01 September 2010

Legoland Windsor

This entry is our debriefing of the day. Driving on a highway in a city is quite stressful at the best of times, but in a city you’re not familiar with, in a car you’re not familiar with, with a map that doesn’t have clear directions that made us miss key exits and turns at roundabouts really tipped us over the edge today. There were road works on almost every highway with speed limits reduced to 40 miles/hr for a few km at a time. It took us 2 hours to get there because of all the traffic delay, and on the way home, we took some major wrong turns and it took us almost 4 hours to get back to Sam’s at 11:00pm! Wa-haaay longer than we planned. Thankfully Joseph was in the car to help navigate us back home. Driving sucks!! There it’s out! So what did we learn from this? We discovered that Ev is hopeless with directions on highways, and Dan gets stressed while driving in the traffic. Solution for future driving = Ev drive and Dan navigate, but wait, that’s what we were doing today! Surely with good directions we wouldn’t have been as stressed, at least we hope cause we have a Paris to Rome drive to come. And now breathe...and breathe...think calm... We haven’t even told you where we went today. Legoland Windsor. School holidays are a real treat: lots of kids, and long one hour lines for rides that lasted only 3-5 minutes. Did we mention already that we’re not having children for at least another 2-5 years. Ok enough sarcasm, it really was worth the drive.

Let’s start again... This morning we got in the car with Joseph and Dylan and headed for the post office at 9:15am and left at 9:40am and we were finally on to the road for Legoland Windsor. We had a pleasant, speedy drive along the highway and arrived at the ticket box, safely and relaxed at 11:30am... let’s just put up the photos.


Once inside we calmed down and headed straight for lunch then to our first ride. Dylan didn’t want to go on this ride so he and Dan stayed back while Ev and Joseph braved the splashing waters on 'Vikings’ River Splash'.


 
As Ev and Joseph lined up, Dan and Dylan went to look for another vantage point, or so Dan thought. Dan moved on checking Dylan was with him but he was no where to be seen. Dan freaked and paced up and down the entrance of the ride and was about to start running down the entrance of the ramp when he turned around and saw Dylan calmly running towards him and said "I didn't see you walk away". Ev says this to Dan a lot. Dan's heartrate stabalised. Dylan and some other kids on the side of the ride had mounted water guns they used to squirt as Ev and Joseph passed by.

After the ride we entered Kingdom of the Pharaohs and lined up for a new ride called ‘Laser Raiders’. The line seemed reasonable at first, then the corners just kept multiplying and we waited an hour and a half!! Along the way we saw treasures and Egyptian lego artefacts.





The laser shooting ride was over in 3 minutes and Dan scored the highest points. We walked around exhausted from our wait and admired the wildlife in the park. We almost saw the 'Big 5' again.







Dylan's catch of the day
Another hour queue passed and we boarded the peaceful 'Boating School' ride through the swamp and jungle life. There were multiple stations of lego for the kids to build things with so the line didn't seem very long for them.

Joseph & Dylan on the Boat Ride







We went on the fire game at 'Fire Academy'. Basically, it's a game where the four us got on a mini fire truck then had to 'drive' to the burning building. Once there, Joseph and Dan pumped the water as Dylan and Ev aimed the fire hoses at the building. Once the siren went we quickly got back in to 'drive' to the beginning. We came 2nd, only because the winning team cheated. Yeah..that's it.

One cat safely rescued

Don't panic Grandma!

The building's on fire! Where's the Fire Academy?!
We then went to mini lego land which was the highlight for us. We wished we came here earlier, but the short time made us appreciate the sights much more.

Edinburgh Castle - Scotland

Wembley Stadium - England

Stonehenge - UK

Rugby Union Game - Ireland

Wedding at a Church - England


Kennedy Space Centre - USA


Paris cafe

London Bridge

Buckingham Palace - London

Buckingham Palace - London

Grandmother crossing London Streets

Construction site

London Red Tour Bus

Big Ben and London Eye

Holland with moving motor boats

Holland city scene

Mount Rushmore - USA

Dan in Lego form
We ended the afternoon on a high in 'The Big Shop' that hosted every kind of lego series imaginable. We gave the boys the spending money from Sam and also bought them a toy/lego box each and Dan of course bought himself a toy, a big, kick arse Imperial Walker. We can’t buy them in Australia so we’ll have to post it back to OZ. We bought some smaller key rings and a photo album. We had a really good afternoon at Legoland and left the park at 7:30pm.

Sam had dinner waiting on the table for us when we arrived home and had candles lit throughout the house. It was very relaxing. We all watched the Airkix DVD together then rested our weary bodies.

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1 comment:

Sam said...

lol at Dan's portrait in Lego! I should have mentioned to you that if Dyl didn't want to go on any rides, you could take him in the queue with you and there is an area he can wait while you are on rides. We did this at just about every ride we went on in Orlando lol. Oh, and I must point out a very common mistake, that isn't London Bridge. It's actually the Tower Bridge. London bridge is just down from it and is just a plain road bridge. And I hope it wasn't MY kids that made you not want children for awhile, just the other little brats around them lol.