Today, I was on park at LEGOLAND.

And before I say anything, today was one of the WORST DAYS I have had at LEGOLAND. So let me talk you through it.

We got there 45 minutes after opening time, which isn't bad. We then queued up for a ride access pass, which took a long time. Isn't it slightly stupid making people who can't queue, well... queue?

Finally we got one, and we walked down the hill to the left, as the way down to Viking's was packed. The weather wasn't the best. Grey skies and very, VERY humid. By the time we got to LEGO City it was 11:20, so we decided to have lunch in the Pizza Pasta buffet, before it got busy. The Diet Coke tasted like water with a hint of Tesco Cola, and I hate Tesco Cola. I had normal Coke in the end, which tasted better than Diet and better than the last time I had regular, albeit that was due to a mix up in the Pizza Pasta at Chessie.

After three platefuls of Pizza and Garlic Bread (there was no Bolognese!), we headed to the Heartlake Express, where a group pushed in front of us in the Q-Bot queue, however we still got on the ride. Speaking of Heartlake Express, it had a 45 minute queue, as did at least one ride in every area of the park. What was strange about the queue times is on a day when the park is heaving, only one or two rides in each area had 20 mins-1 hour queue, the rest having 5 minutes. Anyway, I really do like what they did to Orient Expedition, as they managed to maintain the ride as it was, while improving it by adding the wonderful narration by Bertie, even if you can't hear it very well over the other people talking about the, albeit amazing, LEGO Models.

They also managed to improve the ride a lot since I last visited, which keep in mind, was only on the 21 July. For example, there is a cobra which I've never noticed before, which squirts water at you. Even if the cobra was there before, I never remembered it spraying water. Also, they've fixed some effects, such as when Sam Sinister stands with the TNT around him, he now pushes down on the lever. They also have fixed the gorilla that used to move towards you, but broke. Shame they haven't fixed the masks on the bridge though.

After Heartlake Express, we went on the also new (or, rethemed) Coastguard HQ. I very much like this ride, and I'm not sure what's better, the original Boating School or this one. You still drive, and it has a lot more of a story to it, as well as numerous effects (most of which involve water). After this we went on Atlantis. We were supposed to be in the Blue zone, which I vastly prefer as it is at the front of the sub, but the people in Red went in Blue anyway. Thanks.

In fact, we encountered a lot of people like this today, people who seemingly do their best to walk the opposite direction to you, but in your exact path, then wait for you to move out of the way. And people who either walk at around one mile per day, don't look where they're going, or stop every five nanoseconds. Then again, this is probably to be expected on a heaving day like this one.

It was on Atlantis that we somehow managed to lose the Ride Access Pass. What makes it worse is that we only noticed once we tried to get on Dino Safari. Once arriving at the Heartlake Guest Services they told us we could only have one with five tokens left. Eventually, they said we could have seven tokens.

After Dino Safari, we went on Squid Surfer. It was from here on that the day started to get a lot better. Squid Surfer is on my list of Top 10 rides at the park, and today was no different. In fact, it was made better, by the fact that the plug-like thing at the bottom of the gondola was slightly loose, meaning water sprayed up into our boat.

After this we headed for Spinning Spider, but was sidetracked when we saw the sign for Longboat Invader just before the entrance to Pirate Shores.

After an absolutely amazing ride on Invader, which seemed faster than usual and gave me a lot more airtime, we entered Loki's Labrynth, where we sorta kinda cheated by accident. Whoops.

After Loki's we rode Spinning Spider, which was also very good. We span a lot faster than usual. And the spider animatronic above the ride seemed to be running better today, which was a bonus. For some reason, I never get as dizzy on Spider as I do on, say, Marauder's Mayhem.

After Spider we got popcorn, rode the Hill Train back to the top, refilled our drinks vessels and headed home.

Today was a very different day at LEGOLAND, as we tried to avoid the rides we do every time, and focused more on the rides we normally bypass, and in the end I quite enjoyed it.

However, pre-Squid Surfer was a nightmare.

EDIT: I still haven't got on Mia's Riding Adventure yet. Broke down about four times first time I saw it, and it looked like it was off again today, too.