It was my birthday, and I knew what I wanted – a trip to Legoland!  Now for a 40+ year old, that might seem a bit strange but there were several reasons but mainly because I LOVE LEGO!  There I’ve said it! 😉

The other reasons were to see the Star Wars Miniland that was put in this year, as well as the Jubilee Buckingham Palace display in the original Miniland which included the Queen with real diamonds in her crown.  Very exciting!

We got to the park around 11, and got in for ‘free’ with our Clubcard vouchers (result!).  Despite being very busy queuing for tickets and the barriers was quite fast and we were soon in the park itself.  Even though it was a hot day we decided to walk down through the park rather than take the hill train as the queue was quite long.  Our first ride of the day was the SQUID Surfers which were great fun though we both got a bit wet, and then a bruised hip when the ride finished as it bumps into the centre platform quite hard.  Maybe we’re just getting old…

We then moved onto the Dino Safari but were a bit disappointed as (unusually for Legoland) the ride went through quite fast so it was very hard to take everything in, and pretty much impossible to read the signs and look at the models.  Maybe they’d just not set it up quite right today but it did seem a bit odd.

Atlantis was our next stop to do the Submarine Voyage.  It was cool to see the fish, sharks and rays (real and Lego!) though I couldn’t get any good pictures as I hadn’t set my camera up right (doh) and no flash was allowed.  There were screens in the ‘submarine’ but ours didn’t work – in fact there were quite a few places in the park where screens weren’t working which looked bad, including one that was displaying a windows error (wish I’d taken a photo!) – which we reported to the staff afterwards.

Next stop was an early lunch, having decided that the park was so busy we should eat either early or very late and we were both starving!  Unfortunately the food disappointed a bit, especially the panini which took ages to come out and was then barely toasted – the cheese wasn’t melted at all!  Given the heat of the day we should’ve got a refillable mug but we just ended up buying lots of drinks all day instead – needed as it was so hot!

The queue for Orient Expedition said it was only 15 mins wait so we thought we’d do that next – big mistake as it took pretty much an hour to get on a train!  There were lots of parents with small children in the queue who were getting very fractious, and I’m sure some of them also had only decided to do it based on the wait time.  When we actually got to the front we saw that it was quite inefficient to get people onto a train and then actually get the train moving – maybe the staff too were struggling in the heat!  Was good fun when it finally got going though.

Next up we went to the Dragon rollercoaster which despite the length of the queue actually moved quite fast and was pretty much the one ride that came close to Disney efficiency in loading and speed.  This first time that we did it, I decided to video the entire ride which didn’t come out too badly I didn’t think (Dragon Video).  Was fun to do but nowhere near as fast or twisty as we remembered – guess we’ve been on bigger rollercoasters since!

It was now time to head up to Star Wars Miniland which was very popular (unsurprisingly) but quite well spaced out so you didn’t feel too squashed.  Was boiling in there though so aircon would definitely be an improvement!  Something animated in each display, sometimes at a push of a button when it lit up (not sure some of the kids knew the meaning of illuminated which was the word they’d used!).  Very well worth visiting, and I even got my picture taken with a large model of the Millenium Falcon!

There was still time to take in another ride, so we went back to Laser Blazers which had been quite busy earlier in the day.  As it was still quite warm, we had an icecream before heading in.  The soft icecream was what I wanted but it was so hot they weren’t selling it as it was sliding off the cone!!  Blimey!  I went for a cornetto instead which turned out to be a mistake as the cone was soft so we reckon it was out of date – tut, tut! 😉  Laser Blazers turned out to be a ride like Buzz Lightyear at Disney where you shoot at targets to score points, and I won out of us two 🙂  The targets took awhile to reset so we were glad we were in the front of the four person car as the person behind me struggled to score points – I felt a bit bad but hadn’t realised this until the end.  So if you do this ride, make sure you are at the front of the car!

The day was drawing on, so we headed back to the Dragon (weeeeeee!), and then took in the original Miniland which had extended and changed a lot since the last time we were there.  Particular highlights were the Jubilee Buckingham Palace display as mentioned above (though you couldn’t tell they were diamonds apart from the fact there was a security guard near by!), and models of the Kennedy Space center.

Nearly time to go, but not before we’d had a quick look round the shops though as I wasn’t allowed to buy the R2D2 set (boo, hoo!) I didn’t buy anything (shock, horror!).  Maybe when we’ve moved we’ll have space for more models!  Back to the car tired but having had a fun day despite the heat.  Not sure we’ll be back again unless they revamp a lot of the displays as its definitely one for the kids rather than adults without and a few bits looked tired/broken but so glad we did it for my birthday!

Not very interesting I know but if you want to see the photos I took, you can find them here