Legoland, Dubai

Ad – We had such a brilliant day at Legoland Dubai, it totally surpassed our expectations! Where do we start?

We were in Dubai during the week before Easter and we were invited to the Junior Explorers Event which is running until 24 April. The event sees children take on different challenges to collect 4 gold coins which they then trade for a treasure map in order to find their prize – a very cool limited edition Lego set! The challenges included digging for fossils and building an artefact so they were not too taxing and suitable for most children to take part in. The adventure took about 45 minutes for us, but I would recommend putting aside an hour or so if you wanted to take part. There were no queues at all for us to move onto the next challenge which I think sped up our timing. One thing that I really appreciated about this event was that it was in one area and those areas that were covered so it was a perfect rest from the sun.

In fact, most of the theme park is covered which is so needed in the Dubai heat. On the day we visited it was 36 degrees so we visited the Legoland Waterpark first and then made our way to the theme park around 3pm. However, the areas within the theme park are also spacious with lots of shaded areas and seating. Miniland is inside with air-conditioning and is the perfect spot to rest.

Prior to visiting Legoland Dubai, we had only visited the Windsor resort but it is our favourite UK theme park so we were really looking forward to seeing how Dubai compared. The resort is very big, all on one level and very well designed in terms of layout. There are lots of rides at this Legoland – and plenty with smaller children in mind. Ita loved Wave Racer and was able to finally get her driving licence!

There is so much to do and see aside from the rides too. This is something that hugely differed at the UK attraction. You can visit The Factory to make your own Lego brick which is completely free and makes for a little souvenir. You can also meet lots of Lego characters including Ollie the Dragon! Yes you can meet characters in Legoland Windsor, but we have found that you can normally only meet Ollie at the Legoland Hotel in Windsor so this was a nice surprise. You can also watch the fountain show at The Burj model display (inside Miniland). It was so clever!

When I posted about our visit to Instagram, I had lots of messages about visiting a theme park in such great heat. We were informed upon entering that the heat meant 2 rides were not working – this is something to bear in mind because extreme heat or cold can cause problems for the mechanics of the rides. One thing that I was slightly put off about was the potential queuing for rides. However, during our visit he theme park was so quiet that there were no wait times (literally walk ons) which made our experience even better. It may be because of Ramadan, as we know someone who visited the week before us and they also said it was very quiet too. However, upon speaking to a friend who resides in Dubai, she said that a lot of places tend to be quiet during the days since the heat is off putting and Dubai culture typically sees people going outside in the evenings.

One thing worth mentioning is that Legoland Dubai, Legoland Waterpark, Motiongate Themepark and Bollywood Dubai are all situated in a complex called Riverland and are all within walking distance too.
Within this complex there is a Mc Donalds and Costa as well as a Fridays (TGI Fridays to us in the UK).