Windsor Magic: An Unforgettable Day Trip from Legoland to Windsor Castle

With plenty of activities scheduled for our London Tour, we decided for a brick-a-like tour to Windsor. For both places we booked tickets in advance, Windsor Castle providing time slots, so try to organize you’re visit carefully.

Legoland Windsor

Reached the place before 10AM, with the parking lot under expansion and just a few people in front, we basically had Legoland Windsor for ourselves, at least for the first 2-3 hours. The park lays on a hill with the main entrance at the top where you can find some the following places to hang out with your kids:

Lego Store – where you can shop or create your own character,
Restaurant – to enjoy some coffee or snacks,
Panoramic View & Map – plan along installing the app (iOS or Android),
Inside Display – right near the store there is a building with various Lego Constructions,

When you book your ticket, you can also add a few extras, one of them being the option to customize a LEGO figure, something we’ve offered from the very beginning in the LEGO store as we anticipated crowds throughout the day. The process is pretty simple: there are a few PC stations where your child can start having fun customizing their toy by changing hairstyles, adding a smile, or even writing their name on the stand. Once ready, you’ll need to wait about 15 minutes for it to be created in the workshop and handed to you. Meanwhile, you can wander around the store and pick out some other items to delight your child.

After covering this and having a short snack, we headed down the hill on the Choo Choo Train, which was conducted by a funny guy. The park essentially has two main categories of attractions:

Main Square

where you can travel in a matter of seconds from Paris to Sydney and marvel at the incredible detail these magical bricks achieve, along with the immense effort involved in designing them. Here, you can spend some time immersing yourself in these carefully crafted scenarios created just for you.

The Rides

Now, here’s the catch: like in every theme park you’ve been to, your child needs to meet specific height requirements for the coasters. Be sure to check these requirements before your visit; otherwise, it could be a huge disappointment for your little one and leave you feeling like you’ve wasted your money. Here are some of the rides:

The Dragon
A thrilling roller coaster that starts with an indoor journey through a medieval castle, featuring life-sized LEGO® models, before accelerating into an outdoor adventure.
LEGO® City Driving School
An interactive experience where children aged 6-13 can drive electric cars on a realistic road layout, learning basic driving skills and earning their own LEGOLAND driving license.
Pirate Falls Treasure Quest
A log flume ride through pirate-infested waters, culminating in a splashdown finale.
LEGO® NINJAGO® The Ride
An immersive 4D interactive ride where guests use hand gestures to throw virtual fireballs, lightning, and more, to defeat enemies alongside their favorite NINJAGO characters.
Miniland
A miniature world featuring detailed LEGO® recreations of famous landmarks from around the globe, including scenes from Europe and the USA, built from over 40 million LEGO bricks.
Flight of the Sky Lion
The UK’s first flying theatre ride, located in the LEGO® MYTHICA area, offering a 4D experience that takes guests on a journey with the Sky Lion through mythical realms.
Haunted House Monster Party
A spooky-themed attraction where guests are invited to a banquet hosted by Lord Vampyre, featuring a ‘dancing’ room that creates an illusion of defying gravity.
Vikings’ River Splash
A river rapids ride that takes guests through the Viking’s realm, with spinning boats navigating through various water features and interactive elements.

Overall a nice experience with a few remarks:

1 day is enough to check all the main rides and attractions,
book your tickets in advance, and look for discounts or offers,
the price is more then fair, compared to other parks,
if you travel a lot with your kids, try to visit Legoland before Disneyland.

When you’re having fun, time flies and we founded our selves ready to wrap it up and head to our next stop, Windsor Castle. So we grabbed a bite at the cafeteria, hopped in the car and left in a hurry, time was against us once again.

Windsor Castle

On our way there, the surroundings were like in a Harry Potter book, with the narrow streets, exquisite brick houses and or luxury cars like Rolls or Bentleys. Since most of the western europeans countries, the UK has also declared a war against cars so as you’d imagine our next problem was parking. After circling around a few times, we managed to find a spot right near the castle. With an automatic machine, I got a ticket and placed it in front of the wheel.

Finally at 3:30 we were at the gates, ready with our booked tickets. We had another hour and a half to explore the gardens and the castle. Once again a great choice for this time slot, most of the people had already gone so we enjoyed some really free people photos, where Clara was the real masterpiece. The place is fabulous, a real contender of best castle in Europe along Versailles. If you like history and also British authentic flavor try spending an entire day here, you’ll love it.

For us the 1.5h tour was enough to cover the main attractions, here is a short glance:

30-minute tour of the Castle Precincts,
St George’s Chapel,
The State Apartments,
Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House.

Walking The Streets

With plenty of energy deficit after a full day, we left the castle at closing time and started wandering the nearby streets to look for a place to eat. Most of the places were full, but after a few enquiries we managed to grab a table at Sebastian Italian, where we enjoyed some delicious Italian cuisine.

Energized and with some time to spare before heading to our hotel, we continued our routine and took a walk along the narrow streets to experience the feeling of staying in a place with so much history and character. This was just a short stop for us, but Windsor and its surroundings definitely deserve one, if not two, full days to fully enjoy the British flavor.

Unfortunately the day had another surprise for me, as you’d imagine a nasty one. After a short walk to our car, the windshield was advertising a nice parking ticket. The reason? Even if I had paid for it, it wasn’t placed in front of the steering wheel. Long story short, after challenging the ticket via their website they decided that I’m still in the wrong and needed to pay 50 pounds.

Leaving this unfortunate event behind we headed to our new resting place, Leonardo Hotels in Watford situated across the Watford Market. Here we’ve booked the full package, breakfast and parking, which was 2 streets away.