This is the story of how my partner and I became Lifetime Pass holders for LEGOLAND Windsor in the UK, even though we live on the other side of the world in Australia.

The lifetime pass holders board at legoland windsor

To start with, you need to understand that we love all things LEGO-related. We love the product, the merchandise, the theme parks, the exhibits, the stores and anything else LEGO branded or that uses LEGO products. If there is something LEGO-related happening at a place we’re visiting, we’ll be there. We like visiting the UK because we have friends and family there, so it made sense to always include a stop at LEGOLAND Windsor as part of our trip.

The Before Times

Our first visit to LEGOLAND Windsor happened in 2003. It was part of our big round-the-world trip where we were to visit all of the LEGOLANDs, a Disneyland and a bunch of other things along the way. It was a lot easier to achieve this feat in 2003, as there were only four LEGOLAND parks at the time—California, Windsor, Billund and Deutschland. It would be a lot harder, and far more costly, to achieve the same task with the number of LEGOLAND parks operating today.

Obtaining a Lifetime Pass for any of the parks was not a consideration at this point in time. We lived a long flight away from any of the locations, and we didn’t know when we would next be in a position to visit again. To be honest, it would be hard to justify the expense of a Lifetime Pass.

As it happened, we visited the UK/Denmark in 2006 and 2009 and then again in 2011 when we started attending the LEGO Fan Weekend—which became the Skaerbaek Fan Weekend—in Denmark. A side trip to LEGOLAND Windsor is not that challenging when you are already close by in a European country. And yet, we still didn’t consider a Lifetime Pass to be a viable option. Having said that, we did make use of an Annual Pass as we discovered it was the same price as visiting the park twice, plus there were discounts at the food outlets and in the shops.

Fast forward to 2017 and we found ourselves with a reason to visit the UK twice in one year. By this time, the perks of the LEGOLAND Windsor Annual Pass had changed. To justify its purchase, we’d have to visit the park at least *three* times in 12 months. Easy to do if you lived locally, but we didn’t, so it was no longer an option. We spent some time staring at the website, trying to work out the most economical way to visit the theme park.

It was then that I noticed the Lifetime Passes were discounted to about half the original price. I then spent many hours calculating whether we could justify this expenditure. I looked at the various travel options: How many LEGOLAND parks would we need to visit in a year? How much would we save on food and purchases? The key benefit to the Lifetime Pass was free entry to *any* of the LEGOLAND Theme Parks worldwide—this was a very large factor in my calculations.

In the end, I calculated that we would need to visit three parks, every year, over the course of seven years. That seemed doable. If we were to head to Europe, we’d definitely visit Windsor and Billund and possibly Deutschland, and Malaysia was always an option for the flight there or back. And maybe we’d visit California or Florida at some stage. With much consideration, we could now justify the expense.

Our Journey As Lifetime Pass Holders

And so the purchase was made on our next visit to LEGOLAND Windsor. The young assistant had to fetch her manager, as “no one ever asks for the Lifetime Pass.” With our Lifetime Passes acquired, we began the journey to see just how long it would take to “justify” our expense. In the beginning, I kept records, but that stopped by the second year as I just forgot to write down the details. It probably expanded out to eight years at some stage, as we weren’t always achieving the three required LEGOLAND visits every year.

Then the world went into lockdown in 2020, and international travel ceased for the majority of people. From 2020 to 2022, we were unable to travel to any LEGOLAND park. We essentially “lost” three years of Lifetime Pass usage with our next visit not happening until the second half of 2023. By our original calculations, we should have “justified” our Lifetime Pass purchase by 2023 or 2024. Instead, it’s possibly another two to three years before we’re even.

