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LEGOLAND: everything is not awesome

 

Legoland1
Grasping bastard

There is something quite distasteful about arriving at a theme park and being told that you must pay £5 to park your car, despite the fact that an adult ticket cost £49 and a child admission is £45. It is like arriving at a nice restaurant and being told that you must hire a knife and fork. Even worse the cheery yellow lego man in his officious parking attendant uniform waving his grabby little claw hand demanding your fiver, is one of the first things that you see as you arrive. When you have been up since 6am getting three excited children ready, not had time for breakfast and spent 90 minutes singing Little Mix and Frozen songs to prevent your 3 year old having a meltdown during rush hour on the M40, the sight of that outstretched hand is enough to make you grab one of the sandwiches from your picnic and launch it at him.

However I had been promising to take my 6yr old for approximately two years and it was the highlight of his year – so I wasn’t going to let that grasping bastard ruin our day.

Arriving during half term in October meant that the park was busy, but we got there for opening time (10am) and moved through the (tired looking) entrance pretty quickly. Using the Kellogg’s Adults go free offer meant that we only had to pay for the three children and parking for two cars making the total cost to enter £145.00. The entrance is at the highest point so after walking in and past several shops (BIG shop, Star Wars shop and a clothes shop), you head down the hill and into the main park. The park and the rides are set out in several areas: Land of the Vikings (I had high hopes for this area – see Vikings TV show), Heartlake City, Pirate Shores, Miniland, Knights Kingdom, Lego City and so on.

Balls to that
Balls to that

Advice from experienced theme park aficionados is to head all the way across to the far side of the park immediately and go on rides that other people haven’t meandered over to yet. Like the Dragon rollercoaster which we didn’t go on because 3,5 and 6 year olds can’t queue for an hour. Of course we could have paid to queue jump by using the overly complicated QBot system which has three levels of pushing in available ranging from £20 to £75 per person. Yes – no need to get your reading glasses on. It does say £75. Who pays that? For our family of 6 this would have been £450. Equivalent to a whole month’s worth of chocolate for me (just kidding – I spend at least £1000pcm).

But heading to the end of the park to get started wasn’t possible for us because the kids wanted to go on everything that they walked past – including the many, many stalls and games that you have to pay for. Want three shots at getting this basketball through the irregular shaped hoop to win a massive minion? £5 please. Face painting like a fairy? £7 please. Burger? (£8.25 for a meal deal – take sandwiches). I spent a lot of time saying no to the kids – creating a sense of disappointment that was definitely not awesome. Thanks Legoland.

In the interests of balance and fairness I have to say that the kids loved the bits that we had already paid for. The adventure playground – also known as the Castaway Camp was a hit, along with the Atlantic submarine experience and the Vikings’ River Splash. They all did different driving experiences in Lego City and the 6 yr old loved the Jolly Roger pirate ship and even managed not to vomit on anyone #winning (he gets travel sick so the signs were not good).

My tips:

  1. Take sandwiches and snacks. Good ones so that they don’t reject them and beg for burgers making you into the worst parent ever (despite that fact that you have taken them to bloody LEGOLAND in the first place – ingrates)
  2. Don’t leave at dusk/closing time. It took 1 hour to leave the immediate vicinity of the park. 90 minutes to arrive, 150 minutes to get home. Killer.
  3. If you are visiting with children of varying ages take an adult per child and consider splitting up as they will definitely want to go on different rides to their siblings/friends. Try getting a 3yr old to queue for an hour for a rollercoaster that she is too small to go on. You are better off sticking your naked hand into a beehive and grabbing the Queen.
  4. Don’t spend £3.95 on a bag of fruit pastilles. The audacity of the price will keep you awake at night for weeks afterwards.
  5. Decide what you want to do most and go there first.

Now the cost for reading this is £20. And £5 for sitting in your chair while you do it. Sofas are £10…..

*Reading this back I feel like a tight fisted miserable bitch. I am glad I took the kids. I just wish I didn’t feel so exploited. And one the bright side I now know all the words to “Black Magic”. Karaoke anyone?

 

 

June 2008: the one where we found out that I was pregnant

Me to my boyfriend: “Norm, I don’t think I am going to have a period.”

Norm took a deep breath. “Whatever, you are paranoid, you always think you are pregnant.”

Me: “No I do not.”

Do I? I wonder to myself. I must do. Norm doesn’t make stuff up, even to help him win an argument. He is quite honest and principled. The bastard.

As Norm had clearly already washed his hands of the baby I decided to ignore him and do a test. I went and fished through my box of girl stuff and found a cheap old Boots pregnancy test that came in a twin pack. I am 30 and there have been scares before. I don’t have the instructions anymore but I remember that it tells you to wait until the morning as your hormone levels are the strongest then so I put it in the bathroom – Norm ignored it. The next morning I weed on the stick.

A symbol came up in the window. What does that mean then? Am I up the duff? I try and remember what the instructions said but it was years ago that I used its partner. I realise that I have no idea what the result means. I decide that I can’t be pregnant. Norm has been away a lot and I have been on the pill forever. Although I did run out in March and decided to have a break from it. We have been using “other things” in the two months since – namely condoms and the rhythm method (I am catholic after all).

Hey ho. Off to work I go.

Norm and me, back in the day when goatees were fashionable and Norm was funny
Norm and me, back in the day when goatees were fashionable and Norm was funny

Three days later

I still haven’t had a period and I am starting to feel a stirring in the pit of my stomach. I have these intuitive moments from time to time. They are usually wrong so I take some comfort from this. Nevertheless I buy a pregnancy test at lunch time at work.

I get the Clearblue one that says the word “pregnant” or “not pregnant” on it so that there can be no mistaking what it means. I may be a bit slapdash sometimes (as my sister frequently tells me) but no-one can say I don’t learn from my mistakes. I do the test in the office toilets. I am a few days late by now so I decide that I don’t have to wait till morning. I wee and then I wait….. Pregnant

Well there is no mistaking that. The word stares at me accusingly from the white plastic tube. “Look what you have gone and done,” says the test.

“I know,” I say. I give myself a few minutes and look again. It is still there. I am still Pregnant. I cram the test, the wrapper, the instructions and my increasing sense of panic into my bag and I go back to my desk to ring a man in Saudi Arabia about solar power. I am like a professional machine. I am very proud of my ability to keep working through this crisis.

When I get home I break the news:

Me: “Norm, I think I am pregnant,”

Norm: “Oh God Dette, what makes you think so now?”

Me: “This stick that says pregnant on it,”

I show him the test.

Norm: “Oh,” Then he looks at me with a twinkle in his eye and says “Is it mine?”

He saves himself from being murdered on the sofa by laughing out loud. He is joking and I am quite glad that he is already laughing about it. I have had the whole afternoon to digest the information and this is the first time I have smiled. I am a total worrier. The baby already has a conjoined twin in my head – and comes out sideways at 96 weeks. I make a doctors appointment. He will know what to do about this Siamese twin pregnancy.

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