How to do Legoland Windsor on a budget

Here are some tips on how to have a fun day out at Legoland Windsor on a budget - updated in 2022! Some of these tips may be useful to you if you visit other Legoland attractions as well, but ticket details are specific to Windsor. The idea for this post came from my readers - after we visited Legoland Windsor, I asked on social media what people would like to find out about our day. Legoland Windsor is known for being a fun but expensive day out, so perhaps unsurprisingly most of the votes went for the "How to do Legoland Windsor on a budget" topic. 

My tips are around cheap(er) tickets, tips for hotel breaks, how to get on riders without paying for a fast pass, parking costs, lunch options, and shopping for souvenirs. If you have any extra tips I'd love to hear them in the comments!

A word of warning before we get started though. Despite any hacks or cheap tickets, Legoland Windsor is NOT a cheap day out. So while you can minimise the damage to your wallet, I'm afraid it will still probably be a bit painful ha ha. 

If you are looking for information about the coronavirus and social distancing at Legoland I've got a post about Legoland in 2020 too. Or maybe you might like to visit other nearby theme parks too like Chessington World of Adventures - so check my budgeting tips for Chessington here!

How to get cheap tickets?

There are a few options for avoiding paying the full ticket price - currently around £58-60 on the day per person. 

Families with young kids / pre-schoolers / students

Remember, kids under 90cm tall (new in 2020, it used to be under 3 years old...) are for free, so don't buy a ticket for them!

If you are happy to come during term-time with your pre-schooler, you can get two tickets (child and adult) for £25 on Legoland Windsor site. Does not apply for weekends or school holidays. 

And if you or your child is a student and registered with Student Beans - tickets start from £20! Anyone over the age of 16 and in full-time education including university, college, sixth form, and high school can use Student Beans. You can also use Student Beans if you are studying for an apprenticeship. Sign up here. 

My favourite - Tesco Clubcard: 

If you have store loyalty cards, then Tesco Clubcard do a fantastic deal where every pound of points you spend equals £3 for Legoland tickets. If you book the tickets at least one day before going you get them for the online saver price. For example, I spent £36 of Tesco Clubcard points to get three tickets for us and I booked a day or two before we went. If you book on the day, you will be charged the full at-the-gate price - so I would have paid about £55 in Tesco Clubcard points for those three tickets.

The full process is a bit faffy, but fairly quick. You log on to Tesco, go via their link to check the price for the day you want to book, go back to Tesco and buy the amount of vouchers you need. You then get emailed the code and the booking link, on which you log on and use the code to buy the tickets which are sent to you electronically.  Hey presto, cheap tickets.

As an example, had our family bought tickets on the day, with no vouchers, it would have been £180 (three tickets, one free baby). Instead, we spent £36 in voucher points. Bargain!

Cheap ticket sites: 

Recently these ticket sites haven't been particularly good - the prices are the same as if you bought online saver tickets directly form Legoland site. But, worth checking as occasionally they do special deals, and even additional ticket + lunch deals. AttractionTix and 365 Tickets are worth having a look. It is also worth checking Legoland Windsor website for deals. Deals vary so it's worth checking all three for the best prices.

2 for 1 tickets: 

Every spring and summer cereal packets in UK have these two for the price of one vouchers for various amusement parks, including Legoland Windsor. Handy tip especially for people visiting UK - just go to your local supermarket and look for Kellogg's packets with the voucher! Some brands also do 50% off vouchers, which work out a better deal with odd number groups. 

The brands to look out for are:

• Kellogg's
• Carex
• Bear Snacks
• Dairymilk
• McDonald's Happy Meals 

There are some brands that quite reliably do this promotion every year (Kellogg's and Carex) and others are occasional. You may need to bring the voucher with you, as T&Cs state, although I've never been asked for it. 

The Sun Superdays tickets - yearly, very cheap promotional deal: 

You can also get cheap (or free) tickets by buying The Sun newspaper. Check out here my post on what The Sun Superdays are and how they work. 

Once a year The Sun does Superdays - this means you buy The Sun paper on 9 consecutive days, add these codes to the Sun Savers app, and then when the booking opens (the app will have the date) you can book two "free" tickets! They aren't quite free, as the paper costs £7.2 altogether, and then a £2 booking fee, but still very cheap if you can bear the faff. There are several other attractions also. These promotions happen once a year, so check the code collection dates in the link. As a tip, school holidays and weekends go in a flash, so if you are after those, you need to be booking as soon as the booking page opens. Weekdays and term time tickets are easier to get. 

For example, the year I used this deal, I had to fork out for four tickets, and paid £8.50 for the Sun promotion tickets and £22.5 in Tesco Clubcard points, so £31 altogether.  

How to get a cheap Legoland hotel break?

Staying in a Legoland hotel - ain't that the dream... Definitely is for my six year old! There is a Lego pool area, character meets, Lego gifts, a Lego themed room and all kinds of Lego-mazing things, and normally this costs hundreds of pounds.

