In February we visited the Legoland Discovery Center and Sealife Center at the Trafford Center in Manchester using the £20 combi tickets. The Sealife part was to celebrate the twins first birthday and Legoland was for our big boy who is three and a half. You have to pay for over 3’s so all in all it cost us £60.
you have to book a time slot ticket when you pre book, I’m not really sure what the point of it is as when we arrived 15 minutes early as requested we had to queue for 45 minutes in the freezing cold just to reach the till.
Once you’ve had your photograph taken you go up in a lift for the ‘factory tour’ which even to a 3 year old was a bit naff. One room with a ‘machine’ along the back wall and a Lego expert racing through a script before handing you a Lego block.
You then come to the main ride which is the Kingdom Quest Laser Ride, it looks really good fun and is for all ages but unfortunately our little boy wimped out so we were straight into Miniland. You could easily walk through Miniland in a couple of minutes and it was smaller than I was expecting but we took our time and looked at all the details and it was really good.
After Miniland you walk into a large room which is the main area so initially we thought it was a bit of a rip off and that we wouldn’t be there long but when we started walking round we realised there was actually lots to do. First we sat in on a Master Model Builder session where a really nice enthusiastic Lego expert took you through step by step how to build a polar bear. Our super independent 3 year old wanted to do it all himself and he did really well considering it was ‘big boy Lego’ and not Duplo but after about 20 minutes his attention span was up so we stepped out. If you manage to finish your build there is a charge to take it home which I thought was a bit of a cheek.
Unfortunately our son was too small for the City Forest Pursuit ride and he didn’t want to go on the Merlin’s Apprentice ride so he spent most of his time in the Fire Academy which is basically a soft play area so we had a Costa!
I took him into the 4D cinema to watch Legends Of Chima which he loved as we hadn’t seen any of Chima before. It lasted around 20 minutes so hubby had another coffee whilst the twins napped.
Finally he had a play in the Lego Duplo Farm and Lego Construction Site and we skipped the Lego Racers Build and Test even though it looked good fun as his attention span for building with ‘big boy Lego’ was totally gone.
We didn’t realise that on the way out there is actually the Ninjago Laser Training Camp which was a great hit and then some Lego scenes from Star Wars which even though he’s never seen it some sort of boyness took over him and he thought it was all ‘ace!’
All in all we thought it was a great place to spend a few hours and when combined with the Sea Life Center tickets not too bad value for money. I think we would have got more from the attraction though if our eldest had been a year or so older, we will definitely be going back.
On a practical note:
Parking – was close and free.
Toilets – Clean with Legoland pictures covering the doors making them ‘cool mummy’. Baby changing facilities and all close to the main attraction.
Food – We didn’t stay for lunch but there was Costa Coffee and cakes which were yummy 🙂
Staff – All the staff we met were really nice and helpful.