Dan Swain

Review of LEGOLAND Windsor

Brilliant fun for the kids, an exhausting day for ...

Brilliant fun for the kids, an exhausting day for the parents. We stayed in a pirate room with our 2 and 4 year old. They loved the room and the mini-the treasure hunt, not to mention the bunk beds.

We had dinner in the castle hotels tournament tavern restaurant which had table service unlike other ones which are buffet so I'm told. The environment is really nice, with a Lego fire, the food is very good albeit on the expensive side. The wine selection is limited, I'd request a full wine menu be added for those parents who have been counting the hours until they can sit down with a nice large glass of wine. They have a lady knight and Lego brick that came round and said hi to the kids, a nice touch.

Breakfast was buffet and very busy, the food was ok, but details like no tea spoons and many coffee machines being out of order let them down, you're asking for trouble if you can't get people their morning coffee.

Checking out was quite simple, drop the card in a box in reception on the ground floor. I'd request they put another box on the Park level R, lots of us were going down to reception putting the card in a box then coming back up, did make a congested lift busier.

The park itself is very busy, use you 30minute early start as a hotel guest wisely. Unfortunately for us after queueing early the ride broke down, but was fixed eventually. Getting a q-bot pass for the time we wasted queuing was harder than it should have been, I'd recommend giving staff more autonomy without the need to get managers involved which just adds another 30mins to the saga.

It's quite overly commercial, why there are people trying to give NowTV sticks away I don't know, it just felt out of place at a kids theme park. I thought the Star Wars experience was 'most impressive' and well worth walking through.

The hotels swimming pool is looking very tired and quite dark and gloomy a drain odour in the changing area doesn't help. It needs some serious refurbishment, but in principal it could be a great little pool for the kids.

I think what let's Legoland down is the little things and they all accumulated to lower my rating. Things like the skyline bar where we went for lunch had old bits of food visibly left in the middle of the floor without anyone thinking to clean them up. When we went to leave we'd bought some Lego in the big Lego shop and asked for it to be taken to reception by 3pm, at 3.30pm when we went to leave it wasn't there and didn't make an appearance until 4.15pm, this made us late home and we nearly asked for a refund but obviously we waited. I understand it's crazy busy and things go wrong but every little thing needs a manager which means 40mins wasted. It could easily be improved by giving all staff a bit more control of the customer experience. Everyone I spoke to was friendly and helpful but most seemingly couldnt resolve issues and would need to call a manager.

Would I go back, probably but I'm excitedly plotting my return. Do I wish I'd just gone for the day? Yes and no, the kids loved the hotel room and the models probably more then the rides. In a few years they'd be able to go on more rides bit I think they'll treasure the memory.

Overall is ok, lots of opportunity for improvement and if they do fix the little issues it could be really magical.