The LEGOLAND Star Wars Event

Bank Holiday Monday, May 4, 2015.

Dear Mummy, we visited LEGOLAND in Windsor for the first time over the Bank Holiday weekend and had such a great experience we just had to share it with you. The LEGOLAND Windsor Resort was celebrating Star Wars Day on May 4 with its annual LEGO Star Wars event. Over three days (Saturday 2 May to Monday 4 May) guests from all over the country descended on Windsor and participated in Star Wars themed activities at the park.

We visited on May 4 (May the Fourth…or May the Force) as its referred to by Star Wars lovers. My Daddy is a HUGE Star Wars and LEGO fan and has been waiting since I was born to take me here. LEGOLAND opened in 1996, in Windsor, Berkshire and is operated by the British theme park company Merlin Entertainments. It’s located just down the road for where the Queen lives (or so I’m told) in fact you can see the Queen’s weekend pad from the entrance hill at LEGOLAND. There are currently twelve areas in the park, including: The Beginning, Imagination Centre, Miniland, Duplo Land, Traffic, LEGO City, Land of the Vikings, Kingdom of the Pharaohs, Pirates Shores, Knights Kingdom, and Adventure Land with a new area opening up very shortly called Heartlake City! It is the largest LEGOLAND park in the world. Oooer I say!

My mummy gets a corporate discount from her work, so luckily it was half price for her and daddy. Under 3’s are free, so I enjoyed a free day out. Even with my mummy’s corporate discount it still worked out at £28 per adult which is expensive for us. So we were determined to make the most out of the day. We arrived early and even at 10:30am the car parks were half full! Woweee mummy, this place sure is popular! We don’t know whether it was Star Wars Day and the event had brought people here..or whether it was the bright bank holiday sunshine, but we were ready to fight the crowds and have a good time. We spent 15 minutes queuing for a space and once we had parked up mummy and daddy waited for me to wake up, as I had a sneaky nap in the car from Basingstoke to Windsor. We took the buggy today as we’d heard from friends that it was a little ‘hilly’ in places and a long old day for a toddler. Bringing a buggy was the best decision we’d made. The walk from the green field car park to the entrance was a bit of a slog and we queued for the Advance Ticket sales for another 15 minutes.

By the time we went through the barriers it was after 11am. We were also fast tracked through a special gate just for buggies too which saved us a lot of queuing time and we were very thankful. On receiving our tickets we were given a map of the park and a Star Wars Event planner, which listed the attractions and timings over the course of the Bank Holiday. Daddy’s LEGO building skills were put to the test as he joined in a big build to make a giant LEGO Star Wars Ewok mosaic from thousands of individual bricks. We didn’t come in costume, however loads of visitors did to enter the daily LEGO Star Wars Costume Competition.

We watched the crowds rush down the hill to the theme park rides, however there was no queue at the first attraction on entrance, which was the Star Wars LEGO Exhibition (Miniland model display) and it was the main reason we came here for, so we jumped at the chance. We went straight in and enjoyed looking at all the Star Wars film scenes made out of LEGO. It was great and we loved the interactivity element too. I had fun pressing the buttons making the exhibitions come to life. We watched the Millennium Falcon take flight, the Ewoks in the forest, some of the battles and took full advantage of all the photo opportunities. My daddy was in his element. We weren’t rushed and it wasn’t busy, so we all enjoyed it. In some places the exhibition was dark and moody and my mummy was impressed with the light displays and music, we’ve seen some LEGO Exhibitions before…but this one was the best yet!

Continuing on from the Star Wars LEGO Exhibition we went on the hunt for the costumed characters. We followed the path down the hill and into the theme park. The view was stunning and we could see right to Heathrow Airport and Windsor Castle. We didn’t stop at any of the non-Star Wars activities or rides, as we weren’t here for those today. Our main mission was seeking out the Rebel Legion and offering them our support against the evil Empire….AKA the UK Garrison costumed characters. When I’m a bit bigger, over 0.9m actually, I’d love to go back and check out some of the theme park rides. This isn’t a full review of Legoland, just a review of the Star Wars Event. We bumped into a lot of Mandalorians and stopped to have our photos taken with them. We scouted the theme park and got our bearings. This would be needed for future reconnaissance missions. We bypassed Pirates Shores, Knights Kingdom and made a beeline for where I knew I could have a play…Duplo Land. We walked through a new area called Heartlake City, which looked a bit “Disney”. Stopped to watch a pirate stunt show while we were there and have an ice cream. In the end we did a massive circuit of the whole park in a couple of hours, trying to spot as many Star Wars Characters as we could. Once we were satisfied we stopped at the entrance where we had begun and had lunch in the main cafe on the hill. Right next to us UK Garrison with Darth Vader and numerous Storm Troopers stopped for photos so we watched them while we ate. It was great entertainment seeing how they interacted with the public. Fair play.

After lunch we aimlessly wandered around the park, we headed to the Enchanted Forest which was transformed into a mysterious Ewok Village. Smoke machines added to the drama of this hidden realm. Luckily we saw one Ewok by a tree stump – then he just disappeared! Mid afternoon we sunbathed on the Lawn and watched the young Jedi’s training. Even though it was busy, it didn’t feel claustrophobic and there was plenty of space to sit down and watch the world go by. It was very cool… watching all the Star Wars Characters and visitors walking around in full costume, reenacting scenes from the films. In fact it was one of the best experiences my mummy has ever had at a theme park, pushing the buggy around she never felt harassed or in the way of others as the paths were wide and the crowds were sparse with no choke points. LEGO Miniland, a model village which includes models of landmarks and scenes from around the world made from millions of LEGO bricks was great to look at and we spent a long time spotting little LEGO people.

Only at the end of the day, when everyone gathered to watch the 4pm Star Wars Procession did it get busy, everyone in the park lined the parade route to get a look at all the Star Wars characters in their full glory. We watched the 501st UK Garrison in a Character March which began at Heartlake City, passed LEGO City and fished at Pirate Shores. We stood just outside the Fire Academy on the main drag to get the best view. This was the busiest it got and it was worth jostling for prime position as the parade was fab. A really good atmosphere and well worth the wait and crowds after. It seemed that everyone else had also waited to see the parade before heading home, so it was like a mass exodus leaving the park.

We’d been at Legoland for over 5 hours and definitely got our monies worth. Even though we hadn’t been on any of the rides we thought it was good value for money, however if we’d been full paying visitors we’d probably would have wanted to go on all the rides and see everything. We can’t wait to go back when I’m big enough to go on the rides and see everything and do a full review of the park.

Thanks Rebel Legion and UK Garrison! We had a fab time at LEGOLAND mainly because of you. The LEGOLAND staff we came across were friendly and polite which helped. They looked like they enjoyed their work which radiated when they spoke to customers. Even at the end of the day the toilets were clean and we were really impressed with the family facilities at the new Heartlake City area. Great job.

LEGOLAND we will be back!

Love Bella x