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Legoland Windsor

Not wanting to stray too far off the subject (Legoland) but I feel RAP users sometimes get a lot more stick than they should, as said above a lot of people don't take them for granted. I also qualify for a RAP due to a a condition, some times I need it as I can't wait in a long queue without leaving it multiple times, but if I'm having a good day and I know it's under control then I wouldn't bother collecting one and would use the normal queue to leave the RAP space for someone who needed it more.
 
Jonathan said:
I have to admit I've considered getting a RAP at some points, but don't feel it'd be of too much benefit to me. I can cope in queues just about OK, especially if I've got someone to talk to (which is virtually always - I don't like going to parks on my own) in the queue, or I've got a puzzle book to keep me occupied, or if I've got my beloved hat-wearing penguin called Paddles with me. Hey, I like not being normal, OK? :p Sometimes, I do find queues frustrating, but it's not usually too often, and is normally if it doesn't move for ages with no idea as to what's going on. Other people struggle more than me, and it wouldn't be ethical for me to take a place in the RAP queue when someone who has greater need to use it would otherwise have to use the main queue.
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Feel free to use whatever makes you feel comfortable in queues! Everyone has they’re own different mechanisms, and that’s fine by me!

Personally, queues don’t really stress me out that much. Oddly given my autism, I don’t mind waiting in ride queues at all. This is going to sound really geeky, but one of the things I really enjoy doing when I’m in a queue, and I’ve found this very recently, is that I love whipping out my Dispatch Timer app and calculating the ride throughput!

I’d have to say that really crowded paths are the part of a theme park that stress me out most, far more so than queues. On an on-topic note, Legoland is one of the places where this has stressed me out most; even though LLW possibly gets less visitors than Alton Towers, it felt considerably busier on the paths/walkways around the park than Alton Towers ever has in all my years of visiting. You could barely move in places, and I’ll admit that it did make me quite anxious.
 
Alton has a lot of space. For every busy pathway there's a quite alternative nearby. Legoland while not a small park has all the major attractions relatively close to each other at the bottom of the park. So during the middle of the day that's where all the crowds are.
This is why I recommend heading back up the hill to Viking River Splash or Miniland during the busy parts of the day as these areas will be relatively quiet. Since Star Wars closed The Beginning is almost empty between 1 and 4 (so if you want to browse the big shop in peace jump on the hill train then).
 
MattyH said:
If you have time to head down to Extreme Team and then get an ice cream from Papa Moles.
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Are you talking about the dual dinghy slides? It's called Raft Racers now. Be aware that it requires two riders per boat (no single riders).
 
Rob F said:
I haven't seen it open this or last season at all, and visit quite often with the kids
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That's interesting, there's nothing on its webpage stating it's closed. :confused:
Could possibly be due to social distancing though as Fantasy Island's dinghy slide is still closed for that reason.
 
siralgenon said:
The one at Fantasy Island is open, as is Depth Charge at Thorpe.
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Dragon mountain is closed and there is a note on it's webpage.

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Dragon Mountain has been open since the pyramid area reopened this season.

It was however closed last year due to Covid restrictions.

Clearly the website has not been updated.
 
I got round to riding Sky Lion today. First impressions always count, and the lion Lego model on the front of the building really is quite spectacular, and sort-of-but-not-massively distracts from the large boxy building plonked there. The queue line is pretty dire - slow moving, a large cattlepen, sparse "theming", a few vinyls, and already quite dirty boxes on the wall, which I can only assume will have lego bricks in for kids to play with, going off of the large blank lego boards above them?

The pre-show room is, again, fairly bland. The video itself and the lighting effects aren't bad and do a job, but the plain black walls don't exactly scream "quality." Moving through to theatre, it's certainly bizarre to take your seat and then spin around, unlike Voletarium where you're thrusted forwards, although I don't prefer one version over the other particularly. What I didn't like was, again, facing a black wall for a few minutes while restraints were being checked, with nothing in particular to look at. It just seems cheap. Now I know Voletarium's view before dispatch isn't particularly inspiring, but the white curtain at least has a classier feel to it.

As for the ride itself, I actually really enjoyed it. It seems to go on for quite a long time and there's several moments of mild peril, which is a welcome change from the floating and swooping above pleasant vistas that you get in other flying theatres, along with some sense of a story line too. I can't say I noticed the lack of an extra plane of movement that you get on the i-Ride model, and the juddering certainly added another dimension.

Overall, the experience from start to finish isn't great, but the ride itself is really quite good.
 
Quite a pleasant day at Legoland yesterday. The standard was set with the new minifigures on the 'Welcome' letters on the drive in. Very clean and a great humorous touch.

