London Trip soon - need advice please

[Gunman]

Hello there guys,

during May i will visit London and i would like to ask you a few things regarding lego stores and legoland windsor.

i have seen in lego site that in/near london the lego stores are:

Bluewater

Westfield Stratford Shopping Ctr

Westfield London Shopping Centre

i have never been to a lego store and i want to buy several cups of lego :)

so questions:

which of these stores u suggest me visiting?? i understand that each one of these has different availability in pab wall right?

prices of sets are the same as Lego site?

is it worth going to legoland now with my wife or its mostly for kids (having fun etc) and i should wait and go with my kid/s? any interest in lego store in the park?

and last question, any lego store of the above selling K-boxes??

any tips for my trip regarding Lego parts purchases would be greatly appreciated guys :)

regards

Giorgos

[Lance]

I suggest the London Westfield store. The staff in there are really nice and my son's friends with the manager there

[Artifex]

By all means you MUST visit a Lego Store. It's a really cool experience!

The first one I ever been to was the Bluewater one, but it's just too far away from London, although if you like shopping centres it's worth the trip.

The London Westfield is great too. I'd say it's my favourite, but I don't know all the other London Lego stores... Yet!

But if you plan to BUY Lego, than you MUST visit WH Smith. The prices there are just MUCH better!

When I enquired a Lego employee about that, she couldn't really say why WH Smith had such better prices.

Anyway.

If you are going to London, don't forget to visit Hamleys too! You can find some exclusive Lego sets there.

[williejm]

WH Smith prices better?! Not that I've seen - they seem artificially high then have complicated discount 'offers'. So you can bag a bargain, but really need to be lucky and know what you're doing.

I'd suggest either of the Lego brand stores in one of the Westfield Shopping Centres. Worth considering there are other stores with large Lego sections. Some, like John Lewis, are pretty good price wise, others are better for special offers and older sets that Lego store may no longer have.

Westfield Stratford has a Lego store, John Lewis, WH Smith and an independent toy shop with a large Lego section. John Lewis on Oxford Street has a massive Lego section too. Those would be my suggestions.

[Gunman]

i am mainly inderested in parts.

so Pab walls are only at 2 lego stores in london right???

regarding the k-boxes, anyone ever bought any k-box from them???? and whats th ecost of it?? (i read it was 70$ in US Lego stores, what about London?)

edit: and thanks a lot for the suggestions so far!

Edited April 22, 2013 by Gunman

[Andy D]

I don't know about the LEGO stores in London. However about Legoland... Go! My wire and I go regularly to the one in Califonia, we have no youngsters, my son and his wife are 32 and sometimes we take them but I enjoy Legoland just for ideas and the very nice public park-like atmosphere.

Go to Legoland, explore, have fun!

Just MHO, YMMV (Your Milage My Vary)

Andy D

[kungpo]

Do not buy from WH Smith or Hamleys! WH Smith is expensive and tend to stock very little. Hamleys put on a huge margin on the sets by sometimes as much as 25%. John Lewis on Oxford street has a decent-ish amount of stock at normal prices, but the Lego Shop in Westfield will probably be your best bet, and you can use and collect VIP points too. LEGOLAND is fun and a worthy visit but you'll need the whole day to make the most of it. The food on-site varies between bad and terrible so worth taking your own. The big Lego shop at LEGOLAND will have almost everything as well (as do the Lego shops in Westfield).

[Scorpiox]

One little bit of advice: don't go to Westfield shopping centre for the Pick A Brick, there's really nothing there except basic elements. The Build A Minifigure and display case features are excellent though!

I will further the 'Don't go to WH Smith's' line too, the prices are so unnecessarily high that there isn't much point without a discount or voucher.

[Gunman]

One little bit of advice: don't go to Westfield shopping centre for the Pick A Brick, there's really nothing there except basic elements. The Build A Minifigure and display case features are excellent though!

