Thoughts on Lego Land vs Alton Towers short break

phrases

phrases

phrases

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Planning on taking the kids to either one of these just after some thoughts from anyone who has been.

The on-site hotels are eye watering prices for a family of 4
Lego land 2 day park tickets plus overnight stay £550 - Themed hotel
Alton Towers 2 day park tickets plus overnight stay £490 - £900 for tree house :D

Looking at Lego land there doesn't seem to be a vast amount of rides for the kids in all honesty and i think they may be a bit bored.

Where as Alton Towers has many to keep them going for the two days so we are swaying towards this.

Just want to know if its worth the themed hotel experience or not as just a 30min drive we could save £250 and just stay in a Holiday inn and drive to the park.


I'd really love to go to the lake district myself but i know the kids would be bored and it would pretty much cost the same!
 
I thought lego land was rubbish. Alton towers gets my vote, try and go in the hotel with the massive pools (cant remember name of it). Great fun for kids

Just seen your last bit, depends what you want really you will spend 30% of your time queuing at the theme parks
 
What ages are your children

Been to both a few times when kids were between 6&12. Loved Lego land when younger but soon preferred the bigger rides at Alton as they got older.

Always stayed close by rather than on site.
 
Yeah i think Alton Towers has the vote my daughter is 9 and we are taking her school friend we take everywhere since she doesn't get to do many trips.

Just wondering which of the hotels as everyone at some point has done the budget hotel but i am looking for something different sadly that inflates the prices quite a bit.

There is a grade II hotel nearby i wouldn't mind stopping at looks amazing and i am sure whilst everyone is asleep in the morning i can go and take a few laps of the pool!
 
My vote would be Alton Towers, go to a generic hotel and use the money saved for fast track tickets, you'll get on many more rides and let's be honest is it worth spending an extra £200 on a room you're going to spend maybe 2-3 hours awake in?

We were very disappointed with Legoland, not many interesting rides (definitely targeted at much younger kids), and what was there seemed very tatty tbh
 
Not sure how old/adventurous your littles are but I was a fiend for theme parks growing up and always thought Lego Land was pitched to younger kids and a bit dull in terms of the rides they had. Alton Towers has much better rides! The hotel is fine, we stayed in one of the rooms (not a fancy treehouse), but it's worth it to get into the park before opening - assuming they still do that.

Legoland is also blacklisted in my books as I'll never forget how we 'panned for gold' and got all these little bits of metal out of the water which we then turned in to have made into a gold medal. The medal that came back was plastic ... I don't think they'd ever had a kid complain that their medal wasn't actual gold but I was MIFFED! :D:p
 
We went to Legoland last weekend (may day bank holiday for Sat and Sunday night). It was good, although my main criticism is that the whole place could do with a bit more maintance. My son is 3 and September and while he could have gone on s few things, he's a wuss amd didn't want to. My 5 year old daughter went on loads of things. I will take them again in a few years, but I might just pay the extra for the Legoland hotel (and go for q bot).
 
phrases said:
Just wondering which of the hotels as everyone at some point has done the budget hotel but i am looking for something different sadly that inflates the prices quite a bit.
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Stop, you are doing it all wrong, why are you paying sticker price?

We go to Alton Towers usually once per year, and stay onsite in one of the two/three hotels as a party/family of 4. You need to be taking advantage of the 30-50% of discounts for the hotel, and utilise the family room for four people to keep the cost down, after all it is only a bed for the night, oh and breakfast is included and the evening entertainment is OK for kids.
You can also look into getting your tickets via auction/Gumtree, we normally go for a Saturday & Sunday in July/August and pay around £8-14 per ticket per person they are usually ones people sell from the newspaper so make sure they are physical tickets not e-tickets that can be sold several times. They used to do second day entry for £5-10 but they stopped that in 2018, so now you can either buy two lots of tickets or grab the £56 annual pass (£28 pp per day if you only use it twice).

