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Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester

October 15, 2026 by Neil Turner

A couple of weekends back, Christine had some coursework to do and wanted me and our ten-year-old out of the way for a day. So, we went to the Legoland Discovery Centre, located at the Trafford Palazzo in Manchester.

This was actually our second visit; our first was in August 2017. Back then, our now ten-year-old was only about 18 months old, and as such, way too young. Whilst there is a small Duplo area, it’s not a big attraction and so we didn’t get much out of it at the time. It’s best for primary school aged kids, so 4 to 12-year-olds. Older kids may find that they’re too big for some of the attractions.

What’s inside the Legoland Discovery Centre

Like I said, the Legoland Discovery Centre isn’t a big attraction, especially compared to Legoland Windsor. We went to Legoland Windsor in 2021, at which you really need two days to see everything. Handily, there are two themed hotels on site, but at a price – instead, we stayed in a Premier Inn in Slough. By comparison, you can do pretty much everything at the Legoland Discovery Centre in two hours. Indeed, at busy times, you may find your visit is actually limited to two hours.

It’s all indoors, and starts off with an exhibit showing how Lego bricks are made. On our previous visit, this was an interactive exhibit with a member of staff walking us through it and presenting us with a special exclusive Lego brick at the end. On this visit, it was a static exhibit with information panels.

Next, was Miniland, where there are Lego models of real places. These are all in the north west of England, so Manchester but also Chester and Blackpool. If you visit this month, like we did, the models have all been spooked up for Hallowe’en. So, expect to see spiders attacking the model of the Blackpool Tower and tentacles coming out of a model of the Trafford Centre.

There are two rides:

Kingdom Quest, where you sit in a chariot and shoot lasers at invading trolls
Merlin’s Apprentice, which spins you round and lifts you up and down as you pedal

There’s a Ninjago themed soft play area, the aforementioned Duplo area and a ‘4D cinema’ where you get to watch a short 3D computer-animated film and have air and water sprayed at you. This was also Hallowe’en themed. This is all included in your entry fee.

Paid-for extras

Without realising, I booked the ‘Legoland Discovery Package’, which includes some paid-for extras. As I write this, these cost an extra £5.50 per ticket when booked in advance, which is cheaper than buying on the day.

These included the Lego VR Experience, where you sit in a pod and put on a virtual reality headset. The pod then moves in time with a virtual reality film. You get to choose one of two films – a Lego race, and a roller-coaster, which our ten-year-old chose for both of us. The roller-coaster is actually set in nearby Salford Quays, just by the Imperial War Museum North, and has you descending a huge tower on the roller-coaster.

We also got two bags of Lego (presumably one each) on entry, which were probably worth the extra £5 or so each on their own.

The other thing we paid extra for was a green screen photo. We went for the £20 package, which got us two large printed photos, the same two photos on keyrings, and digital downloads of all the photos that were taken, including one on the Kingdom Quest ride. A bit pricey, but these things always are.

In all, we spent a little over two hours at the Legoland Discovery Centre. Having booked in advance and used a discount (see below), it was merely moderately expensive. I would not have wanted to pay the full, on the gate price.

Accessibility

There is full step-free access to the attraction, and inside there is a Changing Places toilet. The regular toilets are currently closed for refurbishment, but there are plenty of toilets elsewhere in the Trafford Palazzo.

It’s always cheaper to book at least 24 hours ahead of time, and entry charges vary depending on the time of day, so you can save even more if you’re willing to be even just a little bit flexible. Like all Merlin attractions, there are lots of ways to save money – I got 15% off via the CSSC, but you can also get a similar discount with a Max card when booking in advance. It’s also worth checking the Merlin Deals page on MoneySavingExpert.com – right now, you can save 25% by buying a packet of Kellogg’s cereal (although I’m not 100% sure that the Legoland Discovery Centre is included).

There’s a café inside, and a Lego shop on the way out.

The nearest car parking is at the Trafford Palazzo itself, and there is plenty of car parking at the nearby Trafford Centre too. Electric car charging of all types is available across the site.

We got there by tram; the Trafford Palazzo tram stop is right outside, and it’s the penultimate stop on the Trafford Park line. The Trafford Centre bus station is a 10-15 minute walk away, but at least it’s an indoor walk.

There are multiple Legoland Discovery Centres across the world; the other UK one is in central Birmingham, near Brindleyplace.

Unblogged August

August 31, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of a blue tit made out of interlocking plastic bricks (Lego, basically) at the RHS Garden Harlow Carr

August is my busiest month of the year at work, although this year I only had to work one weekend, rather than two. That was very much welcome and thanks to some changes with UCAS and some better planning on the part of our systems team at work.

Anyway, we’ve had some free time to do things and so here’s this month’s round-up of things we did that didn’t warrant a blog post of their own.

A return visit to Harlow Carr

We went to the RHS Garden at Harlow Carr in June, although it was a relatively short visit which also accommodated my parents and a member of Christine’s American family who was visiting. Following July’s trip to the RHS Bridgewater Garden, we decided to go back to Harlow Carr to do the bits we didn’t get to do last time, but also to do the Brick Explorers trail. As with Bridgewater, there are plastic brick models of flora and fauna all around the garden and so we followed the trail and ticked them all off. Today is the last day that the trail is running, so unless you can get there pronto, that’s it for this year, I’m afraid.

