06-05 Chessington and Legoland Parks

Two amusement parks in the same day. Sometimes do-able. We've done it before. Let's see how the days goes.

We put the park name into the new GPS and off we go. It seems to take forever to get there and did we even go the fastest way? We finally arrive around 10:30am and proceed to park the car. But they don't collect any money as we enter. THEY collect money near the Park entrance gate and they give you a ticket that you scan to raise the exit gate as you leave. Interesting.



With the help of a nice manager at the ticket counter we manage to get the online price for our Merlin Pass annual passes that we tried to get many times over the Internet only to get the same unhelpful error each time.

First ride is the newest ride in the park, Dragon's Fury, and it is right up front so everyone is in line for it. It looks like a 60 minute wait. As we are standing in line I turn around and see a sign near the entrance. It mentions that if you buy your annual pass TODAY you can get a "don't stand in the normal queue line" pass. This is kind of like a FastPass for my Disney friends.

So we get out of line and head for the Annual Pass redemption center and inquire about the FastTrack pass. We get one for a few rides and we buy more FastTrack passes because it is a busy day and we have to get this park done by 2 or 3pm.

So we entered the park at 10:55 and by 11:25 we had our first ride done. OH, Dragon's Fury was like Crush's Coaster at Disneyland Paris - 4 riders sit back to back and the coaster car spins as it makes it's way along the track. Totally fun ride.





We proceeded to use our special passes and ride the Vampire coaster (ski lift type seats that had a lot of good movement to it and it made you think you were going to crash into things) and a cute rubber ducky themed indoor inner tube ride called BubbleWorks.





Time for lunch - Burger King chicken sandwich - moving on.

Next we hit the Safari Skyway that takes you high above a bunch of animals on a people mover. Hey, it's penguins!



Rattlesnake was a mine train coaster that had a wild west theme.



A Buzz Lightyear-type ride called Tomb Blaster was lame because my gun did not work but Karen thouroughly enjoyed it. Hah.



We board and ride one last coaster called Runaway Train and we head for the exit at 2:15pm. Mission 1 accomplished.



An hour later we are walking into Legoland Windsor in the rain. This can work to our advantage if everyone has given up and gone home. Some have. Some are.



Our first ride is the Castle Dragon coaster. For the first part of the ride you wind through the castle in your coaster car seeing animatronic displays. Then you head outside and go on a short family-style coaster ride.



The Lego models NOT the rides are the real stars of the park.



We get in line for Laser Raiders (and since the queue is indoors and it is raining there are a number of guests in here). 50 minutes later we are done and this indoor laser shooting ride was not worth the time. Bummer.



It is raining still and we need to take pictures of the all-outdoors Mini-Town. This is your typical miniature town created in Legos. But it is huge. London, Paris, USA, water towns, castles, stadiums, and trains. We're hurrying and trying to keep our cameras and lens dry for decent shots. Oh my.









We finished with this and headed up the hill toward the entrance where the Star Wars Legoland Experience is. YES, it is all indoors. We take a ton of pictures because they've done a great job in here of recreating Star War scenes.









It is a few minutes until closing and, of course, they'll let us shop. These are keychains with different Lego People on them.



There is a cool area where you can watch the model creators make models during the week when they are there. But we can still see some of the stuff they are working on.



It is still raining out as we leave around 6:30pm and head back to the hotel. We're wet and tired and feel good that we were able to get 90% of rides in that we wanted to. Let's hope the weather is better tomorrow.