If you have LEGO-mad kids, then this is certainly a place that would be of interest to them to go and visit. But does it stand up to being a fun day out for the entire family? Well, that’s debatable.

The Positives

We all enjoyed the Miniland display, an impressive array of complicated roads, railways, water and – most important – giant structures of world famous landmarks made from LEGO. It was lovely to be able to look at them all and admire the sheer amount of work that must have gone into it all. For me, this was the essence of what I’d hoped the LEGOLAND experience was going to be about – celebrating ingenuity, and the results that can come out of applying imagination. All from the simple action of adding one brick to another, and so on.

I’m also happy to report there is a (small) area where kids can sit down and have a play with the famed bricks. There wasn’t too much in the range on offer, but our two still had fun. I’m sure plenty of LEGO gets pocketed, by accident or design, so I’m sure they need to monitor how much gets put out each day.

As far as rides go, I firmly believe they cater more for the primary-school-and-under market. This makes sense – after all, for most teenagers and adults, LEGO becomes more a place in the heart than a box in their cupboard. Unless, perhaps, you’re a character in The Big Bang Theory.

As soon as we entered the park, we made a beeline to the Dragon’s Apprentice – a mini roller coaster and one of the more popular and ‘scarier’ rides, therefore making it prone to long lines. We thought we’d get that out of the way first. I didn’t go on it (I was feeling a little off that day) but got some video footage. If you look at the video, that big dip you see is about as scary as the ride gets. Keira got off saying it was tame; Riley said he was scared to death. So, I think it’s somewhere in the middle!

Another ride, one I actually went on, was the Vikings’ River Splash – we got a little bit wet, but nothing too bad. If you’ve been on the Rocky Hollow Log Ride at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast, from memory that’s probably wetter. We’re lucky in that it was a warm(ish) day, so my pants dried relatively quickly. A cool thing is the person-sized dryers they have dotted around the park. For a couple of pounds, you can step in and get blown dried! The few people I saw get suited up in their plastic ponchos had probably gotten quite wet in the past and were taking the understandable precautions.

The negatives

Granted, it has been a number of years since I’ve been to a theme park, so you might already know about various ‘skip the queue’ options that are available these days. Since returning home, I see that even Australian ones are picking up on it. And why not – I’m sure they are lucrative. You can see how LEGOLAND’s works: what perks you end up getting will depend on what tier you opt for, and what add-ons (if any). By paying to reserve a spot in a queue you then get to use the Q-Bot express queue at the appropriate time and go on that ride. The day we were at LEGOLAND, I saw, by the afternoon, desperate families begin to use this service because the lines were long. Even worse, they were usually slow. For one ride, we were waiting for an hour and finally got up to the front of the line to then be told – without any sympathy – that the ride had broken down and we could either keep waiting or leave. Sadly, I saw a fair bit of that ‘meh whatever’ attitude in the staff – enough for me to mention it to customer services on our way out. In front of me were a couple of others also making various complaints. They gave me vouchers to the gift store as recompense, which was nice, but I wouldn’t go back.

Another thing that was blatantly obvious was the presence of corporate branding. Partnerships with FIAT and Xbox (among others), and evidence of this, like signage, was everywhere. That felt a little bit icky to me, although I’m sure it’s not a problem to some people.

Other remarks

• If you watch the video you’ll see the plane go over the park. LEGOLAND is right underneath a flight path for Heathrow airport and when I was bored I started timing how often they came across. It averaged out to every 90-120 seconds. Yup. That’s a lot. If you’re a plane spotter, you’ll be happy.
• LEGOLAND is built on a big hill that stretches down into a kind of basin/hollow. The walkways around the park are quite windy and not very direct. It felt like a kiddy casino in that respect. If you’re tired, or feeling ill, or have a small toddler, it gets tedious. There’s a train that goes up and down the hill – but that wasn’t operating the day we were there.

Watch the video if you want to see more.