We went to Legoland Windsor as a family of 5 in 2022, and have just been back again in 2025 - and quite a lot has changed! Not least, the age of our kids.
What is the best age to go to Legoland?
See, this is the thing about Legoland - I think it's painfully expensive, but it is genuinely good for a wide range of ages. And if you've got kids spread out like we have (3, 7 and 11), then it's a really good day out. I'm not sure the 11 year old will be all that bothered for much longer, but at the same time, it's fun enough for him that he'll certainly tolerate it if the younger ones are still keen (which they will be).
When we went in 2022, we had a 6 month old baby with us, who was tiny and tube fed. But I’d checked in advance and found lots of rides said there was no minimum age, which sounded great! When we got there, I was disappointed that a number of these then said, on their signage, that babies who couldn’t sit unsupported couldn’t go on them. So there’s not so much for REALLY little babies, but still lots for under ones. And from there on up, there’s plenty.
This visit, with a 3 year old, 7 year old and 11 year old, there was a lot to do - more than enough for 1 day - and our bigger kids enjoyed the Duplo Valley rollercoasters so did everything the little guy did too. There was a baby fire engine “ride” (more below) which we actually all really enjoyed and had a good laugh on!
How much is Legoland Windsor?
We paid £41 per person, and I think the cheapest you can get tickets (off peak) is around £35 per person. We went in the Easter holidays, but in the first week, which for us was early and not all schools were broken up (there seemed to be a real split this year). The website says it's cheaper if you book 7 or more days in advance, which we did - so it would be more than £41 per person if you booked last minute.
The only thing is though, we didn't actually pay £41 per person - because my Mum had £75 worth of Tesco Club Card points. You can double the value for days out, so we had £150 towards Legoland, which was a massive help with a bill of £246 for a single day out! (3 kids, 3 adults as my Mum came with us.) That's nearly Disney prices, isn't it?!
Kids who are under 90cms are free, and there is still a lot for 2 year olds to do there, so if you've got older kids (who will get more out of it than a 2 year old alone), then it's still very much worth doing before the little one hits 90cm!
What time does Legoland open?
The rides open at 10am (unless you're staying in the hotel and have a sneaky headstart), but the park opens from 9:30am so you can get your tickets checked and go into "The Beginning" they call it, which has some lego to look at. And of course a shop, and a Costa, and some loos. My son thought he spotted a sneaky way in sooner, if you went via Costa and out of their exit, and so skipped the barrier, but I'm not sure if he was right. I'd definately recommend getting there for 9:30 rather than 10 though, because it's advertised as opening at 10 so the queues get longer around then.
How much is food and drink at Legoland Windsor?
We knew it'd be hurrendous so we just took a load of snacks, but whereas a hotdog (like a quite long frankfurter type one) was £8 in 2022, it was now £10 (well, (£9.90-something). £10 for a hotdog!!
I saw a sign for a chicken and chips meal at a fast-food style place, so the equivalent of a KFC, and it was £14. Meanwhile we did get ice creams, which were £3.75 for a Magnum, or £3.25 for a Feast, and I think £3.50 for a Cornetto. A Calippo was slightly less I think.
There are free water bottle refill stations which I think is brilliant, and, along with the Factor 50 SPF sun cream dispensers, a really positive touch by Legoland / Merlin.
Can I take my own food and drink to Legoland?
Yes you can take your own food and drink and that's what we do - as many snacks as we can be bothered to carry to keep energy levels up! There's a bag search on the way in but they aren't checking for food and drink.
Get your tickets for Legoland Windsor here >>
How much is Parking at Legoland Windsor?
When we went in 2022, we stayed 1 night in the Legoland Hotel. Which is great in various ways - you don't have the prospect of a long drive looming after a busy day, you can keep the lego party going for a while after the park closes (until bedtime I mean, as the lego is everywhere), the kids had a brilliant little treasure hunt to do in the room which led them to a free pack of lego, and they got Lanyards (which we kept and wore again this time) rather than pay a fortune for them at the Driving School. I mean, you pay a fortune for the hotel, but still.
