Decided to take the kids to Legoland as soon as it’s warm in 2025. We have been going around Ireland visiting historic places but there’s not much for the kids to enjoy. Thought it was a good time to take the kids to visit London as well. We went to London in the first year we came to Ireland, visited the famous places and enjoyed it. We want during the Easter holidays of 2025. Ireland had one day of bank holiday, whereas UK had 2 days. So it is a busy time for travels, a note to self.

Getting to Windsor

Took Ryanair from Dublin and landed in London Gatwick, surprisingly the airport was not too busy. We took the train to Windsor, have to transit in Clapham Junction. That train station is pretty old and pretty big. We have to ask around where would our connection train would be and it was right across the station.

Day 1 – Windsor

Seriously, other than Windsor castle, there’s is not much to see in Windsor. We did not go to Windsor castle as it was expensive. Don’t want to pay a lot of money to see how the royals and rich live their lives, as if we need more things to make us feel depressed with our lives. Windsor is just beside Heathrow airport, so we get to see a lot of different planes on their final approach.

Despite it, there’s still places to visit in Windsor. We went to the Windsor Parish Church to see the Last Supper painting from 1600s. Then took a walk on a path called “long walk”. There’s a pedestrian shopping area called the Royal Shopping and roads around it. Great place for walks especially on cool but sunny day. We stayed at Travelodge Windsor Central. The entrance was hard to find but the hotel is strategically located. Not only is it near the mall, the bus stop to Legoland is only few mins away in Arthur Road. We took the 702 bus at 9.59am to be at Legoland when they open the doors.

Day 2 and 3 – Legoland

They check bags before the entrance for dangerous weapons. They didn’t stop us from bringing food into the park. The park officially opens at 10.00am but they allow people to go in to the “reception” area from 9.30am. As we were there earlier, at least the first 2 rides had shorter queue. It was the easter holidays and the park as as busy as it gets. Some rides we had to wait for an hour. The queue may not look long but there’s a lot of people who bought the express pass and they add on to the waiting time.

The rides were almost the same as those we got in Johor Bahru Legoland . Windsor has a few new rides such as the Minifigure Speedway and Autumn’s Riding Adventure. Emily is the adventurous one, we went on the Jolly Rocker 4 times on top of other roller coaster.

Lucky we went to Legoland for 2 days, we could not go on a lot of the rides, especially on the second day as the queues were very long.

Day 4 – Imperial War Museum

Believe it was 2011 when Winnie and I came to London the first time, Gabriel was 8 months old that time. I was going to University of Leicester for classes and decided to spend a few days in London. Somehow this time the Imperial War Museum looks different, they had a huge refurbishment in 2014. The museum is well curated. WW1 exhibits in the first floor, where they tell the story of how the war is fought. Then on to WW2 in the second floor, also showing the various story of the war. Seems they have a way to tell story now, instead of just various exhibits put together in cabinets as I remembered it in the past. They also put up the displays very dramatically. It is a lot of information to take in for this trip.

Day 5 – Royal Air Force Museum

The Royal Air Force Museum are 6 hangers of Air Force planes, heli and vehicles. A lot to cover in a short day. It was about half an hour’s tube ride from our hotel. We get to see all the key highlights such as Spitfire, Hawker Hurricane, Lancaster Bomber, Harrier and Messerschmitt Bf 109. There are a lot of activities for kids. We also spent a lot in the gift shop as they have very cool souvenirs. Gabe enjoyed the most, and I had the chance to geek out at seeing the real planes. I just realised some planes were not the size that I thought they were based on documentaries. Since it’s free to visit, definitely worth our tube fare and walk to the museum. The museum was busy but not crowded.

A short hop on the bus after the museum, we went to the viral Asian food court to get our Asian food fix. It’s called Bang Bang Oriental Food Hall. Been a while since I had dim sum. The siu mai taste like what I had in Hong Kong. We skipped Malaysian food. Kids longing for crispy noodles. Winnie was not feeling well so we had Pho. We went for late lunch, got a place to sit. Heard this place do get full on weekends. This is the one place you can go to get all the Asian cuisine under one roof. Beside the food hall is Loong Foong, a chinese supermarket. We got some chinese herbs for soup here.

Day 6 – Easter Service and Portrait Gallery

Took the chance to attend Easter service at St Paul’s Cathedral. We were just trying our luck to see if we can get a seat, knowing that it would probably be packed. We wanted to make the trip more memorable. If we were in Ireland, we would have gone to the service in St Patrick’s Cathedral. When we arrived, the queue to go in snaked half way to the side of the church. We managed to enter the church and got seated in the last few rows in the nave. Shortly after we were seated, the service procession started but a lot of people were still queueing up to enter. They were let in after the procession completed. It was a great service, the reading was done in Ukrainian language.

Gabriel had food poisoning that day so he stayed back at the hotel. I went back to the hotel to bring him medication. Winnie and Emily went to the portrait gallery after the service.