I will further the 'Don't go to WH Smith's' line too, the prices are so unnecessarily high that there isn't much point without a discount or voucher.

where you suggest me going for pab wall?? Bluewater?? Do you know any Lego store selling k-boxes?

No go for both Westfield Stratford Shopping Ctr and Westfield London Shopping Centre?

[Kivi]

Yes, you will usually get more basic elements on the PAB wall, but then you'll never know what you can get until you check it out. So I suggest that you check both Westfield stores. At least that's what I experienced there last year; I found nothing really useful in London while in Stratford quite a nice selecetion of LBG bricks was available (I never seem to have enough of them ).

Legoland is primarily a theme park oriented towards 2-10 years old children, so apart from miniland there is actually nothing really appealing to an AFOL. And LL Windsor is one of the worst places to buy lego bricks I have seen so far. However, if this is your first visit to LL, it would still be worth going there, at least you could see what you can build if you had millions of bricks.

[Gunman]

Yes, you will usually get more basic elements on the PAB wall, but then you'll never know what you can get until you check it out. So I suggest that you check both Westfield stores. At least that's what I experienced there last year; I found nothing really useful in London while in Stratford quite a nice selecetion of LBG bricks was available (I never seem to have enough of them ).

Legoland is primarily a theme park oriented towards 2-10 years old children, so apart from miniland there is actually nothing really appealing to an AFOL. And LL Windsor is one of the worst places to buy lego bricks I have seen so far. However, if this is your first visit to LL, it would still be worth going there, at least you could see what you can build if you had millions of bricks.

most sure i will avoid legoland park, i may go in the future with my kids.

thanks a lot for pab tips.

last question i need answered if anyone knows, any Lego store selling k-boxes??

Edited April 23, 2013 by Gunman

[Artifex]

Wow, I got the best deals when buying Lego at WH Smith -- I'm truly amazed people wouldn't recommend it!

I guess I was just lucky, then...

To the OP: don't buy Lego at Hamleys -- it's overpriced. But the the store is well worth the trip! You feel like a child in there!

[Gunman]

soz for asking again.. but anyone from London ever bought Lego K-box from a lego store??

[caperberry]

Hi Gunman,

I have bought K boxes from Stratford. Pretty sure you can buy them from any Brand Store; they don't advertise it but just ask the Manager or duty Supervisor. They cost £45. However there was a recent article published by an AFOL that claims that generally, the best value PAB is not K boxes or large PAB cups but actually the small PAB cups.

Contrary to what others have said here - the London PAB walls have actually been fantastic the last few weeks. Perhaps the best I've ever seen in 3 years. Hopefully they still will be when you arrive. Westfield (i.e. Shepherd's Bush) seem to have been a little bit better than Stratford when I last went a couple of weeks ago, but pieces change regularly at the moment.

Westfield and Westfield Stratford are the easiest to get to; 30min maximum on the Tube from central London. Stratford is always much more chaotic with kids - the other Westfield is much posher and quieter. But I prefer the atmosphere at Stratford, plus you can go see the Olympic stadium. Bluewater have a slightly larger PAB wall, but it takes a bit under an hour to get there from central London - it is a train and then a shuttle bus.

If you decide to brave the English seaside in Brighton, one hour by train, they have a Store too.

I hope you have a great stay here!

[edit] - I've not been to Windsor, but be aware the Stores there are run by Merlin and not TLG. Prices, especially PAB, are apparently not as good. But you are more likely to find EOL sets at Windsor, I am told.

Edited May 6, 2013 by caperberry

[Kivi]

I've not been to Windsor, but be aware the Stores there are run by Merlin and not TLG. Prices, especially PAB, are apparently not as good.

Last year I saw only one very miserable PAB wall in the main shop at the entrance of LL Windsor. The selection was mostly crap, like only one half of the hinge, wheel bearing but no wheels, window frame but no shutters, some basic bricks in funny colours etc. And they were sold by weight, 5,5 GBP per 100 g if I remember it right. When I was in the shop, nobody seemed to take any interest to pick anything up from there at all.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Kivi