But the other thing about staying in the hotel is that the parking is free. So I didn't need to think about it - and consequently I didn't think about this time. I think if you buy tickets online with Legoland in the normal way, they'll walk you through paying for parking so you might do it before you arrive, but because we did it via our Tesco Clubcard points, I didn't pay for parking and was shocked to arrive and find it was £12! Ends up it would have been £10 if I'd booked in advance online. Or £30 for Priority Parking... the website says the online price is £20 but I'm pretty sure the signs (for on the day charges) said £30, and all that gets you is parking a little closer - whereas we walked for 5 mins from the "standard" parking with a 3 year old and it was fine. Why Legoland - in the middle of no where - charge for parking is beyond me.
I was worried as we drove in about how I should get a ticket or pay, when we suddenly saw all these signs about paying for parking, and it really didn't feel clear. The barriers were up, and the machine was on the passenger side as we drove in, so that suggested it was more for when you drive out (as the machine would normally be on the driver's side?) so I hoped it was just taking a photo of our number plate and we'd pay by card as we exited.
In actual fact, as we walked into the park, there was a Legoland employee asking if anyone needed to pay for parking. I said I did (and took a photo of him incase he was a phoney! Like the guy who hung out at Bristol Zoo for decades charging for parking and then one day ran off with the proceeds!), so I paid by card, and he gave me a pre-printed receipt with a bar code on it. On the way out, we then scanned that bar code and exited (there was actually a person stood at the barrier helping scan people out).
How long do you need to visit Legoland?
We've only ever done a single day, but there is easily enough there to fill 2 days - or at least have a good 2 days with perhaps revisiting some of your favourite rides. We certainly don't do everything in 1 day, even when we hit it hard, like this time, and went on loads of rides.
Can you get around Legoland in 1 day? Yes you can get a good go at it, but there will be plenty you don't do.
What shows are at Legoland Windsor?
Some friends who are massive Legoland fans strongly recommended the pirate show to us when we went in 2022, saying it was a perfect thing to stop and watch whilst you had lunch. So we planned to do the same again - but there was no pirate show! I'd actually Google'd this the night before to check, as I was building us a bit of an itinerary (more on that below) and found that due to budget cuts, Merlin have cancelled the Pirate show for 2025. As a result, I don't think there were any "shows" whilst we were there, but there was a lego rabbit going around on a car with a team of dancers singing a happy little song, and our 3 year old enjoyed following that around with my Mum and husband whilst the older 2 and I did a ride he was too little for.
What rides are at Legoland Windsor in 2025?
We did so many rides in our 1 day! WITHOUT a Reserve and Ride queue jumper pass. Here’s the list of what we did, and what we thought of it - but for the full list, download the Legoland app and read the descriptions of everything there. (Below I’ll tell you how we got to do so many rides in 1 day.)
The Hill Train
Queue: No queue, we walked right on at a couple of minutes after 10.
Right inside the entrance, a funicular (hill) train that isn’t a funfair ride but is just a leisurely way of getting down a hill and the 3 year old was excited to go on anything, and see lego on the way down. If you’re using this to get back up the hill at the end of the day, make sure you check the last time it runs.
Lego Ninjago Ride
Queue: About a 5 minute queue - we certainly walked almost the whole way through the zig zagging barriers.
The 3 year old found this very scary, but he snuggled into me and was fine. You’re in a little car that’ll hold about 4 people (we went in 2 x 3) and you have 3D glasses on. As you move around the track, screens in front of you play Ninjago scenes and you have to swipe your arms to karate chop the bad guys and earn points. Your score is on a dashboard on the front of your car/seats so you can compete against each other. I think my 7 year old daughter probably enjoyed this one the best (and scored very highly with just random arm waving and relentless chopping).
Dragon’s Apprentice
Queue: 30 mins queue (but we’d thought it’d be 15-20 when we joined… so I think it grew quite quickly. The app said it was a 40 min queue by the time we got on it).
