a day at Legoland Discovery Centre

On Friday, I had arranged with a friend (Uncle J) to "do something" as he has booked a couple of weeks off work, and I am now free to enjoy life without revision and studying. I had a voucher for reduced "family" entry to the Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester - 2 adults and 2 children... but to not pay extra for Tiny Clanger we would have to go before her third birthday, which is at the end of the month.

So, we hopped into Uncle J's car and set off. We didn't tell the sprogits where we were going, so when we pulled up in the carpark and saw this...

...the back of the car exploded with shouts and screams and excited bouncing! We got out and walked across the car park and the first thing we saw was....

... a circle of Weeping Angels. Cue screaming. Thanks a bunch, BBC! Despite reassurances that there is no such thing as Weeping Angels, and that they are only on Dr Who and not in real life, every statue was still labelled as one, with appropriate cringing, wide eyes and racing by in case it got them.

Anyway, we went in and paid, and were given a "factory tour" which consisted of a fat guy who must've had boundless energy showing us how they melt plastic granules into Legoo (witty, haha), which is then pressed into moulds and frozen in a vat of vanilla ice cream. Little Clanger helped to wake up the mould machine, and Small Clanger helped to wake up the painting machine. Tiny Clanger clung to me with a terrified look on her face. Think it was a bit overwhelming for her. They all got a LDC duplo brick at the end of the "tour"so that perked her up.

After that we queued up for Kingdom Quest, a ride in which we all got lego guns and had to shoot the skeletons and trolls to rescue the Princess and the Dragon. Didn't get any pictures of that, I was too busy shooting bad guys ;) After rescuing the Princess we went for some lunch. If I was slightly more organised I would have made a packed lunch, but I didn't.

Anyway, then we went exploring the main bit of the Centre. There was Miniland, which depicted various cities/attractions in lego:

Horseracing at Aintree Racecourse

A church - I'm sure it must be a significant one but didn't read the plaque for this bit.

Manchester

Stadium which they could manipulate the angle of the floor to try to score a goal - Small Clanger scored 3!

Farm

Lego Oblivion

A build and test centre with various test tracks that you could test your car on:

Small Clanger's is the top left one.

A Forest Pursuit which they could drive electric police cars around for a few minutes:

As well as various places where they could just build whatever they wanted:

There were also other rides and play areas but I didn't get any pictures of those, and just before we left we went in to see a lego film - only 15 minutes long, but in 4D which was a whole new experience for the sprogits. We got sprayed with water when some boulders fell in a pool, and we got snowed on, and right at the end the dragon sniffed a bunch of flowers and then sneezed and we all got covered in dragon snot! :D

We did have a quick look around the shop but the prices were insane so I opted not to spent any money there.

On the way home we spotted a yellow Lamborghini and Small Clanger announced he wants a red one of those when he grows up....! He also pointed out that a lorry had undertaken us (didn't even know he knew what undertaking was!) so we had a discussion about how when there is heavy traffic on the road and the cars are moving slowly, then each lane moves by itself so it's not really undertaking.

All in all, it was a lovely day, and we really enjoyed it. We'll definitely go again sometime.