As if LEGOLAND Windsor wasn’t already exciting enough, there is a new place to explore and I have a feeling that fans of LEGO Friends are going to love it.
My little LEGO Friends fan was certainly very impressed. She loves LEGO Friends and even though she is only five, she begged for LEGO Friends sets for her birthday and built them with a lot of help from her big brother and hasn’t stopped playing with them ever since. She knows all of their names and talks about them as if they are real and the LEGO Friends app is her favourite. Like her biggest brother, she is already very well-versed in the art of LEGO building and spends many happy hours sat playing and building.
The very sight of the signs made her jump up and down with excitement and when we finally arrived, she had the biggest smile on her face imaginable. Even her brothers were quite impressed with Heartlake City, especially the new ride which they went on so many times, we lost count.
Heartlake City is right in the centre of LEGOLAND and it is a LEGO Friends themed area with a shopping mall, a brand new ride; Mia’s Riding Adventure, a live action show featuring the five LEGO Friends themselves and opportunities to meet and greet the Friends too.
Mia’s Riding Adventure is a really fun ride, you choose your pony, take a seat and wait to be transported up and down the track, spinning as you go. The height restriction is 1.2 metres so luckily A was just tall enough. This was her first experience of a faster ride and she loved it.
Next stop, the Heartlake Shopping Mall and in true LEGOLAND style, the shop is filled to the brim with lots of LEGO goodies. A loved the outside as the sign is identical to the one on her mini mall and she insisted that I stop and take a photo.
On the other side of the mall is Olivia’s house. We were both very impressed with Olivia’s House. Split into areas, there is a living room where you can chill out and watch LEGO Friends on the television, the kitchen is brilliant with interactive displays where you can bake pretend cakes and even do the washing up, a DUPLO play area and a workshop with endless bricks for you to create models that will be displayed on the shelves.
However, the one part of Olivia’s House that made my daughter’s mouth drop open is the Heartlake City model. Encased in glass, they have cleverly created Heartlake City in miniature and I think my daughter would have happily taken the whole model home with her.
Our next stop was to watch LEGO Friends to the Rescue where we meet Andrea, Mia, Stephanie, Olivia and Emma in a live action show. Lasting around 20 minutes, the friends rally around to help each other and there is singing and dancing along the way. A loved the show and was thrilled to be able to meet the Friends themselves afterwards for a meet and greet.
Not content to be photographed with the real LEGO Friends, A wanted to find the LEGO models and sure enough all five Friends are immortalised in bricks and these make great photo opportunities too.
Wandering around Heartlake City you notice that the attention to detail is fantastic. A and I walked around spotting all of the different LEGO models and there are lots of them; from small cute animals to pretty butterflies, flowers to birds on the window ledges.
Once we had throughly explored Heartlake City several times and spotted everything there was to see, we stopped off at Heartlake City News where you can be a Heartlake reporter or a weather person with the help of green screen technology. Then it was time to explore the rest of the park with my daughter pointing at all of the signposts excitedly at the edition of the pink Heartlake City sign.
We were really impressed with the new play area in Pirate Shores which hadn’t been finished when we visited last year but the children had a great time exploring. Castaway Camp is a serious play area with lots of places to run and explore, things to climb, slides, climbing frames, money bars, more slides, more things to climb. We had to drag the children away as they were having such a great time.
LEGO City has also seen some improvements this year; LEGO City Driving School is bigger and better than ever with more cars as well as a new lane on the test course. Boating School has also a new look featuring more boats and more LEGO models, featuring surprising animations and audio affects. The boys tried out both attractions and gave them the thumb up.
After a long day, the children were all tired and happy but we always find time to explore Miniland and there was a famous face there this year.
It is amazing that however tired the children are at the end of the day, they still have enough energy for the shop before we leave and the boys were VERY impressed by this model. He is pretty cool isn’t he?
We had a fantastic day at LEGOLAND Windsor and I love the fact that there really is something for each of my three children to enjoy (and the parents too). Heartache City is a fantastic addition and I am sure that it will prove extremely popular this summer.
A huge thank you to LEGOLAND for inviting us to spend the day with them. We were given free entry and fast track wristbands in return for this post. All opinions and images are our own.
Oh my goodness! It looks brilliant! The husband and I were just talking last night about taking the kids to Legoland this summer, and that was without knowing about Heartlake City – my daughter will love it! I think you’ve just turned our ‘might go’ into ‘we’re definitely going’!
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What a fantastic post for a fantastic day. I can’t believe we spent the whole day there with fast pass bands and still didn’t get around to seeing Miniland (good job we have annual passes!). I love your post and glad that you all had such a great day. Lovely to see you briefly. I would love a great big table to put all my models on now like in Olivia’s house lol.
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I was never a massive fan of the original Lego and despite not being a girly girl, I absolutely loved the line made for girls when I was younger. I had a ranch and used to play with it for hours on time. My parents still have it in their loft room. Great to see there’s now a whole section dedicated to girly Lego in Legoland. Plus, how cool is that Taylor Swift pic?
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This looks fab andd I have it on my todo list with Erin this summer.
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We haven’t been to LEGOland for years and I think Kitty would love Heart Lake City!
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I am reliving that fantastic day through your photos and spotting all sorts of things that you saw and we didn’t. I didn’t know about the Heartlake City miniature town, the twins would have LOVED that.
It was a very special day and one the girls are still talking about, I don’t think they’ll ever tire of returning to LEGOLAND
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We went yesterday for the first time (excluding my previous work meetings held there), and it was packed. I’d not realised it was an inset day, so disappointing when we turned up thinking it’d be reasonably quiet apart from preschoolers. I don’t think Legoland were prepared for it either. We headed for food at Heartlake because we wanted sandwiches (the sandwich takeaway shacks were all closed, as were the ice creams stalls), but the cafe had no food!
We didn’t spend much time in Heartlake City other than food because we’d just missed the pirate show, although caught the prep work and intros for the Lego Friends show as we walked through. It looked really good though, and very different to all the other areas. The horse ride looked brilliant – I fancied that, but N’s got some growing to go before he gets near that one!
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Oh no that is such a shame. We went to Alton Towers once on ‘school trip’ day, and it was hideous so I can really sympathise with you as I bet any other school day would have been so perfect. Heartache City was really great but yes you do need to be quite tall to go on there. I hope that if you venture back you manage to have better day.
What an amazing day you had – this looks like a brilliant addition to an already excellent family day out!
Thanks for sharing x x
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OMG – my DD would go totally ballistic for this…there is nothing else she spends her pocket money on but LEGO Friends. She is a total nut. That’s her birthday present sorted now! Thanks v much 😀
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We went to Legoland Windsor when my son was 3 and he absolutely loved it! Would love to take him back again now he is almost 6 to try out all the things he was too young for then.
Oh I so fancy this! Looks fab!
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