unless you happen to visit on an off peak day or can afford to fork out for q jump then I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone.

And a park aimed mainly at primary school aged children should be fine to visit in peak periods as that's the only time they are legally allowed to go.
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I mean I know it has its problems but it's probably the only Theme Park in England that wouldn't look out of place with the major Resorts in Europe. I wouldn't call it an awful park.
 
My aunt, uncle and young cousins (aged 8 & 4) visited Legoland a few weeks back and had an absolutely wonderful time, so whatever problems the park may have might not necessarily be affecting the experience profoundly. When we spoke to them after they got back, they only had positive things to say about the experience!

I admit that I myself did not have the most pleasurable of experiences at Legoland when I visited in 2017, but I’m willing to admit that I would probably have enjoyed the park more if it hadn’t been for the circumstances in which I visited. It was very, very busy, which as someone who gets nervous around crowds, made me quite anxious when walking around the park, and my mum was in a wheelchair due to an ankle fracture and we had to wheel her around, which made things a lot harder for us as a family. To be fair on the park, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I visited on a different day and my mum hadn’t had a broken ankle, and this visit was 3 years ago.

I’ve got to admit that the park itself actually seemed really nice for its target audience; very well themed, with a great ride lineup for its target audience, and excellent Lego models, and I must admit that even through an enthusiast lens, Dragon was a pleasant surprise (it was the only ride I rode there)! It’s a really long coaster, and for a family coaster, it was definitely more fun than expected!
 
siralgenon said:
I mean I know it has its problems but it's probably the only Theme Park in England that wouldn't look out of place with the major Resorts in Europe. I wouldn't call it an awful park.
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It's an awful park in the sense of how it's ran and ride capacity is what I was eluding to. There's some good rides there and great theming but it's ruined by the overall experience.

I imagine I'd feel different if I lived closer and was able to visit on a quiet day but sadly Im not able to. My little one was bored most of the day and he adores lego and rides.
 
Matt N said:
My aunt, uncle and young cousins (aged 8 & 4) visited Legoland a few weeks back and had an absolutely wonderful time, so whatever problems the park may have might not necessarily be affecting the experience profoundly. When we spoke to them after they got back, they only had positive things to say about the experience!

I admit that I myself did not have the most pleasurable of experiences at Legoland when I visited in 2017, but I’m willing to admit that I would probably have enjoyed the park more if it hadn’t been for the circumstances in which I visited. It was very, very busy, which as someone who gets nervous around crowds, made me quite anxious when walking around the park, and my mum was in a wheelchair due to an ankle fracture and we had to wheel her around, which made things a lot harder for us as a family. To be fair on the park, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I visited on a different day and my mum hadn’t had a broken ankle, and this visit was 3 years ago.

I’ve got to admit that the park itself actually seemed really nice for its target audience; very well themed, with a great ride lineup for its target audience, and excellent Lego models, and I must admit that even through an enthusiast lens, Dragon was a pleasant surprise (it was the only ride I rode there)! It’s a really long coaster, and for a family coaster, it was definitely more fun than expected!
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You've basically summed it up. Great park.....when it's quiet. If it was quiet when we visited we'd have still had issues with lots of rides being closed though but maybe that was just a bad day...who knows.

That's not acceptable for a park that's mainly aimed at Primary school aged children though. It needs to be able to handle the large crowds it attracts and it simply doesn't handle it at all. Unless you pay for q jump you're lucky if you get on 5 rides in a one day visit. That's garbage value for money in my book.
 
To be fair, I think it is possible to have a good day at Legoland even when it’s crowded, as evidenced by my relatives, and the ride breakdowns are not something the park can help; they happen sometimes.

On a different note, I just watched the documentary, and it was brilliant!
 
The reviews don't lie. There is always a bunch of moaning people who leave bad reviews but when there's as many as they are getting you know things are bad.

I love Lego and I love Theme Parks and so does my 6yr old but I can't see us ever going back tbh. The only way I'd ever consider it is going off peak and Im not willing to take my son out of school to travel 5hrs down south to go there. I refuse to pay £100 per day extra too for fastpass. We will probably visit the one in Florida when we visit in 2 years time. Better weather and hopefully better reliability and service. Can imagine that the service in Florida will have to be much better too as they simply wouldn't stand for it over there in that state.
 
Benjsh said:
It's an awful park in the sense of how it's ran and ride capacity is what I was eluding to. There's some good rides there and great theming but it's ruined by the overall experience.

I imagine I'd feel different if I lived closer and was able to visit on a quiet day but sadly Im not able to. My little one was bored most of the day and he adores lego and rides.
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Do you know why he was bored? Was it just the queues? Or did he not like looking at Lego models?

I think Legoland isn't really an amusement park, its a model village that also has some theme park areas. For me the most interesting part was always mini-land and the park really should focus more on the upkeep of that area and push the non-ride aspects of the park more.

