We’re huge fans of both Lego and Christmas, so visiting Christmas at Legoland Windsor to see Santa will be a great festive activity!
The past two years we have visited Santa at Paulton’s Park, but this year we felt like a change of scene.
We’ve visited Legoland on a few occasions now (and loved it!) so it seemed like a great choice.
Click here to read about our last trip to Legoland Windsor, including tips and tricks for your visit.
I booked tickets in the Black Friday sale, so they were £25 each.
Note that you still have to pay for parking.
The ticket includes a visit with Santa, a gift for the child, a snack and a hot drink for the adult(s), some crafty activities, and a visit to Mrs Christmas’ Toy Shop.
Of course you also have access to the theme park & rides, though not all of them are open in the winter season.
*
We arrived with plenty of time to allow for our visit, parked, and headed to the gate. You can download your tickets so all you need is your phone.
At the entrance we were handed a little map which gave us a map of the park with a list of the rides open, plus details of the extra festive activities.
We were glad to see that two of our favourite rides, Lego City Driving School and Mia’s Riding Adventure, were open!
If you want a closer look at the rides, check out my previous Legoland post. I’m not going to mention it again, this is just about Christmas at Legoland Windsor now!
*
The highlight of this trip is, of course, seeing Santa!
As with Paultons, there is a little journey to see the big man himself. (Don’t worry, nothing strenuous.)
First you walk along a path with lots of wonderful winter-themed Lego animals and figures.
There were plenty more, but this gives you an idea! Some of them were animatronics, plus there was Christmas music playing from hidden speakers. A nice festive introduction!
The path took us towards the Christmas Kingdom where we would meet Santa!
Friendly Elf crossing guards.
Well, the one on the left looks a bit bored, but it can’t be that interesting a job.
Anyway, see all those trees behind the elves? That was the final part of the journey – a tree maze!
Now don’t worry, we didn’t have to find our own way though.
At the entrance, we were collected by another Elf who escorted us though the winding Christmas tree paths until we reached a gate, behind which was Santa’s grotto.
The grotto was more of a cabin. This elf was a lovely chap, super friendly and chatty.
He asked all the usual questions about names and things before popping in to brief have a chat with Santa.
Then it was time to go in!
The cabin itself was very nicely set up, with a tree, festive decor, and of course a picture of Lego Santa.
I was very impressed with Santa himself!
I would imagine that this job is taken by actors, because they definitely need to have good improvisation skills.
He was personable, jolly (of course), and did a superb job having proper chat with Little C. I think they talked for four or five minutes (which is longer than you think) which definitely made her feel like they’d had a proper meeting.
The visit to Santa also included a gift (of which more later), and there was a camera set up for the obligatory picture (more of that later too). Of course you can also take your own pictures.
So chat chatted, picture taken, gift received, and we went off with the elf through more trees and out of the maze.
OK, so time for the festive refreshments.
As I said above, kids got a gift, adults got a drink and snack.
One of the rooms of the ‘castle’ was set up for this. I handed my ticket in at the door, where there were a couple of baskets of gingerbread cookies and some drinks machines.
I have to say that I didn’t love this. The cookies were not particularly nice, and I don’t consider it a treat having to get a mediocre coffee from a machine.
Compared to Paultons, where you go to the cafe and are given a little cake and a hot punch, this felt somewhat lazy.
Anyway, there were more festive activities set up.
There was an Elves’ Workshop, which was a tent with various crafts and activities.
You could make a Lego ornament to hang on the Christmas tree inside the tent, though you couldn’t take it away with you.
There were also crayons and coloring sheets, plus stationery to write a letter to Santa.
The tent wasn’t very full when we were there, but I would imagine it would be a useful place to shelter if it started raining! The Lego building and colouring would also be appealing to younger children.
The other main festive attraction was Mrs Christmas’s Toy Shop.
This was actually pretty cute!
First, ‘Mrs Christmas’ came out and did a little monologue about needing help with making gifts.
I have to say that she looked like she’d already done the show way too many times and would really like a gin & tonic, but it was getting lateish, she was performing to about eight people, and I don’t blame her for not being 100% dedicated to the role. That being said, Little C loved it, as did the other children. I’m just a cynic.
Then Mrs Christmas came down off the stage and passed out little model train sets to build.
Here are the kits, with instruction cards on the table. I asked for a kit too, and while I’m not sure if technically adults were supposed to get one, Mrs Christmas kindly gave me my own.
They were pretty easy to build, and we got to keep them, yay!
At home I hot-glued loops on them, so they are now part of our ornament collection.
*
This pretty much covers the main festive part. As I said, I’m not really mentioning the rides, because you can see those elsewhere.
Though I will say that we went on the Lego Ninjago Ride, which was awesome right up to the point it broke down, all the lights went on, and we had to sit and wait for ten minutes until someone could escort us out. Let me tell you, it’s pretty interesting seeing behind the curtain of these things.
Now it’s time for some additional comments and opinions.
And OK yes, I’m going to bitch about some things.
But first, the good stuff.
Santa was great. I mean, really great.
I love that we got a proper visit, not just a 30-second ‘hello-have-you-been-good-what-do-you-want-for-Christmas-how-lovely-be-good-smile-for-the-picture-goodbye’ but actual, proper conversation.
The preparatory chat with the elf got just enough information to pass on so Santa could mention a few personal details in passing and ask all the right questions.
The grotto was really nicely decorated. It was cosy and Christmassy and looked just as you would expect.