Advantages of staying on site, free parking with no huge walk back to your car, which is £6 per day otherwise, the park allows early entry to those staying on-site with access via the mono-rail (mono-rail, mono-rail), which means you can get to the bigger rides early and very little to no queues, means you don't waste money on fast passes which are silly money, also two days is plenty of time to do all the rides more than once.

What days/dates were you thinking of going? :)

EDIT: Here's a weekend break with all the tickets for £265, and a free round of the pretty good crazy golf too!
7nyn3N7.jpg
 
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Journey said:
Stop, you are doing it all wrong, why are you paying sticker price?

We go to Alton Towers usually once per year, and stay onsite in one of the two/three hotels as a party/family of 4. You need to be taking advantage of the 30-50% of discounts for the hotel, and utilise the family room for four people to keep the cost down, after all it is only a bed for the night, oh and breakfast is included and the evening entertainment is OK for kids.
You can also look into getting your tickets via auction/Gumtree, we normally go for a Saturday & Sunday in July/August and pay around £8-14 per ticket per person they are usually ones people sell from the newspaper so make sure they are physical tickets not e-tickets that can be sold several times. They used to do second day entry for £5-10 but they stopped that in 2018, so now you can either buy two lots of tickets or grab the £56 annual pass (£28 pp per day if you only use it twice).

Advantages of staying on site, free parking with no huge walk back to your car, which is £6 per day otherwise, the park allows early entry to those staying on-site with access via the mono-rail (mono-rail, mono-rail), which means you can get to the bigger rides early and very little to no queues, means you don't waste money on fast passes which are silly money, also two days is plenty of time to do all the rides more than once.

What days/dates were you thinking of going? :)

EDIT: Here's a weekend break with all the tickets for £265, and a free round of the pretty good crazy golf too!
7nyn3N7.jpg
Click to expand...

Interesting that a decent saving we are planning on going towards end of july
 
phrases said:
Interesting that a decent saving we are planning on going towards end of july
Click to expand...

Same price for the 20th/21st July and 27th/28th July.

https://www.altontowersholidays.com/brochure/40-offers.html? Use that link and the code BRO19 to get the 40% off. :)

Not sure how far you are travelling, but we normally set off to get there for 9am, park in the hotel car park, nip in to the hotel and drop our bags to the left luggage and take what we need for the day. Spend all day in the park and leave when our feet are knackered/kids whinge too much or if the weather changes significantly for the worse. Hotel staff will sometimes issue your key in the morning if you ask and they have the rooms spare, otherwise you just check-in once you get back. Next day just check out as you leave to go to the park in the morning, and pick up your bags after you leave or leave them in the car if you prefer. I don't think I have ever spent more than £250 for 4 people with all the tickets and such included, at about £31 per person per day with everything is pretty good value in my eyes.
 
Journey said:
Same price for the 20th/21st July and 27th/28th July.

https://www.altontowersholidays.com/brochure/40-offers.html? Use that link and the code BRO19 to get the 40% off. :)

Not sure how far you are travelling, but we normally set off to get there for 9am, park in the hotel car park, nip in to the hotel and drop our bags to the left luggage and take what we need for the day. Spend all day in the park and leave when our feet are knackered/kids whinge too much or if the weather changes significantly for the worse. Hotel staff will sometimes issue your key in the morning if you ask and they have the rooms spare, otherwise you just check-in once you get back. Next day just check out as you leave to go to the park in the morning, and pick up your bags after you leave or leave them in the car if you prefer. I don't think I have ever spent more than £250 for 4 people with all the tickets and such included, at about £31 per person per day with everything is pretty good value in my eyes.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that i wouldn't of seen this otherwise! We aren't far its about 40mins drive. That was the plan just dump everything early at the hotel and get on with the day as i doubt the kids will be able to get on that many rides throughout the course of the first day.
 
Tbh I think the Thorpe Park shark hotel will be more fun with kids.

The Alton towers hotels are really naff as an adult. Far from whimsical. Well.. I dunno.. I had fun, but there was no value.
 
I might be misremembering but IIRC my sister took her kids to Legoland when they were around 4 or so and they loved it but when they went back when they were a bit older 7-9 or so they didn't really enjoy it much.
 
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