First, lets talk about the Hotel, then share some views on the Park as well.

Upon arrival, the entrance is reasonably impressive, but the overall building is unspectacular.

Hotel Entrance

The reception is a nice open space, and well themed.

The Reception

Checkin – When you arrive at the site, the Hotel parking is immediately opposite the hotel. This is immediately inside the park/site, just off the roundabout. Drag your bag into the Hotel (regardless of time of arrival), and check it in with the porterage service. Hopefully it will make it’s way to your room for when you formally checkin.

Lego Bogs

Access to the Park – Once you’ve got rid of your bags, pre-register at the hotel reception desk. This should bag you a “credit card” type pass to allow you to open doors/use the lift in the hotel. YOU NEED TO PUT THE CARD INTO THE LIFT TO MAKE IT WORK! Get yourself up to the 2nd floor. If you arrive early, have a cup of tea in the Starlight Bar (£2.25 per pot for 1). At 9.30, you can leave by the rear doors and queue up to get into the park. This queue is a shambles. The staff often dont mention that you can use the automated turnstile (to the right of the gate they open for you). Forget the queue, and hop over to the automated turnstile and scan your own bar-coded tickets/hotel bookings.

Suggestions for early entry strategy – You’ll have 30 mins of early access to the park, on a selection of up to 5 rides. If you’ve got QBot pre-registered or you intend to buy, also collect these NOW to save time later. There is a booth near the SQUID ride – you can collect here despite the advice to go up to the beginning. Towards 10 oclock, head back to the hotel, and head the other way towards Atlantis (if this isn’t one of the early opening rides!). Queue up at the “special” walkway across from the Hotel (past Dino Safari) up to Atlantis. GET ON THIS ONE EARLY ON. Other rides with killer queues are Driving School and Boat School, which hit > 1 hour after the park is open for a few mins!! Next, Laser Raiders will queue up quickly.

BACK IN THE HOTEL, What about the rooms?

Carpet Theming

Kids Bedroom Area

We thought the rooms were great. Ours was a themed room, not a PREMIUM THEMED. Trust me, the normal themed rooms are good enough to impress your kids. Save yourself a few quid, you’ll need it in the park or restaurant.

Bathroom

The beds were bloody hard though. I prefer a hard bed, and have one at home, but these were almost prison-floor hard. The linen/duvet/pillows etc are lovely. Parents and kids each get an HD LG TV, with Freeview HD. (Film4 nowhere to be seen, but most other freeview channels are available – as are expensive pay per view movies and “all you can eat” movie bundles. Perhaps explains why Film4 is missing).

Grown ups area

Room Theming

It was a bit of a shock to find that after paying out £320+ for 1 night of accomodation, breakfast and 2 days of park entry, that the robbers at Lego wanted £2 for 1 hour extra for the bloody Wifi. Stealers. If you are on the Vodafone network, you’ll need the Wifi. The signal is crap. Even when you have 3G signal, expect the bandwidth to be near zero. The 3 network was fine. No idea on the others.

Evening Meal at the Hotel (Bricks Restaurant)

£20 per adult, £10 per child. Reasonable selection of food, but I think they tried to cover too much ground. There were roast meats, pasta, noodles, blah blah blah, none of which done that well – and if you had your heart set on a particular type of food, there was therefore only 1 choice. My kids were keen to bag a big plate of chips, burgers, sausages, beans etc – but we found there were NO BEANS, NO SAUSAGES, just chips and burgers – and then no buns for the burgers! Also surprisingly, no pizza. This place would do better if it chose to specialise in something so that it could focus on getting something right.

If we went again, I would avoid – even perhaps instead trying the pizza/pasta buffet for £10 per adult in the park, go after 4pm and kids are free.

Breakfast

Things improved at Breakfast (included in the room rate – finally, something included). There’s the usual sausage, bacon, beans, egg, etc etc…. Plus a reasonable cup of tea (from a machine), and juice, fruit etc. Also, a good selection of cakes/pastries was on offer.

The Pool

The pool is quite small, but the kids loved it. There is a seperate small pool for proper swimming, then an ankle/knee deep splash/play area to muck about in. This is pirate themed, with slides, spray guys etc. We went at 7am when it opened, and it was empty. Apparently it gets very busy, so on the assumption that your little ones get up early too, I’d suggest going before breakfast!

The Park
Day 1 – The Qbot. We each had the Qbot standard (£15 per head) for the first day. Can honestly say that we would have got on bugger all rides without it. With queues of >1hr for each ride, a £40 day ticket is really a waste of money if you don’t splash the extra £15 for the Qbot. Without it, you’ll be lucky to get on 5 rides in the day. Get the QBot, the end.

Day 2 – No Qbot. Well, what a difference. Managed about 4 rides before deciding enough was enough. We called it a day and went home. GET A QBOT.

Summary
Hotel Rooms – great
Evening Meal in Bricks – average at best, and pricey
Breakfast in Bricks – great
Swimming Pool – small, but kids will love it
Park – too busy, food too expensive, rubbish without QBot
Best bits – Early access, brilliant rooms, pool, breakfast
Worst bits – Beds too hard, Bricks evening meal, Park itself!
Worst rides – most of them, Fire Academy is a particularly long queue for a fairly short and crappy experience/ride
Best rides – Laser Raiders, Boat School, Viking River Splash Rapids
Biggest disappointmnt – Atlantis