May Day bank holiday was upon us again. It ws either going to be 3 days of being stuck in the house with the kids, or a trip to Legoland. And so the Windsor-based theme park won the day! We went down on Saturday, fully expecting it to be really heaving. We arrived about midday (had to allow for the toddler's nap to be had in the car, or he would be grouchy all day long, and we don't want that, I can assure you!). The ticket booths had no queues at all so we walked up to one and purchased annual passes for the two of us. Under 3s are free, thankfully, coz it was 134 quid as it was! Obviously it was free for the baby, too. After recovering from the shock of the price of the tickets, we made our way to the turnstiles which, again, had no queues at all, and we were in.

After a nappy-change pit-stop we were ready to go. The trek to the main part of the theme park from the entrance is downhill which is great on the way in, but I have to say I was slightly dreading coming back up again. The sloped route is a fair bit longer than the stairs which makes you feel a bit hard done by, as when you've got a buggy to schlepp, you don't have much choice! Not to worry. We made it in the end, and the weather was warming up...

First stop, we had a quick gander around Miniland. This is where they have faithfully recreated parts of various cities out of Lego, and there are cars, lorries, trains and boats which make their merry way around the cityscape on their own all day long. And there are some boats which you can pay a quid to pilot around yourself. Although you can't actually see a lot of the area where you're piloting the boat, so you can quite easily just steer it into a wall or something! A good laugh, anyway.

We carried on down the hill and found ourselves at the Fairytale Brook. This is one of the rides particularly suitable for under 4s (these are highlighted with a little teddy bear symbol on the map). It's a slow, guided boat ride around a course with figures from various fairytales dotted around. The queue was dead short - about 5-10 minutes. But even so, queueing with a toddler is a nightmare! I mean, they just do not understand the meaning of the word "wait", so you're stuck trying to hold a squirming toddler, or trying to look the other way while he throws himself on the floor and has a splendid paddy! With this in mind, even a 10 minute wait can feel like a lifetime. Thankfully, many other people are in the same boat (figuratively speaking), so nobody really stares at you like they would in your local Tesco! What I would recommend doing is, one of you gets in the queue, leaving the toddler safely strapped in the pushchair until the last minute. Then, when your other half is almost at the front of the queue, hand said toddler over to them, thus avoiding a good 5 or 10 minutes of paddying and squirming! However, this is not always possible on all rides, so plan carefully.
You can just about get away with it on the Fairytale Brook. The one with the pushchair can go into the Exit, and go down as far as possible and wait down there with the toddler. You can also do it on the Balloon School. One of you get in the queue, and the other can go round the corner to where the exit gate is, and then when you reach the front of the queue, just hand the toddler over the fence. The same applies to the Duplo Train. Again, the queue is not very long for this, but 5 minutes of squirming is enough, so stand by the exit with the pushchair and hand him over.

The Orient Expedition (basically a ride on a train) is also a good ride, suitable for under 4s, but it's not quite so easy to pass your toddler over on this one, so I had to just grin and bear it. Thankfully, the queue was very short indeed, so we only had to wait for one trainload to go round and come back before we were on it. And the ride is only 5 minutes or so long. Be warned, if you sit on the left-hand side of the train, you will get wet!

The only other rides suitable for under 4s (under 0.9m in height, anyway) are the Ferris Wheel (speaks for itself, really), and the Boating School - a ride where you get your own 'speed boat' and can pilot it around a course yourself, but the queues for both of these were just too long to even contemplate, so we'll save those for one day when we go during the week when it's quieter.

That's the advantage of having an annual pass - you don't feel obliged to go on everything in the one day. If you don't make it onto something, then just come back another time and go on that first.

That pretty much sums up the day. Oh, apart from the fact that we went back again on the Bank Holiday Monday, 2 days later, as the weather was good, and we didn't fancy being stuck indoors with a teething toddler again! All it cost us this time was the petrol to get down there. We took a packed lunch this time as the food available on site is HEINOUSLY expensive and not fantastic quality. But this is always the case at themeparks, in this country, at least.

On the whole Legoland is a great place to visit if you've got kids. If it's hardcore rides you're into, then you want something like Alton Towers, but if you want family fun, then look no further. One slight niggle is that baby change facilities are quite sparse. But there is a Baby Center where there are a few changing stations and little cubicles where you can breast feed, if you are that way inclined. We will certainly be going back again, to get our money's worth out of our annual passes, so this story is set to run and run...

Oh, and incidentally, if you're wondering where the baby features in all this, he basically slept throughout the whole thing, apart from waking now and again for a quick feed. It's amazing what a bit of fresh air does!