We haven't done this but there are a couple of things I've spotted during my bargain-hunting. At different times of the year there are different deals on Legoland website. One popular one is a Stay-and-Play. The resort is closed during these stays but you can stay in the hotel for a reduced price. These tend to be during term-time. 

You could also, with pre-planning and cross-referencing and a bit of luck, is to check-in a day before the resort opens. You check in, have fun at the hotel, sleep, have breakfast, check out and go have fun in the resort (obviously after buying cheap day tickets via the links I've provided earlier!). Theoretically, we could have a night at a Legoland hotel for £109 and the next day tickets to the resort for £36, so a fantastic family break for £145 (plus lunch costs).

Legoland also do other deals, during term-time mostly, and of course there are also budget partner hotels at nearby areas. 

How to get on the rides I want without paying for a Reserve & Ride?

One of the complaints I've heard about Legoland is that you are just queuing and queuing all day, when people with Q-Bots/Reserve&Ride passes whizz past you. Well, yes, and they pay for the privilege starting at £15 per person.

What you can do on a budget though is download the Legoland app, and check the queue times for various rides, and jump in where they are at their lowest. The app also gives you start times for character meets and shows. This works quite well!

Another handy trick is to get to the resort really early and go to your most-wanted popular ride first, or alternatively, leave it very late and join the queue about five minutes before closing time as they let you wait until everyone has done the ride. You won't then have to spend loads of time waiting during the day if the ride you are after is one of the most popular ones.

Parent swap if you have a little one

If you've got a baby or a toddler with you who can't go on the rides, remember to ask for the Parent Swap once you have queued. The parent with the baby waits at the priority entrance, and after the ride you swap so the other parent gets in too without waiting. And bonus, you can take your big kid twice, yay!

Do you have to pay for parking?

Sorry, yes, you do. You can save £1 if you pay online or via the app though. There was no-one manning the gates when we left (very late) on the day, so not sure how often these are checked. Apparently from 2022 Legoland Windsor has ANPR, so if you forget to pay you might be penalised. 

What to do for food/drinks if you are on a budget?

This one is easy - take a picnic! There are plenty of places to sit down and have a packed lunch, and indoor locations too if the weather looks poorly. 

Tickets sites such as AttractionTix, 365 Tickets or Legoland Windsor website, occasionally do lunch deals with ticket purchases, where you pay £7-8 for a lunch (burgers usually). 

There is also a McDonald's a short drive away in Slough, which may be a cheaper option if you can wait until after the day.

For drinks, there are plenty of spaces to fill your water bottle so bring a reusable one! Alternatively, there was a deal where you can buy a cup (one vessel for £12, 2 for £10 each and 3-6 at £9 each) and re-fill it with soft drinks as much as you want. You can bring it back on another visit, and re-activate it for £6.  

We drank water, and the kids had a carton of juice with their packed lunch.

What about shopping at the resort?

Let's face it - kids always want to buy something. I wanted to do our day on a budget and it to act as a bit of a learning experience, so we asked our daughter to bring her weekly allowance money. She had £10. With that she bought herself a small Lego Friends model, and she really loves it.

Most of the items are quite expensive, and if you want to give kids spending money I'd give minimum £5. That would buy them a key ring, or a small lego bag. £10 would buy you a small Lego model or maybe a tiny soft toy. The cheapest Legoland exclusive model I saw was £17, so if you want an exclusive item, budget about £20.

And if your kids are into those Lego minifigure surprise bags with characters, bring the extras as you can swap them in the stores, for free!

What else do you need to bring?

Don't forget your swimming costumes and towels if you want to go to the splash play areas and don't want to spend extra money in the shop! Towels and kids swimming costumes are quite pricey at the resort. Sunscreen is good to bring on a sunny day too. There are apparently free sunscreen dispensers, although I didn't spot them, and they may also run out on sunny summer days.

What a mega-post but I hope that was helpful to you!

While it is not a cheap day out, Legoland Windsor is fun and you don't have to spend hundreds on the day. We spent about £36 in Tesco vouchers for the tickets, £9 for coffee and biscuits at Costa, £7 for parking and then of course petrol, the packed lunch costs, £9 for a toy (which our daughter paid from her weekly allowance anyway), and £25 for McDonald's on our way back home, so all in all our day at Legoland Windsor cost less than £100. Not the cheapest day out but something you can certainly do as a treat!

You might also be interested: 

• Finding out how to get two tickets to Legoland for £9.2 via Sun Superdays - check my tips here. 
• How to do Chessington World of Adventures on a budget - another nearby theme park which is great for kids, and even has a small zoo!

What are your tips for doing Legoland Windsor on a budget?

You might also like: How to get the most out of Kidzania London? and Our experience at Shrek's Adventure - the good and the bad and Honest review of the Legoland in 2020 experience

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