First trip to Legoland Windsor of 2006

[jof]

I will assume that people have been there before, & only report on differences since last year.

We only covered part of the park: took kids there & it was raining.

Its more of a diary of my visit than a full review:

(I will try & post more before the Big Event as we do more visits & cover the rest of the park)

New big brick with welcome to legoland at the entrance, but 'WELCOME' letters & people on drive up to carpark appear to be the same.

Discount marquee has moved from outside the entrance to down near the harbour (more on that later)

New show - 4D magical will not be available until mid april, and after that there appears at the moment to have alternate showings of the old 4D racers & the new show.

New bricks in the create and race (as usual for this time of year) for you to make & race cars down a slope.

Minitown has new London. Has several of the old buildings & slight change - underground train is now behind perspex. New buildings include gerkin, canary warf & some big ugly grey slab thats obviously sponsored by a bank.

We have a couple of new trains - paid for by south west trains no doubt whos livery is on them.

Some of the other buildings have been changed, but don't look much different in style to the old buildings.

(Thats all we had time to see there)

In the duplo bit, they have replaced the duplo make & create in 1/2 the shop building with some sort of pottery franchise.

Tried to get lunch at pasta food place (25% off with season ticket) but they had fire alarm when in the queue, so a bit of a disastorus start. (got kids meals at adjoining chip place, but they wern't that great. Toy was clickits or johnny thunder keyrings)

Down to harbour (via driving schools for kids). I think the new Johnny thunder show is better than the last one. On of the girls now wears hareem pants & crop top (something for the dads?) & we seem to have less messing on jetski's & more tumbling. Lighthouse has new jungle style paint job, door halfway up, there is a rope bridge from this new door to a wooden tower on the left of the harbour (away from the harbour restaurant. Makes more action appear on that side of the show (which has been underused in the past)

Next on to the new JCB ride, by the train gates. Not sure how this is going to work out. My criticisms are: Queue area is too short, there are just 8 diggers & 1 person per digger and its going to get very congested - it was busy today, & the people there were mostly hardened season ticket holders. Its also quite a narrow path & leads through to the new 'Discoount' marquee

Discount Marquee has a lot of foam shields & swords. some dressing up stuff & general tut. BUT what it does have is: (& I don't know if there will be any left by the time you go)

Window & door sets (10044) for

[jonfett]

Thanks for the great explanation jof! I'm looking forward to our trip.. which is about a month away now!

Hope to see you there!

Jon.

[xwingyoda]

Tks Jof for this update ;-) I'm glad we'll have the new 4D show (I really liked the old one we saw in Billund last year 8-

[jof]

I am going to try to take the kids there tomorrow as well for their after dark show.

(As we have just got back from a weeks holiday in Spain, I hope they are not too tired)

I will try & get to the new 4D show preview & re check the clearance tent for offers. (I will try & keep you lot up to date with whats there, as we all like a bargin)

[snefroe]

I am going to try to take the kids there tomorrow as well for their after dark show.

(As we have just got back from a weeks holiday in Spain, I hope they are not too tired)

I will try & get to the new 4D show preview & re check the clearance tent for offers. (I will try & keep you lot up to date with whats there, as we all like a bargin)

i'd be grateful if you could also check what parts there are in the pick a brick shop... that will give us some idea about what to expect

[jof]

i'd be grateful if you could also check what parts there are in the pick a brick shop... that will give us some idea about what to expect

I will try, But it sort of depends on the kids (& the mrs's) patience.

They don't wear an anorak & carry a notebook of all parts ever made downloaded from peeron/lugnet (see I am not that bad, I can't remeber which one)

[snefroe]

i'd be grateful if you could also check what parts there are in the pick a brick shop... that will give us some idea about what to expect

I will try, But it sort of depends on the kids (& the mrs's) patience.

They don't wear an anorak & carry a notebook of all parts ever made downloaded from peeron/lugnet (see I am not that bad, I can't remeber which one)

i'd be happy if you could just have quick look if there are special parts next to the usual plates and bricks, if it's bionicle mostly or anything. i wouldn't ask you to waste valuable time on writing everything down...

[jof]

OK, I have a big list of pick a bricks that may be of interest (except the black bits, didn't get round to doing them)

But first: Didn't get to see preview of new 4D show, as it was raining & we were turned away as it was full - typical. But then we were in there for the old racers show when the hail came down. Luckily they were doing a 10th birthday event for legoland windsor, so they has opened the circus tent for the first time in years & the kids watched a story telling event, then a clown type show.

No way the kids were going to stay for special late night light show, too cold & too tired. But I did spend the middle spogs birthday money on a santa fe loco & baggage car (no passenger cars) in the clearence shop. Maybe now I can get my train back from him!

OK, now the bit you've all been waiting for:

Price:

[snefroe]

thanks a lot for this, jof! can't wait to get there!! 8-

[xwingyoda]

Tks a lot Jof for taking the time and effort making that great list ;-)

*yoda*

[jof]

thanks a lot for this, jof! can't wait to get there!! 8-

[conductorjoe]

Sounds cool. If only I actually lived in Europe?... *sweet*

I have to settle with Legoland Carlsbad, which is basically in the middle of the desert. Cool, but quite isolated.

[jof]

OK, now for some pictures of miniland London:

(Notice I braved the wind & rain to get you these!)

What is the point of these rather uninspiring grey block?

Grey towerblocks

OK, chances are they are heavliy sponsored by some big UK banks, but really, they are so boring, just big grey blocks.

(I couldn't even be bothered to take another picture that wasn't as blurry)

If you want to sponsor a building, at least have an interesting one!

Gerkin

Ok & here are a couple of reworked classics

Tower & bridge

Westminster abby

I should really have taken a picture of the Automated London Taxi, where it looked like some kid had tried to pull the body off the chassis, giving it a wierd kind of low rider apperance

Jof

[jof]

The last report before the event!

Well I can say that the new 4D show is good.

It stars mini figs set in a castle world, and you get a female lead!

However, we didn't think there were such good effects as racers, but new film is much sharper.

(They are now playing advert filmed at other legoland parks while you enter & sit down before film starts, but this isn't 3d, so if you put your glasses on, you can only see through one eye!)

If the weather looks a bit dodgy, you should get down to the lego building room, where you can book in for a mindstorms lesson (advise booking early), and they have some techinc advanced building sets (estimated time 1.5 - 2 hours) so I guess if its pouring, you could arrange some races & see if they can be done in 20 mins!

No Santa Fe trains left, but a few baggage cars.

Black pick a brick is mainly standard pieces with some roof slopes as well + 1*2-1*2 plate hinges & 1*6 slopes.

At 4pm today, they had plenty of UCS Y Wings, 2 death stars & 1 star destroyer.

(No sign of new sets coming out early though)

I hope we can still make next week as smallest is coming out in chicken pox.

[jonfett]

Thanks for the info jof! No sailbarges though? Sne won't be happy.. Hope you can still make it!

Jon.