Overall, most of the park feels much more well kept since the last visit (with the exception of the hideously overflowing bins outside The Hungry Troll. There were stacked boxes of rubbish almost matching the height of the bins themselves. Awful and unsightly).

Lots more new minifigures across the park compared to the last visit as well. This feels hideously long overdue as it gives you something to look out for whilst injecting a sense of personality into the place. There are a few models, however, hidden by overgrowing weeds (particularly the two by Monster Party).

Duplo Dinosaur Coaster. Perfectly fine for the target audience. Incredibly comfortable, perfectly smooth; although the audio that plays during the ride would drive me utterly bonkers if I were stood in that queue line for an hour. I'd be put off having kids for life if I were subjected to that day in and day out.

Mia's Riding Adventure is an utterly depressing experience. The views from the ride are unpleasant. Warehouse, backstage area, warehouse, backstage area, and then the view of the park is that of a bland ride area. The queue line fence is vile, dirty and unkempt.

Flight of the Sky Lion. The third in a triology of indoor attractions that Legoland has really hit the nail on the head with in terms of the ride experience, but the queue line is atrocious. Images below with points:


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Obviously with Covid restrictions, the Lego bins on the wall have no bricks in them. As a direct result, however, they are being used for crap and are becoming grubby and a mess. They could have done with just not installing them until the restrictions are gone, or covering them. Unsightly.


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The finish on the "rock walls" is just shoddy. Poor graphic quality, exposed metalwork and gaps that will inevitably attract rubbish that won't be cleaned by staff looking for an early dart at ride close.

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Un-themed, bland walls and a warehouse roof. Second only to Disney.

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Dead insects in the rather bland model display cases. Could have done with some thematic landscapes around the models rather than looking like a bland museum piece.

The pre-show room, entry and exit stairs, as well as the boarding areas are also utterly soulless. It just makes for an all-round unpleasant queuing experience.

Thankfully, however, the ride at the end of the queue is another testament of going in to a new Merlin attraction with relatively low expectations and having them smashed. Certainly the most aggressive of the three flying theaters I've experienced with a good story behind it. The barrel roll trick at the start is a great opener, and it makes a change over the other theaters which serve just as scenic flights. Yet another solid indoor attraction which just lacks personality or a pleasant queuing experience.
 
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I experienced Mythica & Flight of the Sky Lion for myself today, and I’ve got to say, I was very impressed!

Warning: This review will contain some spoilers in places.

The Area
Mythica itself as an area is pretty well-themed, in my opinion, with some really nice detailing in places! As well as Flight of the Sky Lion, there’s also two Zierer Family Freefall Towers called Fire & Ice Freefall, as well as a rethemed water ride named Hydra’s Challenge and a play area, as well as some building areas. The support rides seemed pretty popular, with some large queues, and I’ve got to say that they had some quite nice theming applied to them! In terms of the wider area, a lot of the buildings have a very nice rock texture to them, and I like all the little blue lines carving themselves along through the paths! As well as that, there’s some very impressive Lego models within the area; some particularly impressive ones include the lion on the front of Flight of the Sky Lion and the big unicorn. On the whole, I think the area has been done very well; great work, Legoland!

The Ride
The main ride in the area is Flight of the Sky Lion, the UK’s first flying theatre. Let’s start with the queue line; one thing I will say is that the queue line is a bit bland in comparison to some of Legoland’s others, in my opinion. The undercover element is admittedly useful for days where the weather’s not too good, but you’re quite caged in, and it mostly comprises of blue steel fences; it’s not the most interesting queue in the world, although I guess there is a glass cabinet with models inside it, as well as some Lego building opportunities. There’s also a screen telling a bit of the story, and in fairness, I’m not really sure how much more they could have done with the theme they chose. One thing I will say, though, is that it’s a reasonably high capacity ride; it takes 70 guests at a time, and while I couldn’t time an exact throughput figure, the line certainly seemed to move quickly in comparison to some of Legoland’s others. Great job on the throughputs, Legoland!

Things get more interesting once you get inside the building, however; when you’re admitted to the building, you go up a set of stairs and are batched onto numbers that dictate your seat on the actual ride. While you’re stood in this area, a pre-ride briefing plays that basically explains the story of the ride and introduces guests to some of the characters you encounter during the ride, as well as communicating safety information. I thought this was really good; it communicates the story very well, and is quite amusing in portions!