As you say the biggest issue is that all the rides in the park are low capacity. If they added more decent capacity experiences and improved the promotion of non-ride things so people expected mini land more it would improve things.
 
jon81uk said:
Do you know why he was bored? Was it just the queues? Or did he not like looking at Lego models?

I think Legoland isn't really an amusement park, its a model village that also has some theme park areas. For me the most interesting part was always mini-land and the park really should focus more on the upkeep of that area and push the non-ride aspects of the park more.

As you say the biggest issue is that all the rides in the park are low capacity. If they added more decent capacity experiences and improved the promotion of non-ride things so people expected mini land more it would improve things.
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Mini land is definitely the highlight of the park and we loved that. We actually spent most of our day there as a lot of rides were either closed or had queues over 1hr long. We visited in Easter Holidays right after the new ride was meant to be open so we expected it to be busy but underestimated just how busy it can get there. The rides just can't handle the numbers they get.

Never left a theme park as underwhelmed as we did that day. We had intended on returning the day after for a 2nd day and decided against it as it was such a bad visit. We went into central London instead.
 
Matt N said:
To be fair, I think it is possible to have a good day at Legoland even when it’s crowded, as evidenced by my relatives, and the ride breakdowns are not something the park can help; they happen sometimes.
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I'd challenge that parks can't do anything about breakdowns & downtime, on the whole they have a wealth of rides that are commonplace in parks across the world that don't suffer as much downtime - it comes down to implementation, maintenance, process etc.
 
Staffing was a huge issue too when we visited. It was clear by the number of food outlets that were shut that they simply didn't have the numbers to man them. Wouldn't surprise me if some the attractions that were closed were actually okay to be open and they simply didn't have the staff to operate them all at the same time. As it was by chance that as soon as major ride opened another would suddenly go down for a few hours.
 
Benjsh said:
Staffing was a huge issue too when we visited. It was clear by the number of food outlets that were shut that they simply didn't have the numbers to man them. Wouldn't surprise me if some the attractions that were closed were actually okay to be open and they simply didn't have the staff to operate them all at the same time. As it was by chance that as soon as major ride opened another would suddenly go down for a few hours.
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Yes I believe that this was/is very much a problem at Legoland.

The fact is the park is located in a pretty affluent area with low unemployment (pre-covid anyway) and the pitiful wages Merlin offer just weren’t good enough to attract people to want to work there. I believe they have had to up the hourly rate to above minimum wage at this park to attract more applicants.
 
AT86 said:
Yes I believe that this was/is very much a problem at Legoland.

The fact is the park is located in a pretty affluent area with low unemployment (pre-covid anyway) and the pitiful wages Merlin offer just weren’t good enough to attract people to want to work there. I believe they have had to up the hourly rate to above minimum wage at this park to attract more applicants.
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Very true. It is an issue for them. However with the prices to get in, stay in the onsite hotel, not to forget the ridiculous amount of merch they must shift they can easily afford it. Merlin summed up though that. Tight as cramp.

It's not like British people wont pay top dollar either. They will if the product is worth it. It's why many go to Florida or Disneyland Paris. Neither are cheap holidays, Florida especially, but people will pay more if the product is good.

I'd happily pay £60/70 to go to legoland if it was actually worth that to go. But it's not worth that at all.
 
What happened to the Viking River Splash water. Looks green from that TV show. Cost cutting I imagine? I am pretty sure that is against legislation.
 
Legoland Windsor is a really fabulous charming park that's just been run badly for ages. Also new rides are mostly generic copies covered in vinyl stickers and crammed into any remaining space until there's nowhere left to breath. It's long been a total nightmare on a busy day and the charm is running out.
 
DistortAMG said:
What happened to the Viking River Splash water. Looks green from that TV show. Cost cutting I imagine? I am pretty sure that is against legislation.
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I noticed that too, it always used to be clear. Unless it's just got stagnant from sitting in the lake and not being used over Covid but I presume it'll have all been drained.
 
siralgenon said:
I noticed that too, it always used to be clear. Unless it's just got stagnant from sitting in the lake and not being used over Covid but I presume it'll have all been drained.
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The series was filmed during 2019. Even so, yeh, I imagine the water will have been drained during lockdown.


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Matt N said:
According to Theme Park Guide, construction on whatever Legoland is opening next year has now begun: https://themeparkguide.co.uk/news-page/Project-Rex-Construction-Goes-Vertical

I’m wondering what it’ll be now that the Lego Movie tie-in has seemingly gone?
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Looking at the list of current ‘Lego Themes’ here, there are lots that are already used in Windsor (Duplo, City, Ninjago etc) and lots that I imagine Merlin can’t use due to IP rights (Jurassic World, Star Wars, Super Mario etc).

Is Minecraft still popular?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lego_themes?wprov=sfti1
 
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