While the Christmas tree maze didn’t have the spectacle factor of Paulton’s, it was a nice way to get to the grotto. Plus there was absolutely no waiting around.
When it got dark there were lots of fairy lights and Christmas trees decorating the paths, which looked very pretty.
In terms of a Santa visit, this is excellent. Plus you get Legoland, or rather Legoland-lite.
Now the less good stuff.
For background, a lot of my Twitter activity involves bitching about gendered crap in kids’ toys and clothes.
I really, really hate the concept of separate toys and clothes for boys and girls, and I take pictures of various egregious occurrences of gendered kids’ stuff.
In November I had tweeted Legoland because I had noticed that you had to choose ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ tickets.
Click here to see the thread, because for some reason I can’t embed it properly.
Note that they said that the gifts were going to be universal.
In the corner of the grotto was a pile of bags, with a red, blue, or green logo.
The elf grabbed a red one for Little C as she went out.
Anyway, want to take a guess about the gift?
Yep, it was a Lego Friends set. It’s called Lego Friends Olivia’s Hamster Playground.
Now I don’t have anything against Lego Friends.
Actually, that’s crap, I hate the gendered aspect of it, I hate that everything is pink or purple or turquoise or pastel, and I hate that they are horrible anorexic bobbleheads who can’t sit down on anything without falling off because their legs aren’t designed to be functional.
<deep breath>
Anyway, from looking around at other kids who had visited Santa, I could see quite clearly that all the boys were clutching a bag with a blue logo, and all the girls had a red one.
I snuck a look at a couple of boys in the cafe who opening up their gift bags. This is what was inside.
A Lego City Sky Police Patrol Set.
(This is a product screenshot because I didn’t want to approach random strangers and ask to photograph their kids’ gifts.)
I am quite sure this wasn’t a coincidence.
By the way, you might be wondering what was in the green bags.
The green bags were for toddlers and little ones, and they contained a Lego Duplo Farm Animals set.
That’s right, boys and girls can be given the same toy as long as they’re under a certain age.
I had a brief further conversation over Twitter with Lego. 
Full thread here.
Yeah, so they were kind of full of crap with the universal gift thing. And the mealy-mouthed ‘different themes and gifts available’ doesn’t really fly when you consider that there was one theme for boys and one for girls.
Here’s the second thing that pissed me off.
Photographs.
I mentioned above that we had an ‘official’ pictures taken with Santa.
I assumed that, like Paultons, I’d be able to buy a print of it, perhaps in a basic frame of some kind.
Oh no. That’s not how it works.
You cannot buy, in any way shape or form, one single print.
All you can do is buy multiples in various formats.
These are the options.
I didn’t want any of these things. I wanted ONE photo, as a souvenir.
Not two photos, no lucite block, and certainly no bauble. Not shell out a minimum of £15 (more than half of the ticket price!) for things I didn’t want.
One reason for this is that they take one picture of you, and you don’t get to see it beforehand to check it’s any good.
I did cave and buy two photos, though again, I didn’t bloody want two. I wanted one, and this was the only way I was going to get one.
Much to my further irritation, I discovered that you don’t get a frame.
The pictures come in a flimsy booklet containing random trivia.
Seriously, none of that has any relevance.
As for the photo itself?
It’s slotted into the back page of the paper booklet.
For comparison, on the right are the two pictures from our last two Christmas visits to Paultons.
Where I could buy ONE picture only, in a frame.
OK, the photos themselves aren’t really any better (Legoland Santa looks really odd too), but the presentation is a lot nicer.
And again, you can buy JUST ONE PHOTO!
Seriously, I think forcing people to buy more than one is an enormously chiselling move by Legoland Windsor.
Conclusions
Christmas at Legoland Windsor was overall quite good, but with caveats.
The gendered gifts were infuriating and unnecessary.
The adult treat was naff. A plastic wrapped cookie and self-serve coffee looks cheap.
Legoland Christmas photographs are a huge, massive rip-off, and they should be ashamed. Forcing people to buy extra stuff when all they want is one nice picture of their kid with Santa is a dick move.
A couple of the rides that should have been open (including Mia’s Riding adventure) were closed, which meant we were relatively limited as to what we could do, as many of the rides are only really good for little ones.
That being said, if you were going with kids under seven or eight, you’d have no trouble at all, as the baby rides were open.
It was cheaper than Paultons, though only because I bought Black Friday tickets. Otherwise they would have been more or less the same price, especially because you have to pay extra for parking at Legoland, whereas at Paultons parking is free.
Paultons wins on the North Pole section leading up to seeing Santa, but the Legoland Santa and grotto was better.
*
I would say that if you’re a Lego fan and you can get a good deal on tickets, Christmas at Legoland Windsor is a nice festive treat for kids.
I would also say that if you have younger ones, especially if they’re fans of Peppa Pig, you should go to Paultons Park.
The negatives are almost entirely from my point of view. Little C had a great time at both places, though she didn’t like the separate boy and girl gifts.
But realistically, it’s parents who are shelling out for this stuff, and if you have more than one kid it really adds up. So it’s important that the adults are happy too, right?
I’m sure we’ll visit Legoland again, though probably not at Christmas, because life’s too short for me to be muttering ‘for fuck’s sake why must they give girls bloody Lego Friends’ under my breath a regular intervals.
************************************
Thank for reading! You can check out other Christmas posts here, places we went here, and parenting stuff here.
Pin this for later, and leave a comment!
