Our first mini break with a baby to LegoLand Windsor

This is a blog post I’ve written for Emma’s Diary – I’m still writing up my full review, but thought I’d put this up for now.

On Saturday 27th October we went away on our first mini break with little man. He’s nearly six months old now and growing up fast. Our destination was LegoLand Windsor Resort for two days in the park and a night in the hotel. I must admit I was looking forward to going because I love theme parks, but I was dreading the amount of ‘stuff’ we’d need to bring and whether we’d remember everything. I was amazed we managed to cram two small suitcases, holdall, cool bag, buggy, changing bag and camera bag into our tiny car!

Home for a few days!

We’re not too far away from Windsor, thankfully, and J slept for most of the journey whilst his big sister watched a film on her tablet. It was a relatively good journey considering most of it was spent on the M25! We arrived at the hotel, checked in and went in search of somewhere to sit, have a brew, feed J and get him changed ready for a few hours ‘on park’. J gulped down his milk and we went to find a baby change. I must say the baby changing facilities in the hotel were fab. There was a box with wipes, Sudocrem and other bits and pieces, and a mobile hanging above the mat. It’s a shame that not every baby change is like this!

Ready for the rides!

After the pit-stop we made our way to the theme park with a fairly loaded buggy. There was a fireworks display in the evening and the park was BUSY. The smaller rides didn’t have large queues thankfully, but some of the more popular ones had queues for over an hour. Eeek! LegoLand rent out ‘Q-Bot’ devices which allow you to book a time slot on a ride, and then you arrive at that time and usually get straight on. We used these so it meant one of us could go on a ride with G for 10-15 minutes or so, while the other entertained J. We were able to get a lot of the rides done pretty quickly this way. There weren’t really any rides J could go on, but we did find one called ‘Balloon School’ that was okay and he loved it! He held onto the safety bar and squealed as our Balloon rose from the ground.

A bed fit for a King (and Queen!)

We left the park at 3pm and headed back so we could get into our room in the hotel. We’d got a ‘Kingdom Room’ which had a Kings and Queens theme. It really was a fabulous room; a good size for the four of us with plenty to keep G entertained in the special ‘kids part’ of the room. They give the children a sheet with clues on to ‘crack the code’ for the safe in the room, and inside there was a little Lego set for G and a Duplo set for J. Another little kid-friendly design consideration was a children’s toilet seat hidden in the lid of the toilet which G was really impressed with. I must admit I was greatful that the room was divided into a children’s end and an adult’s end as G is a noisy sleeper! 🙂

We all got changed into our Halloween costumes to go down for dinner; G was a skeleton, J was a pumpkin, Loz was a witch (no comment!), and I just had a T-Shirt with a skeleton on. The ‘Bricks’ Restaurant was a buffet restaurant and usually I’m not a fan of these kinds of places, but it actually worked well as one of us could feed J while the other ate, and then we could swap over. It saved one of us having a cold dinner. They also had a good selection of foods for children (nothing fried either, apart from the Lego chips), all at the right level so G could help herself.
Dinner had to be rushed as we wanted to see the fireworks in the theme park. I was slightly concerned how J would react as he’s never seen a firework, let alone hundreds of them! While we waited for the display to start, J was happily jigging about in his buggy to the sound of the music and G, Loz and I all messed around and had some fun. The fireworks started. It was either going to end up with J screaming, or him in total silent awe. I peered into the buggy and he watched in amazement and cooed at them! Hooray! His little eyes were fixed on them the whole time and the loud bangs didn’t make him flinch either. SUCCESS!

Oooooh.. Ahhhhh!!

G watches the entertainment, I cuddle a tired J

After the display we went back to the hotel to see some of the evening entertainment. J was flagging slightly as it was past his bed time, so Loz took him up to the room. She discovered that we hadn’t packed our toiletry bag so we had no toothbrushes, no toothpaste, and annoyingly for me, no contact lens solution! Reception gave us some toothbrushes and toothpaste, but I had to sleep with my lenses in.

J awoke for a feed in the early hours and did seem to have a fairly good night’s sleep, although he kept waking us up banged his feet on the base of the travel cot which was annoying!

Our next day was fairly similar to our first, although we did go for a swim in the pool at the hotel in the afternoon. This is probably the fouth time J has been swimming now and he does seem to enjoy it. The water here was a bit colder than our local children’s pool, so he wasn’t it for too long.

Relaxed Loz and J!

Despite the fact we forgot our toiletry bag, we did seem to have everything we needed for J and it wasn’t too much hassle sorting out his meals and milk. It’s very hard to ‘travel light’ with a baby and I suppose the older he gets, the less stuff we’ll need. I was thankful that we had everything J and G needed. I was expecting to find the whole trip very stressful but I was pleasantly surprised how calm and relaxed I was when we arrived home.

How did you find your first trip away at home with your baby?

Disclaimer – LegoLand Resort Windsor provided us with the overnight accommodation, meals, and theme park tickets.