Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester markets itself at children over 3. Our son is 2 so we were not so sure whether or not it would be a particularly enjoyable day out for him. But having read into what is there for the tots, we decided to give it a go.
Now, if you’re thinking of visiting the Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester, do yourself a favour: get any visions of Legoland Windsor out of your head! This isn’t a theme park. It doesn’t pretend to be either. Think of it more as a sort of Lego themed large play centre.
Our review is based on us considering it as such.
Legoland Discovery Centre Manchester – The Quick Review
We rate Legoland Discovery Centre a 3.5/5 taking into account the age of our son.
We loved:
- The car racing area
- Decent selection in the cafe
- Soft play type area
Could be better:
- The tour thing at the start is not particularly good for toddlers. I don’t know if there’s a way in without going through the tour room but if there is, it wasn’t made clear. 2 year olds (not just ours, but a few of them in the room) simply get bored of standing around listening to talks before going into an attraction.
- Lots of the rides aren’t suitable for toddlers. Of course, this is made clear on the website beforehand and we went knowing this. But more rides for the little ones would be great
The Longer Review
One of the things I particularly like about the Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester is the fact that parking is plentiful (because it’s based at the Trafford Centre). So getting there and getting parked up was no problem.
There was quite a queue to get tickets, despite the fact it was a midweek morning in term time and it seemed to be very slow moving.
The way in to the Discovery Centre is via a room in which they do a sort of “mini tour.” It seemed as though you had to go through there to get into the main rooms and it was a bit dull for the 2 year olds. A few of them were getting very restless and the room was simply too small for all the people and prams. The 4 year olds (who, to be fair, the attraction is aimed at) seemed to be enjoying it though.
Many of the rides were not suitable for our 2 year old. But again, it’s worth saying that the attraction doesn’t promote itself to the toddler market and we went knowing this.
Our toddler did enjoy the models (in the featured image) but for him, the highlight was the car racing section. This is a big section of the Discovery Centre where kids can build lego cars and race them on various ramps. Oliver just loved this!!
There are also a lot of models where kids can build around them. Oliver did love this. At home he has Duplo but was playing with Classic blocks at the Discovery Centre and thoroughly enjoyed it.
There is a toddler’s area with a little slide and we played there too. There’s also a soft play type area, which we went to briefly but it was too busy for our son to enjoy.
Food and Drink
Considering the fact that inflated prices are something you expect at attractions, we thought the cafe in the Legoland Discovery Centre was reasonable. 3 of us had sandwiches and drinks for less than £18 and Oliver also had little snacks etc as part of a kids’ box. The food was reasonable and the cafe staff were lovely.
Would I Go Back?
Yes. But probably not until Oliver is a bit older and can enjoy all the rides. All in all, not a bad day out, particularly as we live close by.
