brinkofbedlam

LEGOLAND Discovery Centre! 

As part of the Blogs Up North group we were invited to attend the Legoland Discovery Centre and Cadwaladers Ice-Cream and Coffee Cafe at the Trafford Centre.  How excited were we?  Very.  The kids were bouncing off the walls when they heard where we were going.  Here’s how the trip went!

The start of a Lego adventure!

The queue for the pre-paid tickets was longer than the one for walk in customers which seemed a little strange, but we weren’t waiting long as we were part of the bloggers group. So in we went!  This is map of the delights we had in store:

Tons of stuff to do, I wondered how on earth they’d squished it all into one building.

First of all we went into the Lego Factory where they had an interactive talk and a display about how lego is made.  It was short enough and fun enough so that the kids didn’t lose interest.  They had them jumping up and down and joining in.  It was a very good start.  I’ll admit I was jumping up and down with the kids at one point.  Great interaction with the audience.

After that we headed into the main attraction area and oh my lord it was packed!  I’ll admit I took a deep breath and thought ‘Well, if there’s room for them, there’s room for us.’  Some parents said that they had visited at other times when it was even busier, so I don’t know how manic it must get in there sometimes.  It was the last day of the holidays and a rainy one at that, so it was bound to be busy though

The kids actually enjoyed queuing for rides because there were little lego play areas along the queuing line. A nice touch I thought.

The Kingdom Quest was brilliant.  We sat in a little car which whizzed us around a lego shooting range.  Each of us had a ‘gun’ which looked more like a fire-hose to be honest (I loved this, as I hate guns) and we fired at targets en route and got points for accuracy that were tallied on screens at the front of the car. Loadsa fun!  I lost, but then I am a terrible shot.

Next we went to the Lego Forest City Pursuit, where children could drive cars around a huge lego set.  It was very well supervised by staff and I didn’t notice any  bumping or road rage.

Following that, it all gets a bit blurry.  Our two little munchkins wanted to do everything at once. They made lego cars and raced them at the Lego Racers Build and Test Site, dived around in the Lego pit (think ball pool and substitute masses of Lego), made huge lego towers in the Duplo Village, played at being kareoke superstars in the Lego Friends area and much more.  There’s really an awful lot to fit in, and my two were up to the challenge.

There were some amazing lego characters scattered around the building.

My only real criticism is this sort of thing:

We got lunch, had to fight for somewhere to sit as it was so busy, and when I went to find a spoon for my coffee, it looked like this. Ew!

I didn’t see a single member of staff cleaning or clearing any of the tables.  We were supposed to clear our own tables, but many don’t and there were a number of tables covered with dirty plates and cups.  It’s just not nice.  The kids packed lunches were a little limited too, they had cheese sandwiches and chicken and mayonnaise sandwiches choices available for their packed lunches which seemed an odd combo.  Ye olde ham sarnies are usually on offer at these places.  Sausage had a 50g adult sized packet of crisps in his packed lunch which was a bit excessive and although it was ok, I didn’t rate their catering for children very much and his lunch alone cost £4.50.  This is to be expected at attractions I suppose, but still, I was a bit disappointed.  There are no facilities for packed lunches either, you aren’t supposed to take in your own refreshments, although there is a food court in the Trafford Centre of course.

The 4D Cinema was fun though, Darlek and Sausage squealed and laughed when they were doused with a light spray of water and bubbles as the film played.  The glasses made me laugh, cool dudes aren’t we!

Miniland was breathtaking, really pretty.

Bunny Invasion!

It did make me laugh that the whole place seemed infested with little white lego bunnies, there were bunnies in the water, bunnies on the balconies, bunnies playing chicken with the lego cars, bunnies everywhere. Either they were there because it was Easter or one of the lego builders had a nervous breakdown and had just gone bunny mad.

The visit to Cadwaladers was a lovely calm break.  They were so nice there.  The kids both had ice-creams and we had two well-earned lattes.

A fantastic range of ice-creams ranging from Turkish Delight to Bubblegum.

MMMMmmmmmm…..

Clean tables, great coffee, lush ice-cream. 10/10 :O)

So how would I rate our visit to Legoland? The kids absolutely adored the place, so much to do and so many other children to play with.  Personally I found it all a bit claustraphobic, but that’s just me being an awkward so and so.  The staff were so helpful, especially as I lost the kids’ coats whilst there so I had to ask for them to have a quick look around for them.  My only quibble as I said before was the Legoland cafe, maybe they were understaffed, but with so many people in there, they did need to be more on the ball with keeping the area clean and tidy.

It’s a fun day out for the kids, they certainly won’t ever be bored.  How they fitted so much under one roof, I do not know. Our two are even more obsessed with lego than they were before and we did have a lovely day out thanks to the generosity of the Legoland Discovery Centre and Cadwaladers.  Many thanks for inviting us all and making us feel so welcome.

This is a sponsored post, we were supplied with complementary tickets at Legoland and ice-creams and coffees at Cadwaladers.  I feel so privileged to be a blogger and to get the chance to visit such fantastic places.