This is a fairly small roller coaster - “scarier” than the Dino one in Duplo Valley but the baby brother of “The Dragon” which is the park’s main traditional roller coaster. I’d intended to take the toddler on this whilst the others did The Dragon but they decided they wanted us to all stay together, and we all enjoyed this. The queue for this was good as there was lego to do whilst you queued (which suggests there’s normally a long wait!). The 3 year old loved it, and everyone else enjoyed it very much too. I genuinely screamed as there is a twist (just after where you think the twist is going to be!). It only goes around the track twice (which seemed to be the norm actually).
Merlin’s Challenge
Queue: 5 minutes, we waited for a ride to happen and then got on the next one.
This is just a fast - but very fast - roundabout. Our (tall) 7 year old couldn’t actually go on without an adult, but the 3 year old was allowed with an adult. A perfectly fun little ride that the little ones enjoyed.
Flight of the Sky Lion
Queue: 25 minutes.
We didn’t do this one in 2022 because the queue was horrendous (I’ve heard from friends that they’ve queued for 90 minutes before), but when we saw it was 25 minutes we headed for it. The minimum height is 1m, so the 3 year old couldn’t go on it, and so I took the older 2 (the 7 year old could probably have done it without an adult, the limit for that is 1.2m). My friend who queued for an hour and a half had said it was really worth it, and she hates queuing, so I was curious. The problem is, it’s one of those rides where you have no idea what to expect! So I was really quite scared because I’m a wuss when it comes to rides and I just didn’t know what I was letting myself in for. I needn’t have worried though, and I do highly recommend it!
You sit in long rows of 10 or 12 people (some 10, some 12). You take your seats, and put on a lap belt, and then the carousel / bench you’re sat on revolves around and you’re in a massive… auditorium for lack of a better word. Your legs are dangling at this point and whereas you and everyone else in the queue was shepherded down different corridors, you now see they’re all sat in their own rows of 10 or 12 either next to your bench, above or below. Imagine you’re all pinned to a wall, and vertically some are above you and some are below you. I think there were 3 rows of seats, each 3 benches wide. So we could just about see there were people sat underneath us / lower than us, and there were more people sat above us, and we were on the far right of our row, with 2 other benches to our left.
And then in front of you, a massive cinema screen starts a film. Unlike with the Ninjago ride, you don’t need to wear 3D glasses, and your seat tips and moves slightly to make it feel like you’re soaring through a fantasy world. There are smells and heat to make you feel like you’re really in a volcano, and other effects to make it feel very immersive. It gives you the feeling that you’re shooting quickly through narrow rock formations, and narrowly avoiding big beasts. It’s not at all scary (to my mind) although my 7 year old shrieked quite a lot - but happily. She’s a dare devil who doesn’t scream on a roller coaster but a monster will make her jump.
I was trying to decide if the slightly curved cinema screen meant that you got the same experience wherever you were sat - were we all feeling like we were zooming through the same cave, or would the other end of the row be seeing something else to narrowly miss? I did wonder if my son and I, being on the end of a row, didn’t get quite such a good experience as you might exactly in the middle, but it was still good.
Overall I’d highly recommend this ride just because it was very different and whilst I didn’t think the film or the effects were the most impressive ever, when your carousel turns around and you see how you’re sat in this massive theatre with your legs dangling, it is very impressive. So it’s definitely something to experience.
Minifigure Speedway
Queue: 0 mins / walked straight on
So this is another big ticket ride at Legoland Windsor, having opened in April 2024 after a £10,000,000 investment. It’s a “duelling” roller coaster which means 2 trains / sets of carriages go on the tracks at the same time, but in opposite directions. It’s Legoland’s fastest roller coaster, as it can reach speeds of up to 56km/h - plus, it goes backwards. That was what my 7 year old was particularly excited about - going on a roller coaster that went backwards. It’s not all backwards, it chops and changes from forwards and backwards, and does it’s route twice.
I took some persuading to go on this! But I was glad I did. My husband took my 7 year old on, and my 11 year old didn’t want to go in a car on his own, and my husband expected not to want to do it twice… ends up he probably would have done it again if pushed as it really wasn’t that bad (he doesn’t enjoy roller coasters but will do them with the kids). But by then, I’d left the toddler with my Mum and headed on with my eldest.
