Friday 23-JUL-2010 LEGOLAND

Today (Friday) was chosen for our big trip to Legoland because we have to get up early Saturday morning to catch a train and a plane so we did not want a late night out.  This meant that all other nights could be filled with visits to theatres.  We took the tube from Picadilly Circus to Paddington where we purchased tickets to Windsor.  Changed trains at Slough.  Arrived Windsor. 

Double Decker bus to Lego land. 

Lego land is a bit like Sea world or Dream world.  Not really as many rides though.  We seem to have come on a good day.  Not too crowded. Cloudy but no rain. Incidentilly the last day of school before their summer holidays.  

Now before going, I had looked on the internet at the prices and discovered that I could buy tickets at half price from a web site called buyagift.co.uk.  Pretty much every time I try to save money it turns into a pile of poo and ends up costing me more or is an incredible waste of time.  So with my self printed half price entry tickets in hand, I tentatively approached the gate fully expecting that there would be some problem like you could only walk on the left hand side of half the paths and were only allowed to try every second ride and that they would only be valid between 3:06 and 3:07pm.  However they were accepted by the smiling girl at the gate and in we went.  I had to sit down and pinch myself.

We went in search of lego workshops.  Major disapointment as that section closed for refirmishment.  Found some lego to construct and build some cars and raced them down a short track. This was expanded when we integrated the video camera into one of the cars.  While we were doing this, Megan found and registered us to do some Lego Mindstorms workshops. 

Went and looked at mini land.  Some very creative people have created replicas of various icons from around the world.  Mostly UK and Europe.  Amazingly detailed Big Ben.  Some of the buildings are several meters high.  There is a railway with model trains on about a 100mm gauge.  Many lakes and cannals with boats pulled along by an underwater tow rope.  Also a few vehicles which appear to move autonomously along "roads" within the mini city.  

Megan had sensibly brought the makings of a picnic lunch and so we sat on the grass along with a number of other families at the side of mini land and had a picnic.

After the rides closed at 6pm, all 10000 visitors jammed into the Legoland shop so that tired kids and desparate parents could trip over each other in the rush to buy some momento to remind them of their trip to Legoland. A tee shirt was purchased.  Chris wanted it but the largest size available will only just fit him and so was suggested that he wear it for a few weeks then hand it down to Dan.  This caused a melt down which seemed quite fair since it appeared that every family present needed a melt down.

Then we all sat at the bus stop and waited for ages for a bus to arrive.  When it finally arrived we all cramed on.  There were people sitting on the steps to the top level and people standing in the aisles.  There was a huge traffic jam on the road so we moved slowly.  Screaming kids were placated and passed between family memebers spread around the bus so occasionally someone would tap you on the shoulder, pass you a kid and point at someone further down the buss and with various nods and winks and gasps as the bus lurched and you had to quickly decide how to off load the baby in time to grab the pole to save your self from burying your head in someones lap.

It appeared that the bus driver abandoned the route back to widsor on the freeway and took some country roads as we took quite a different route home.  Much longer but given the almost stationary traffic on the freeway probably much faster.