The rest of Legoland Windsor, heading home

The boys treated us to a 7am wake up call, not too bad!  We dressed quickly and headed down for breakfast in Bricks Restaurant.  If you stay in the hotel, breakfast is included, and there was plenty of choice.  Isaac was happy with his coco pops, Oliver had bacon, sausage and scrambled egg, and Sebastian went with pancakes.  Both Paul and myself went for hot breakfasts. Man it was nice to have proper bacon again!

After breakfast we headed to the pool/splash area.  This is a small area, but at 8.15am there were not many people in it.  The boys had great fun splashing around.  When you are in the pool at 8.15, you know it is going to be a long day.  We headed back up to our room about 9, and prepared to check out.  

Whilst heading down to reception for check out, the fire alarm went off.  This meant a mass evacuation to the car park over the road.  Thank goodness we were not in the pool at the time!  I don't know what was going on in the park/ hotel, but there were people dressed as Storm Troopers and Jedi.  Princess Lea was also there.  

The boys were so happy about this, and were able to get photos taken with various Star Wars characters. This turned a bad situation in to a very good one for our boys!

Staying in the hotel means you get to access the park 30 minutes before the general public.  Granted, we lost some of this time due to a fire alarm and checking out, but we still made it up.  We did 5 rides in 2 hours, we certainly got our monies worth.  

We had to do another quick stop at mini world, the boys so love seeing the countries represented, even if America was very small! 

Another quick ride before a stop at the shop (again!).

We left Legoland about midday.  All in, we had an awesome time, and are now deciding if we can make it to Legoland California before our time in the states is up.

We collected my mums car from Grandad Lee's that afternoon.  My mum signed it over to me before she died.  I had to drive it to Paul's parents up in Oxford.  I took Isaac with me for company, but I think he found my company a bit boring.  It has been a long time since I drove a manual, but I did ok.  That little car goes like stink!!!

We spent Saturday night at the Goslings, Tony and Jenny were also there.  It was nice to catch up with everyone, before saying our goodbyes the following morning.

Our last night in the UK was spent at my dads.  We even subjected him to his first kebab for about 5 years.  I think he enjoyed it, even if he did leave half of it for his lunch the next day.

By staying at my dads, we were able to be on the road to the airport at 5.30am, and dropping the car off at 6.  We checked in to terminal 3, and got through security very quickly.  There is a kids area in the upstairs of the terminal, which is quite unknown.  In fact, it took the cleaning lady in the toilets to bring it to my attention.  The kids were able to run around pretty much to their hearts content.

Our plane was on time.  Paul sat in the row of 4 with the boys, while I sat in the aisle seat on the other side.  The kids were good, but not as awesome as Paul, who kept them perfectly under control.  I hope that now they are getting older, flying will become a lot easier.....

We arrived home about 6pm on the Monday night, absolutely shattered.  Being an awesome mum, I didn't make them got to school on the tuesday.  Good job too, as no one was awake till 9am!  

The boy's surprise!

After yesterdays sadness, we wanted to do something special for the boys.  Once our travel plans were confirmed, I started looking into Legoland, and the hotel.  We decided to book the hotel for the friday night, and purchase tickets for the friday.  They were doing a special on buy 1 day get the next day free, so this gave us the option of the park over both days.  It wasn't heap, but the hotel and tickets for 2 days to the park came in at under 500 pounds for all of us.

We kept it as a surprise.  The boys kept asking we where we were going.  out response 'its a surprise'. It was only when we drove up to the main gate they knew it was happening, and were very happy about it!

We got there after lunch, and this was the entrance....

Quiet, so very, very quiet.  One of the joys of going over term time.  We walked through the main entrance to the shopping area, and this was the view 

The weather was pretty good, and you could see all the way to London, absolutely breath taking.  I remember this park when it was Windsor Safari Park.  I went there many, many times, my mum used to work in a school nearby.  

First stop, Lego Star Wars.  This was all indoors, and absolutely amazing.  Dare I say it, better than Florida's.  Because it was so quiet we were able to walk round the whole display basically undisturbed.  

We walked on down the park.  We went on a couple of rides, then the rain struck.  We had left our rain coats in the car, so invested in some ponchos.  

It was raining pretty hard, so we took shelter in one of the restaurants.  Luckily it didn't rain long, so we were quickly out walking around the park. We went on a ferris wheel type thing, which gave awesome views over the whole park, then took a train ride to see what else was on offer.  I will say it again, it was quiet, so we hardly had to queue for anything.  You know I like that!

We headed to the back of the park, where the hotel was, then kept going towards Atlantis.  This was by far everyones favorite.  You get in a submarine, which takes you under water looking for the lost city of Atlantis, through reefs, with plenty of sharks.  The boys loved it.

By now, we were getting towards the park closing time, so we headed back up to the entrance to do some shopping.  Not before hitting up mini world.  Again, this was awesome, and we only did about half of it.

We couldn't leave the park before going to the Hero Factory area.  This is Isaacs favorite kind of Lego, he has a lot of Hero's, and is always making his own.  This was perfect for him.  2 big tables, each with about 6 pits full of pieces for him to make his own.  he was in his element.  Look how quiet it is, there is only my 2 in the photo!

We went to the shop, and the boys got a couple of little sets each, before heading out the park towards the hotel.  

Legoland hotel is something else.  Massive pits of Lego in reception, where the boys plated while I checked us in.  We were in an adventure room on the top floor.  The lifts in this place are awful, but we soon discovered the stairs.  

The room was amazing, absolutely perfect for us. The kids even had their own sleeping area!  

There was a little treasure hunt for them to do to open the chest for their Lego prizes.  Needless to say they loved it.  It was the little touches that made a big difference.  

We headed down for some dinner.  We choose to eat at the Skyline Bar, as I was aware we would be eating in the Bricks restaurant for breakfast.  The staff in this restaurant were not great, and there was not enough of them.  We managed to get a table at the side of the restaurant, where we could pretty much see the kids where ever they went. This was a very good idea, as there was a room upstairs containing Xbox's, where our kids spent most of the evening.  We did manage to get them to have some food.  This was not too expensive, though we were careful what we ordered, to be sure the boys would eat 

There was entertainment put on for the kids, which ours eventually decided to watch.

We took them up to the room about 8.30.  They had a great time, and were very excited about going back in the next morning.  Paul and I took turns going back down to the bar to get more beer.  The bar was pretty much empty by 9.30, as you would expect from a family friendly resort.  

We went to bed about 11.30, absolutely shattered, but happy having enjoyed our day, and knowing the kids were happy too.