Ever since I was a child I've always wanted to visit Legland in Denmark. I'd heard it was an amazing place with rides and Lego constructions of a size and detail you wouldn't believe.

So when the British version, Legoland Windsor, opened some years back now I made a mental note that it would be a great place to go and then promptly forgot about it.

This year, however, my wife made arrangements to meet with an old friend she'd not seen for almost eight years and the chosen venue was Legoland Windsor. That friend would take her kids along, we'd take ours, the children could play we could catch up with each other and a good day could be had by all.

So when September 1st rolled around I was, for once, more excited about the venue than the kids and raced them down the path to the car. Getting to Legoland isn't that difficult although its position in Windsor does mean it isn't the most central of venues to get to, but the same could be said of just about any theme park in any country. Travelling from Cambridgeshire, our route took us round the M25 and onto the M4 and Legoland is just a couple of miles from Junction 6 of the latter motorway. Unfortunately, however, it's all single lane roads round the outskirts of Windsor and what should have been a five minute journey turned into half an hour thanks to stop/start traffic.

Plenty of parking is on offer for the expected number of visitors and for those with a spare fiver in their pockets a premium car park is made available allowing you to park right outside the main entrance; handy at the end of the day when the kids are bemoaning the long walk back to the car. With my wife having worked out our cost of entry as we drove down, I opted to park in the free car park instead and suffer that walk.

Here was the first major hurdle of the day. Queueing to get into Legoland wasn't a problem. Despite the number of visitors already there at the stated 10:00 opening time, check-in staff were quick and efficient I soon found myself being charged the £21.00 per adult and £19.00 per child (under three's go free); thankfully, with one child under three and the other on a 'kids go free' pass from Iceland, we only had to pay £42.00 in total for my wife and I to get in but I quickly realised that the cost of entry is rather too expensive for what is available to you once you are in the park.

Legoland sprawls across scenic hillside and the main area you first come into affords you a beautiful view with Windsor Castle in the distance. At the top there is a cafe, a couple of shops, guest services, a Legoland train station and a stand promoting Fiat motorcars. In fact, many of the rides at Legoland are currently sponsored by Fiat, so you will find models of their cars dotted about locations and especially just near to the entrance of all the major attractions. Corporate sponsorship is the way forward these days and I appreciate that, but I really don't want people trying to get me to sign up for a competition to win a Fiat Stilo when I'm on a day out with my family.

To get to the main selection of rides and attractions you need to go down the hill, which you can do either by walking or catching the funicular railway that ferries people from top to bottom. We caught the train and en route were able to see where Miniland and the maze were.

The maze was our first port of call and our first delightful surprise. As mazes go it was quite twisty and windy with enough short and long dead-ends to stump the children, but getting into it was fun. A waterfall runs either side of the entrance but, at seemingly random intervals, the waterfall would change and become a curtain of water at the entrance before reverting back to being a waterfall; be under that curtain when it starts coming down at your peril!

From the maze we began to explore the park and this was where we began to notice that the cost of the entrance fee, especially for adults, is just abhorrent. I appreciate that Legoland is indeed built for children, but with little to keep Mum & Dad amused other than the fact that their kids are happy the place soon becomes rather dull for grown ups. Legoland does have a vast array of attractions for the little people, but many of them have height restrictions on them meaning Mum or Dad are going to have to accompany them. Don't get me wrong, the children love the rides but even the Jungle Coaster, Legoland's biggest roller coaster, is too tame to satisfy the lusts of a teenager.

We went on September 1st, when Legoland moved into its off-season opening hours and pricing model, but by early afternoon it was soon obvious to the management that, on such a hot day and with it being the first day back at school of many on the following day, parents had brought their children out for one last-minute holiday thrill. As a result, the queues were phenomenal and despite signs saying "30 minute wait from here" you could almost double any prediction given to you; had the park closed at 5:00pm as it was scheduled to do we would have managed to get onto just three rides in the whole day, but some unseen manager decided to keep the park open until 7:00pm. This wasn't announced to the paying public, however, and so many left at five o'clock, leaving those who'd found out by chance about the extension in opening hours the chance to get on a few more rides.

Unfortunately, whoever made the decision to extend the park's opening hours was unable to get the restaurant staff to agree to stay the extra time, so at six o'clock when we decided that these hungry, tired, worn-out and whingy kids ought to be fed there was limited choice available to us. We settled on a small burger bar that served up a McDonalds' sized kids portion (with Lego toy) for £5.99; adult meals were more expensive and a much-needed pint of Stella Artois came in at £3.50. A meal for two adults and two children, admittedly with a beer included, came in at around £20.00. If you're a typical family of four with no discounts and try to have a frugal day out, you are still unlikely to come away from Legoland with much change out of £100.00.

For me, however, the biggest and most impressive attraction of the day was undoubtedly Miniland. Not, as my four-year-old assumed, a land made up of Mini cars, but cityscapes made in Lego blocks. The Dutch landscape, for example, is made up of 2.9million Lego blocks and if one model-maker had tried to build it on his own it would have taken him nine years. Impressive stuff. The buildings, figurines, cars, trains, boats and, yes, even the campsites complete with caravans bearing the "Caravan Club" logo are all amazingly detailed and I would have been happy to have spent the whole day simply strolling through the landscapes of Lego buildings.

The biggest detraction was the attitude of the staff themselves. Many of the ride attendants were clearly not interested in doing their job and did little to hurry the queueing process up or make the waiting people feel happier about their time. On the junior driving school, where the queues could easily have been hurried up by getting the next set of eager learner drivers ready while the previous set drove around the track. Rather than do this, mind you, the member of staff managing the queue would sit with her head in her hands, clearly dissinterested in what was going on around her, until the last set of children had left the cars. Then, while she was getting the next set of children ready the other attendant would sit on the corner of the track and stare into the distance; at one point he failed to notice a small child who had not managed to figure out where the exit was, until that child tried to go back the other way through the queue.

Such apathy towards the park's visitors was apparent on many of the rides, and this was before the park had reached its extended opening time.

It could be that I just hit Legoland on the wrong day and at the wrong time, but in general I was overly disappointed by my experience there. I can guarantee you that the kids will love every minute, but parents you might find yourself clock watching until you can say those immortal words:

"Let's go home!"