It is fast, but I like fast. And it is twisty - but it doesn’t loop the loop or do anything really scary. So it was perfect for me really, but a friend’s kid had found it really scary and that worried me! So I told myself that actually, it was something I should do - and I hate not doing things through fear (my “Beginner’s Skiing” blog post is coming soon). So I did it and it was fun and I’m glad I did. I would say sit quite low in your chair / use your head rest as I felt my head got flung around a bit and I’d think a tall person could easily get whiplash!
I’d watched a YouTube video of it briefly when we paused for lunch and it seemed to have a sheer drop, but I really don’t think it did, or certainly not one that felt like a big deal. The “duelling” aspect isn’t really a thing once you’re on it, you aren’t really aware that you're in a “race” - it just means twice as many people can go on at once and it looks impressive from a distance.
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Balloon School
Queue: 10/15 minutes
Looked cool, but was quite dull really, the only ride that wasn’t worth the wait. But an easy little one for the toddler.
Duplo Dino Coaster
Queue: 5 minutes
The sign actually said it was closed but people were still going on it so we tried our luck and it was totally still open. Easy nice little roller coaster we all enjoyed, not at all scary - although my husband thinks they turned up the speed when they heard him remark how slow it looked. Grandma sat it out but she would have been fine!
Fairy Tale Brook
Queue: Walked straight on
A gentle little boat ride around fairy tale scenes made from lego.
Fire Academy
Queue: 10/15 minutes
This caught the toddler’s eye and he was desperate to go on, so we figured we all might as well. It ended up with him, my Mum and my daughter in 1 fire engine, and therefore my husband, myself and our 11 year old in another - so 11 years plus together on what looked like a real baby’s attraction (that requires an adult’s help), but it was actually very entertaining! You need to pump your fire engine to make it move, then you need to jump out and hose water into the burning building, and then pump your fire engine to get it to go back again. It turns into a race against the other “teams” which makes it a good laugh.
Haunted House Monster Party
Queue: 20 minutes
This was the great surprise of the day! I’m never bothered about a Haunted House, but my 11 year old saw it when we were up in the Balloon School ride, and asked to do it. We were all a bit nervous about how it would go with the little ones, and how we’d sit, but it was actually great! I would highly recommend it. My 11 year old and I thought it ridiculous though that the signage tells you you must know what to expect before you go on these rides - yet there’s no way to know what’s actually inside!
So you enter the room and there is a large dining table down the middle of the room, laid up with a feast. There’s are then 2 benches either side of the table - so the 2nd bench on each side is higher than the first one, like theatre seats or bleakers at an American sports game. It meant that we all sat together in 1 long row because there’s probably 20 or so people in a row. There’s use of UV paint / glowing stuff which is always effective. Once it starts your seats and the table start to sway slightly… so you go up backwards and then move forwards - imagine the classic pirate ship swing boat but you’re in a different long around-a-table shape. BUT THEN the room around you starts to swing too, and at times goes right the way over / loops the loop so it’s as if you’re now upside down. It really messed with the heads of everyone in our group except for me! And that’s not me bragging! The movement isn’t that big, it doesn’t feel risky or unsafe - it just messes with your head because your surroundings are going the opposite way so it has more impact!
Considering I was expecting a little car ride with things making you jump, this was a much more interesting and creative experience.
LEGO City Deep Sea Adventure
Queue: 15 mins according to the app, but was a little longer in reality
I wasn’t desperate to do this one again as we did it last time, and had queued for ages, but the kids were keen so we gave it a ago - and it was much better than we remembered! Maybe the sharks have grown in the last 3 years. You go in a mini submarine and see all sorts of interesting fish - and actual sharks! - swimming around you. My Mum enjoyed this one too! (Which, based on her reaction, made me think she hadn’t really enjoyed much of anything else!)
Thunder Blazer
Queue: Walked straight on
A misleading name I’d say - this is more of a traditional victorian swing merry go round, but my daughter had wanted to do one for a long time and it was better to do it here than pay £5 at a Christmas market somewhere. And it was a cute little ride.
