Let’s get your dough land

We visited Legoland on Sunday (Sep 30). The best thing about it was the view of Windsor Castle and the Windsor plains – it was all downhill after that. The brochure promised that most rides inside the attraction were free – and after shelling out 25 pounds for each of the girls and 32.50 pounds for each of us, we expected that would be the case. But it was obvious that the accountants are now in charge of the place and have the attitude that they must take any opportunity to rip off the punters. There are shops scattered throughout the place to take even more of your money on clothes, toys, souvenirs and books. About half the rides are free and the rest charge some fee. It soon became obvious which rides were free by the length of the queues to get onto those. The attitude of the staff was appalling with most clearly just going through the motions. We even observed two of the younger staff on one stall that sold alcohol consuming the product while on duty! On the bright side, the girls really enjoyed it. Mini land where they have various models of different countries was not bad – but in parts was looking very tired and faded. The girls liked the pirate ride that they went on with Alastair. They also enjoyed the driving school. It was a series of little roads set up with mini cars (like dodgem cars). Firstly they had a little video lesson in the rules of the road and then they and about 20 other kids got to drive around the roads. It was highly amusing with kids on the wrong side of the road, others showing obvious road rage and not many having any understanding of give way signs. Katherine was very careful and a little stressed out about it at first, while Ellen really enjoyed it and decided that if going around the roundabout the wrong way was the best way to avoid the traffic jam then she’d do it.
On the way to the B&B we were staying at in a little place called Sparsholt we got to experience a real English traffic jam. The motorway was completely blocked – all three lanes. As a result what should have been a one hour journey took four hours – with at one point about one-and-a-half miles taking two hours to traverse. Fortunately Ross had lent us his Tomtom GPS navigation device. So it was able to show us an alternative route once we got off the motorway. I doubt we would have found the little village we were staying at without it as it was up a tiny country lane.
The B&B was cute – set up in a 300-year old barn at an old pub. It was also really quiet and had a little brook running through the garden.
Carlene