Halloween at Legoland Windsor

Halloween at Legoland Windsor

We arrived at Legoland Windsor about half an hour after it had opened. It didn't take us long to find a parking space and walk to the entrance. After a quick bag search and a visit to the guest services (which took longer then necessary), we showed our tickets at the main gate and entered Legoland ready for a day of Lego themed fun!

We just happened to be visiting while Legoland was celebrating Halloween so there were plenty of spooky decorations to add to the atmosphere. 

After a visit to the toilets (it seemed that everyone else had had the same idea), we popped into the coffee shop. After finding out that there was a 15 minute wait for hot drinks, we decided to forego the coffee and set off to explore. We had a quick stop at the Rebuild The World area before then heading on down into the park.

Because the entrance to Legoland is at the top of a hill, you have 2 options to make your way down into the park. There is the zigzag path leading down the hill or the Hill Train. Just be aware that the hill path is too steep for mobility scooters and you may well find that it is a bit too steep for buggys and pushchairs as well. 

We walked down the hill and through the Land of The Vikings, arriving at Spider Spinner. 

Spider Spinner (as the name suggests) is a ride that spins you around. You can also increase the amount that you spin and the direction by using the 'steering wheel' in the centre of your spinning tub. We really enjoyed this ride, although certain people (naming no names) spun the tub a little more than I would have liked! 

We then headed over to the Ninjago ride, which we had all been looking forward to! The queue was very long for this very popular ride. But with the help of a Lego building area and taking the chance to eat our lunch in the queue, we kept ourselves busy. 

The Lego Ninjago Ride is great fun. You have to put on 3D glasses and ride from section to section using hand movements to 'zap' the baddies. A small display keeps a score of how many successful hits you have made, so if you are anything like us, it can get a little competitive!

After a look around the Ninjago Shop, we decided to try out the Fire Academy. Although there was a bit of a queue, it didn't take too long for us to reach the front. Be warned, the Fire Academy is quite a physical activity! We were instructed that when we were told to go, we had to run to our 'Fire Engine'. One person needed to use the joystick to direct the engine whilst the other two people had to use a pumping motion to make the vehicle move. When we arrived at the building where we had to put out the pretend fire, we all had to jump out of the vehicle and pump the water and direct it to our target. When we were told that the fire was out, we had to jump back into our fire engines and again direct and pump our vehicle to return to the start. There were four engines and it was a race to see who could return to the start the quickest. Needless to say that being rather competitive, we won! 

We have visited Legoland once before about 6 years ago and the one part of the park that we hadn't explored was Miniland. I was very keen to see Miniland so that is where we went next.

There is so much to see in Miniland! From the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace to the Taj Mahal and Sydney Opera House.

There are moving parts including trains, an underground train, vehicles and marching soldiers. There really is so much to see! 

We even spotted a campervan!

After exploring Miniland, we decided that it was time for an ice cream! We stopped at a Ben & Jerry's ice cream stand and chose our flavours. Unfortunately, it took half an hour to reach the front of the queue, so be prepared to wait in line!

Our last ride of the day was Hydra's Challenge. Being an unusually hot Octobers day, we thought this was the perfect ride to cool down on. We didn't have to wait too long and hopped into our little boats ready for some water splashing action! The ride was great fun and we found that we could steer our boats in to then steer them back out into the water. It was so much fun, but I think that the boy wanted to get more wet than he did! 

I know that a lot of people go to Legoland for the rides, but one of my favourite parts of the day was walking through the Magical Forest in the Mythical Creatures section. 

You enter through a tunnel of lights into a hidden forest of wonders! There are mythical creatures to find, amazing plants to see and AR images to watch. But the centrepiece of the forest is the dragons nest and volcano.  

The volcano is spectacular! It looks like a hot eruption of fire. But as the 'smoke' from the volcano floats past, you realise that it is in fact a cold mist of water droplets. It's a sensory delight and is definitely worth seeing!

There are so many beautiful mystical creatures to see in this area of the park including a unicorn, a 3 headed dragon and any number of hybrid animals.

We explored a little more of the park as we headed back to the large Lego shop near the entrance. We had booked to create our own Lego mini figures which we were very excited about!

At the back of the shop on the left hand side is the Minifigure Factory computer screens and the Print Studio. We checked in with the staff at the print studio and were given a little box each. We then found two vacant computer screens and set about designing the tops for our minifigures. The touchscreen computers were easy to use and we found that we could draw, write freehand or type the words that we wanted. It was lots of fun designing our minifigures. We then pressed the print button and returned to the print factory where we were shown choices of heads and hair or hats and legs and accessories. We then watched as our designs were printed. We really enjoyed this activity and were very excited to see our finished minifigures.

Of course, any visit to a theme park usually ends with a souvenir shop and Legoland is no exception! The shop is filled to the brim with Lego, Duplo, plushies (cuddly toys) and other souvenirs. It also has Legoland exclusive Lego sets. We spent more time and money than we should have in the Lego shop, but it was amazing to look at all the different sets, especially the Legoland exclusive sets! We left with two boxes of Lego, a Sonic set and a Christmas set which consisted of a Father Christmas, a sleigh and reindeer. 

We left Legoland with our bag full of goodies as the sun was beginning to set in the sky. We had all had a fun filled day brimming with Lego excitement! Legoland is definitely a great day out for the whole family, but to get the most out of your day, we have put together our 'Top Tips'.

Our Top Tips When Visiting Legoland 

* Pre-book online! We would have paid twice as much had we bought our tickets on the day at Legoland.

* When you prebook, take your time to look at all the online prebooking offers. We saved a little bit of money by prebooking our 'Create your own Minifigures' sessions. But there were plenty of other offers to consider too.

* Download the Legoland app before you go. It has all the information that you need from planning your journey to planning your day in the park. You can even find out roughly how long the queueing time is for each ride once you are there.

* Make sure that you arrive soon after the park opens so that you can make the most of your day.

* Have a rough plan of what you want to see and do while you are at Legoland. That way, you will know where you want to head to and not waste time making those decisions when you are there.

* Bring a packed lunch! If you bring a packed lunch you will not only save yourself some money, but you will also save yourself a good amount of time queueing or waiting for food too. It also means that you can 'munch on the go'! We ate our lunch whilst we were in the queue for the Ninjago Ride. This not only saved us time, but also passed the time as we were queueing.

* Be prepared to queue! Unless you want to shell out more money for the 'Reserve & Ride' tickets, you won't be able to avoid queueing. So use queueing times to eat your lunch (if it's a gentle ride), to talk about what you are going to do next or to take that much needed selfie! If you have children that struggle with waiting, you might want to pre-plan and take a few things with you to keep them amused such as a book.  And if all else fails, let them play a game on your phone. You are on a fun day out after all!

* Check out the queueing times on the app. This means that you'll have a bit of an idea how long you'll be waiting and if you'll have time to squeeze in that last ride!

* If you are going to need a coffee when you get there, it might be worth taking one with you. Either that or wait until you get further into the park and are able to find a less busy coffee opportunity. 

* Take a fully charged battery pack! If you are anything like me, you will want to take loads of photos and video while you are there. This will inevitably run your phone battery down. Also, if you are going to use your phone to keep the kids amused when waiting in queues you may also need to recharge your phone battery. 

* Finally, Legoland is cashless, so leave your cash at home and make sure that you take your cash card with you!

You can see more about our day at Legoland on our YouTube Channel. You can follow the link to our YT Short here and to our Legoland Vlog here.

Thank you for reading our blog!  If you would like to find out more about us, why not read our 'Meet The Team' blog post or you might enjoy our Road Trip Playlist (part 1) and part 2.