How to avoid private equity vets

We don’t have any pets, but if you do and you live in the US, Canada or the UK, then Private Equity Vets may help you to choose a veterinary practice that isn’t owned by a faceless corporation backed by private equity. Which is harder than it sounds, bearing in mind that many local veterinary practices retain their names when bought by these companies, rather than being rolled into a national brand. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority is investigating the vet sector, having identified a lack of competition with 6 large corporate groups owning the majority of practices. Here’s a quick YouTube video explaining what’s happening. Found thanks to this Bluesky post.

Backing The Guild: Ren Faire’d

I was one of the 45,000+ backers who helped to fund a feature-length edition of The Guild, Felicia Day’s web series about six characters who play a massively-multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) together. The series started 19 (!) years ago, and so the film is to celebrate its 20th anniversary next year. Originally launched with a target of $1.5 million (the minimum amount needed to make a cut down version of the script), it went on to raise almost $6.8 million. That beat the Veronica Mars film‘s record of raising the most money for a crowdfunded film. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it goes into production soon, and that we’ll see the Knights of Good hitting a renaissance faire next year.

Unblogged January

January 30, 2026 by Neil Turner

A photo of January's 'Wolf Moon', taken by me in Derbyshire

I didn’t do one of these in December, although I think anything that I would have written about went into the 2025 review. Instead, here’s what I got up to in January that didn’t merit a full blog post.

The Wolf Moon

That photo of the moon at the top isn’t a stock photo – I took it myself! A full moon in January is known as a ‘wolf moon‘, and the moon happened to be closer to the earth than average so it appeared much larger in the sky.

The photo was taken on my Canon EOS 90D DSLR camera, but I admit there was some luck involved. I used the pop-out screen to set the correct exposure automatically, rather than experiment with various settings. I didn’t even need to use a tripod, and that photo was the first and only one I took. It’s been minimally cropped and edited.

As for where I took the photo? Well, after visiting Hardwick Hall, we took a detour and went to the Chatsworth Farm Shop. That photo was taken in the car park – being out in the countryside meant there was less light pollution. It also meant that, as well as getting a fabulous moon photo, we also picked up some of Chatsworth’s excellent maple-cured bacon. Seriously, it is probably the best bacon we’ve ever tasted.

A return visit to NESM

Last April, we went to the National Emergency Services Museum in Sheffield. As the tickets automatically become an annual pass, earlier this month I went back there with our ten-year-old. On our previous visit, there had been a Steampunk event on (it looks like it’s returning this April) and so we never got to visit the top floor, or the police cells.

This visit was an opportunity to rectify that, and so we got to learn about HM Coastguard, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. There’s also a recreation of a multi-agency response, where different emergency services have to work together – in this instance, a car crash which requires the police, ambulance and fire & rescue services. The museum is fundraising for a much-needed extension and I hope it’s successful – it’s a fantastic little museum and clearly needs more space.

Also, we bought a Plague Ducktor in the gift shop.

A screenshot of our results from the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

Garden Birdwatch results

We took part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch on Sunday morning, which happened to be really wet and dreary. Despite this, we managed to see around 14 birds – mostly sparrows, but also a couple of blackbirds and bluetits. We fleetingly saw a wagtail too, which wasn’t on the core list.

(not) Changing Mobile Network

My mobile phone contract came to an end this month, and so I used a Martin Lewis trick to request a Port Authority Code (PAC) to port my number to another provider. This resulted in my current provider giving me a better offer than their standard upgrade deals, so now I have almost three times more data each month for less money than I was paying before. And, I don’t have to switch to a different network. All the haggling was done via Live Chat too, so I didn’t even need to call someone.

The Calder Valley Brick Show

We popped into this year’s Calder Valley Brick Show in Mytholmroyd last weekend. It’s an annual show for amateur Lego builders to show off their creations. Some are based on standard sets – often the older sets from the 1980s and 1990s – whereas others are custom builds. There were quite a few Star Wars dioramas there, but there was a good mix. Next month, there’s Bricktastic at Manchester Central (what used to be G-Mex) which is a much bigger event, although it looks like a number of the sets we saw will be there too.

The Art of the Brick exhibition in Leeds

September 15, 2025 by Neil Turner

Various large animals made out of Lego at the Art of the Brick exhibition

A couple of weeks ago, we went to see The Art of the Brick, an exhibition of Lego sculptures by Nathan Sawaya which is currently visiting Leeds.

Sawaya is an American sculptor who primarily uses Lego to make his pieces. As you enter the exhibition, there’s a short film where you get to hear more about Sawaya and how he works, before you continue into several rooms with different Lego sculptures. Each room broadly has a theme.

Some are quite abstract – humanoid shapes, with a single colour of brick. But there are also animals – many life size – and some Lego depictions of famous sculptures like Michaelangelo’s David, or of paintings like Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Some sculptures are designed so that you can see inside them – most are hollow. Almost all of them are made using standard sized Lego bricks – there’s very few of the bespoke pieces you get in some official Lego sets nowadays.

At the end of the gallery is the ubiquitous gift shop, and also a huge pit full of Lego for little ones to play in.

For me, my favourite bit was the animals – the models are quite detailed, and are a bit like those you would see at Legoland.

It’s not a very big exhibition – we got around it in about an hour, and it cost us about £30 for the three of us. The exhibition has been on a world tour and only has Montreal, Marseille and Schenectady to go; it was in London last year. If you do decide to go, use the promo code AOTB10LEEDS to get 10% off. It’s around until the end of next month.