In terms of the ride itself; I was very impressed! The movements were smooth, yet convincing, and surprisingly intense in areas, and the ride uses smells very well, in my opinion! I’ll put a few more specific details & points within a spoiler tag:
  • In terms of the film, I thought it was quite reminiscent of Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom, if any of you have ridden that; many of the environments look quite similar, and it has some similar movements in places.
  • I think the film is quite intense in places; I as a grown-up enthusiast didn’t find it remotely scary, but I can imagine it being quite intense/scary for a small child who’s just hitting the 1m height restriction.
  • Something I thought was particularly cool was when it did a barrel roll at the very start of the film; even though you don’t go upside down, I thought it was surprisingly convincing!
  • As I mentioned in the non-spoilered section, I felt that smells were used extremely well within the attraction; for instance, I liked the ocean smell they pumped in when you passed over the sea, and the smoky smell they pumped in when you passed over the volcano was also really good, in my opinion!
  • I do feel that there were a couple of missed opportunities to integrate physical effects within the film. For instance, there’s bits where you get splashed with water in the film where I was possibly expecting a water spray, or bits where I was expecting a blast of hot air or some smoke.
  • Also, while I’m unsure on the practicality of integrating it onto a flying theatre, I feel like 3D glasses would work quite well on it, and add to the immersion.
  • In terms of the FoP comparison, I do prefer FoP by a little bit, as I feel like the 3D and the effects on that one do add to the immersion, as well as the more exposed seating position, but I was never expecting an FoP beater out of Legoland, and I think Sky Lion is certainly an extremely respectable effort from Legoland that works really well, and it certainly bears a surprisingly good likeness to FoP in certain elements!
Overall, I think Legoland have done a smashing job on Mythica & Flight of the Sky Lion, and I really hope the investment is successful for them! They certainly deserve success, as Sky Lion is an excellent dark ride that I thoroughly enjoyed; controversially, I’d say that it and the excellent Ninjago elsewhere in the park are possibly two of my very favourite UK dark rides! The area itself is also really nice, and I like how original the theme is; as much as I did like the Lego Movies, I like the originality behind Mythica, and I think it works well as a concept! To conclude, here are a few photos I took:
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So overall, I think Mythica is an excellent addition that’s definitely worth checking out if you haven’t seen it, especially if you’re a dark ride fan!

In terms of the rest of the park; it was my first visit since 2017, and my first time riding all the rides bar Dragon, and I’ll admit I thoroughly enjoyed myself! I have written a longer trip report in the Trip Reports section, if you want a more detailed account of our day, but some quick points of interest I’ll mention include:
  • I thought Ninjago was absolutely excellent; the hand gesture technology worked a lot better than I was expecting (even though it was perhaps a tad tiring for the hands), the ride felt very dynamic, the 3D worked incredibly well and added another element to the experience, in my opinion, and there were also some nice physical effects, such as air blows, smoke effects and smell pods! An absolutely stellar interactive dark ride, in my opinion; it and Sky Lion are a very strong one-two punch of dark rides, and I wouldn’t object to Duel at Towers being replaced by something similar to Ninjago.
  • Although Haunted House Monster Party lacks the raw drama & ambience of Hex, it is very whimsical and works brilliantly for the young audience the ride is aimed at, in my opinion, and I think comparing it to Hex is somewhat unfair as it’s really good fun in its own right. The soundtrack is very catchy, smells are used very well within the ride (good use of smells seems to be somewhat of a trend at Legoland!), and the facade and queue are also really nice!
  • The park has some excellent Lego models; the sky lion facade in Mythica and some of the models in Miniland are particularly impressive!
  • Although the park was by no means quiet, it seemed much less crowded on the pathways than in 2017, making my experience far more pleasant!
  • The park as a whole is very green, very pleasant to walk around, and very well themed throughout; while the scale is of course vastly different, I dare say it’s the closest park we have here in the UK to an Orlando-style theme park, with the large quantity of dark rides and heavy theming giving off a very similar vibe.
  • Another potentially controversial opinion I have is that I personally think Legoland quite possibly has the strongest lineup of non-coaster attractions in the UK. In terms of dark rides, Sky Lion and Ninjago are easily two of my very favourite UK dark rides, Monster Party is a really solid Madhouse, and they also have Deep Sea Adventure and Laser Raiders. In terms of water rides, they have 2 substantial water rides in Pirate Falls and Viking River Splash, as well as Hydra’s Challenge & probably more I’m forgetting, and they also have a fair number of family flat rides. I think they could possibly do with a really solid family thrill coaster to make their lineup even stronger, but I guess Legoland isn’t really very coaster-orientated.
  • On a COVID front; today was my first theme park visit after the 19th July removal of restrictions, and I probably wouldn’t recommend visiting a park right now if you’re very nervous about COVID. I was wearing a mask for most of the day, but was one of the very few who was, and distancing isn’t really being strongly adhered to anymore. While it’s of course down to personal responsibility now, so I respect the choices of others, and I didn’t feel too uncomfortable as I’m fully vaccinated and was wearing a mask, I feel like it’s my duty to point these things out for those who might be more nervous about COVID so that they can make decisions about visiting these places.
 
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