It’s Not All Fun and Games

By the time we acquired our Lifetime Passes, the park was over 20 years old. I have no idea if the Lifetime Passes were there from the beginning and whether they had additional benefits or not in the early days. I had a chat with fellow BrickNerd contributor, John Cooper, who has been a Lifetime Pass holder for California since the early days, and he says they had access to all sorts of things like special events and limited-edition custom sets. There’s definitely not been anything like that since we’ve become Lifetime Pass holders, though I suspect that might just have been a perk of LEGOLAND California.

Entry to LEGOLAND Windsor has been a breeze since purchasing our passes. These days, we need to book in advance, but we still have access to any of the days that the park is open.

For the most part, the sales assistants in the shops will recognise the pass and usually comment, “You don’t see many of those around!” (By now, it’s almost tradition that they make the comment.) Some of the newer staff need to defer to their managers as they just haven’t seen one before. The staff at the larger food outlets recognise the pass, but the ones at the smaller places tend not to, so we don’t always get the expected discount.

One of the biggest reasons for purchasing the passes was that they provided us free entry to all LEGOLANDs around the world. I even verified this with staff as their website was originally a bit confusing—it said it was both free entry *and* 50% off the ticket price.

Despite this, every time we visit a different LEGOLAND theme park, we have to visit customer service and go through a whole screed explaining what the pass is and why they should allow us free entry to the park. I have the screenshot of the original email confirming that we are entitled to free entry, and I have a link to the terms and conditions on the LEGOLAND Windsor website, which clearly state this is a perk.

Almost every non-Windsor visit requires a consultation with a manager before we are cleared to enter the park. Most of the time, it’s only a 10 to 15 minute wait to have the passes approved. They take notes saying they will let others know so it will be easier next time, but nothing really seems to change.

Visiting LEGOLAND Dubai was an entirely different challenge. They weren’t initially interested in honouring the passes in any way shape or form as they were not something they had seen before or had even heard about. Our screenshots were not accepted as real, as they believed we could have photoshopped them to try to trick the staff. It was quite distressing at the time. In the end, they did give us a discounted entry in line with an Annual Pass holder from a different LEGOLAND.

As yet, we have only used our passes successfully at Windsor, Billund and Deutschland. We have not had the opportunity to travel to the other LEGOLAND theme parks since purchasing our Lifetime Passes.

We’re On the Board!

On a lighter note, LEGOLAND Windsor has a Lifetime Pass holders board near the entry. When we first signed up, the board was just inside the gates, wrapped around two sides of a building. We were rather disappointed to see our names hadn’t been added to the board when we visited for the second time in 2017. The same in 2018, no names. Imagine our delight when, in 2019, we arrived to find the Lifetime Pass holders board had been refreshed and moved outside the gates, and our names had finally been added! It really felt special to see our names, and it made us happy to have a permanent connection to the park.

We are so delighted to have our names on the board that we’ve asked friends to take a photo of themselves and our names whenever they visit, so it feels a little like we’re there with them. Corny, we know, but we’re rather sentimental about it all. I’ve included some of the photos of our friends visiting LEGOLAND with “us” over the years.

Has It Been Worth It?

On the whole, despite the issues, it’s been a lot of fun having a Lifetime Pass. We like being able to book a ticket and not having to hand over any extra money. We love seeing our names on the Lifetime Pass Holders board, and we love seeing our friends finding our names and taking a photo. We appreciate the flexibility to do a short visit to the park if we’re not up for a full day and not feeling guilty about wasting money on a regular ticket.

We hope to be back at LEGOLAND Windsor in 2026 (and beyond) and, with luck, we’ll have the chance to visit a few other LEGOLANDs along the way.

Have you ever been an annual passholder at a LEGOLAND park? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Do you want to help BrickNerd continue publishing articles like this one? Become a top patron like Marc & Liz Puleo, Paige Mueller, Rob Klingberg from Brickstuff, John & Joshua Hanlon from Beyond the Brick, Megan Lum, Andy Price, Lukas Kurth from StoneWars, Wayne Tyler, Dan Church, and Roxanne Baxter to show your support, get early access, exclusive swag and more.