The ones that got away…
The following are rides we had on our list, but didn’t get chance to do:
- Coastguard HQ - it was closed the whole time we were there.
- The Dragon - we kinda ran out of time, slash, weren’t too bothered as we did the Dragon’s Apprentice and the Minifigure Speedway.
- Autumn’s Riding Adventure - this always had quite a long queue (40mins+) and wasn’t suitable for the youngest anyway - and it just generally did look a bit fast and scary for my liking! One for next time - maybe!
- Laser Raiders - I’ll be heading here first next time, as all of our kids would enjoy an interactive ride where you’re trying to score points. And the toddler can go on too. But all day we were there it had a longish queue. It was down to 20 minutes by 4:40pm but it would have been a dash so we didn’t bother.
The Duplo Valley splash pad - Splash Safari - and Drench Towers were also shut, which was a shame as it was a lovely day and we’d carried travel towels and a change of clothes around with us all day.
How many rides can you do in a day at Legoland?
We did 13 based on the above list, plus miniland (the lego model village), and a play park in Duplo Valley, and I could have squeezed in more rides but I was already feeling like a Sergeant Major marching my family around, when my husband wanted a more leisurely day, so I didn’t want to push it! This is loads more than the horror stories you read online of people queuing all day and only doing a couple of rides.
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How to avoid queues at Legoland Windsor?
I’d say, to get the most out of your day, absolutely download the app, familiarise yourself with what you’d like to do, and leave the model village until the end of the day as people were wandering around this at their leisure as we were leaving at 5 and I don’t imagine they’d round you up and kick you out of there immediately (and it’s right before the path up to the exit).
I learned when we went to Disney that preparation is key to getting the most out of day at a park like this, so I downloaded the app the week before, and built an itinerary in the app of the rides we wanted to head for. The app then lets you tick them off as you do them. You can enter the heights of the people in your party and it’ll tell you if anyone of your gang can’t go on the ride, and they make that lovely and clear.
Once you’re at the park, the app also shows you the length of the queue for each ride - my top tip for getting the most rides out of your day is to watch the queue times and be prepared to just walk (or run! But we had a toddler and a pensioner with us!) to the other side of the park if needs be and then back again! The whole place isn’t that big, and personally we’d rather be walking for 5 minutes and queuing for 20 than queuing for 40, so it was worth it for us. We didn’t just work our way around a route, we went backwards and forwards all day depending on queue lengths.
I was tempted to head for the big rides the second the park opened, as we thought the queues would be shorter then, and they were slightly. But I didn’t want my party to feel like we were off to a sprint start, so I reined myself in! And we eased ourselves into the day.
We also found the queues went down at lunch time - so aim to do your big ticket rides at around 12pm - 1pm.
One big issue with their - very good - app is that if something was “closed”, you didn't know if that was temporary or all day. Coastguard HQ seemed to be closed all day - maybe it’s only open in the actual summer - but other rides shut and reopened during the day, and that made me keep checking Coastguard HQ incase that was the same.
Should I pay for Reserve and Ride at Legoland?
I was very concerned, researching Legoland on Instagram a couple of nights before we went, that we hadn’t bought - and didn’t want to buy - queue jumper passes, because everyone was saying the queues were awful without them. Lots of people were talking about toddlers having to queue for ages and them only doing a couple of rides before leaving. But I really didn’t want to pay more for this single day out! Plus, on principle, if you’ve paid £41 per person, you should be able to get a good go on stuff without paying more! The queue jumper is called “Reserve and Ride” and it starts from £19 per person, but goes up to £59 per person!! Honestly, it’s not worth it - unless you’re unlucky with crowds I guess, because we did all of the rides above without it, and could have done the laser one if we’d really wanted to.
What time do you leave Legoland Windsor?
The rides stop at 5, and the park officially closes then I believe, but people were wandering for much longer. We slowly (as we had tired little people with us) headed for the exit at 5, and then queued for a long time to leave the car park - so if you don't like queing, head out sooner - and were off the premises at 6:15pm. (So we were later getting home than I'd expected as I kinda planned on being "away" by 5:30pm.)
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