THE LEGOLAND EXPERIENCE

 

It was not long after it opened, 1998 if memory serves, that we visited Legoland in Windsor on a very hot day in August.

When I say we I am of course referring to myself, my wife Tina and our three sons, Ben 5, Josh 3 and Sam aged 2.

As a family trip to any theme park is an expensive one, we had exchanged some of our Sainsbury reward vouchers for Air miles vouchers we could be used to visit Legoland.

When we arrived, we mistakenly went to the advanced ticket sales window believing that having converted our vouchers we had come to the correct place, this was indeed a mistake and we received a very surly response to our enquiry from the first member of staff we had met.

I am a firm believer that you never get a second chance to make a first impression and so that first meeting may have coloured our experience had it not been for the fact that she was one of the more accommodating examples.

After our exchange with miss surly we joined one of the many 50 metre long queue’s and remained there for half an hour shuffling slowly forward and eventually purchased our tickets from, as things turned out from the only pleasant member of staff we met all day. 

Having converted out vouchers into tickets we then approached the next obstacle, the turnstiles, my wife, with Sam in his buggy approached the gate marked pushchairs and I followed tickets in hand with Ben and Josh.

I was then stopped by another fine example of inadequate training and told that myself and two of my sons could not follow my wife through the pushchair gate because none of us were in a pushchair and must go through the turnstiles I asked the officious employee if he thought it was necessary and he told me he wasn’t his job to think.

We should have turned around then I should have read the signs.

 

The park was very busy once we had got in and we decided we would wait until after lunch before we tried to get the children on any rides, so we decided to view Mini World or Miniland I can’t remember which now and we slowly ambled, It was to busy even then to do anything but, towards the picnic area and we just about managed to find a seat for us all. 

After lunch we left the picnic area and we could not believe where all the people had come from, My Town was absolutely heaving with people.

We had met the Sort of concentration of people you would normally associate with a premier league Football match, or Wembley turning out and with three young children this made our progress very stressful indeed as we obviously were concerned for the safety of our children.  

We then decided, as much to get out of the throng as anything, to take the children on the Carousel.

After queuing for more than 30 minutes we were near the front of the queue, when on the last ride before our turn someone was sick, an adult, in one of the cars.

The operator then used the phone to call for some assistance and for someone to come and clear up the mess.

He went on to explain that the ride was closed until the mess had been dealt with, after 5 minutes someone arrived with a mop and bucket but instead of dealing with the problem she addressed the queue to say that the ride was closed until someone came to clear the mess, she was obviously only trained to carry the mop and bucket, not actually to use it, and we could wait until the ride reopened or go and queue for another attraction.

A lady in front of us asked if we could be issued with a ticket or a stamp to say we had already queued for over half an hour so if we did leave the queue we would not have to join the rear of the queue.

The employee looked puzzled for a moment and then just repeated her previous statement.

We left the queue. 

After this we decided we would not waste any more time queuing for rides we may not get on, instead we took the children to things like the Wild Woods which did not include ridiculous queuing.

We did however have to queue for 20 minutes to get ice creams at one of the very few vendors. 

When we decided we had finally had enough we joined the queue for the Funicular Railway which was fairly painless by Legoland standards and as it was the only ride, we actually got on it was the high point of the day for my eldest son Ben. 

As we made our way to the exit, we decided to buy the boys a present each from the shop, the shop was very busy as you would expect but we found what we wanted relatively quickly and went to pay.

And guess what another queue, there were only two people serving a Jekyll and Hyde combination one pleasant and well-mannered the other an ignorant moron.

As we only had to queue for 15 minutes this was a remarkable improvement and as we thought this was our last queue of the day, we were relatively content, but before the journey home we had to visit the toilets and to our complete disbelief another queue, but I have to say in all fairness that this was the only occasion during the day we did have to queue for the toilets. 

When we were in the park my wife Tina and I frequently commented that their were too many people in the park and when we reached the car park we could see why, not only was the car park full but cars were park end to end around the perimeter and a good distance along the access road.

This said to me that the primary concern of the park operators was to get as many people through the turnstiles as possible without any care or consideration for the paying guests actually getting any semblance of value for the money they have parted with. 

When we were sat in the car, queuing to get out the car park, I asked the children if they had enjoyed themselves, they said yes, they had but then as this was their first experience of theme parks they had no frame of reference to compare it to.

So, I asked them what they had enjoyed the most and Ben said the train, only I suspect because it was the only ride he had, Josh, my middle son said his favourite part was “Lunch”, which was the picnic we had brought with us. 

We were asked by friends who knew we were going to Legoland if we had enjoyed “The Legoland Experience” the reply was a resounding no we did not. 

One of the most frustrating parts of the day was the lack of sign boards indicating how long from that point you would expect to wait on all the rides we considered going on, other parks did it, why couldn’t they.?

Another was the “I don’t like my job and I'm going to let everyone know it” attitude of the park staff, not all of them I would have to say but the good ones were few and far between. 

I wrote a letter of complaint and although the respondent refused to accept any of my criticism’s we were issued complimentary tickets which we used on a damp and overcast day in October, and we had a fantastic time.

The park was virtually empty the staff outnumbered the guests, and we didn’t meet a surly member of staff all day.

Obviously, the staff didn’t enjoy the august heat and the attending crowds any more than we did.