page_title: Legoland Windsor Resort
section_title: The Beginning
hierarchical_section_title: Legoland Windsor Resort / Areas / The Beginning
caption_attribution_description: Creation Centre, Legoland Windsor, Berkshire, UK
context_page_description: Legoland Windsor Resort, also known as Legoland Windsor, is a child-orientated theme park and resort in Windsor, Berkshire in England, themed around the Lego toy system. The park opened on 17 March 1996 on the former Windsor Safari Park site as the second Legoland after Legoland Billund in Denmark. In common with the other Legoland Resorts across the world, the park's attractions consist of a mixture of Lego-themed rides, models, and building workshops. The park was acquired by Merlin Entertainments in 2005, which now operates the park, with the Lego Group retaining part ownership. The facilities are mainly targeted at children between three and twelve.
  The park had 2.2 million visitors in 2017, making it the most visited theme park in the United Kingdom and the 10th-most visited in Europe.
context_section_description: The Beginning is the entrance area to the park. It is composed of a plaza area containing entrance turnstiles, ticket sales, guest services and toilets and stretches to contain a small part of the resort at the bottom of the funicular railway. It is notable for having a view of the area surrounding the resort including the nearby town of Windsor, Heathrow Airport & parts of London.
  The main resort shop, The BIG Shop, can be found here which sells a number of LEGO products as well as souvenirs. It holds the distinction of being the largest LEGO store in the UK. Also in the area is the Photo Shop which is where guests can collect photos taken on rides with cameras operated by Picsolve, a company contracted by a number of Merlin Entertainments resorts.
  There are a number of food and beverage outlets here with the main sit down cafe is the Hill Top Cafe. It is complemented by a smaller coffee outlet in the entrance plaza and the Sweet Stop which sells sweets and other treats.
  The only ride located in The Beginning is the Hill Train, a funicular, 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge railway down a curved slope. The main purpose of the Hill Train is to transport guests from The Beginning to the lower parts of the resort leading to an area between LEGO City & LEGO NINJAGO World, which is still considered to be part of The Beginning. It is the only ride or attraction to be retained from Windsor Safari Park, being refurbished when the park opened with stained glass windows made from translucent Lego bricks by local school children. It travels 300 metres between two stations, with a height difference between the top and bottom stations of approximately 27 metres.
  Previously located in The Beginning was the Creation Centre which opened in 2000. This building has housed a number of attractions since it has opened. The first main attraction it contained was LEGO Racers which opened with the Creation Centre. Here, guests could create their own virtual LEGO racer through an innovative system and went through a process which culminated in them being able to race their character against other guests. The original LEGO Racers attraction suffered from reliability issues and closed at the end of 2004. However, it was revived in 2009 by members of the original team and was able to reopen under the new name of Rocket Racers. However, reliability issues remained and it saw its final guests over the weekend of the 8–9 October 2011. The attraction space was repurposed for Star Wars Miniland which was based on the Star Wars franchise depicting a number of scenes in LEGO and opened in 2012. Unlike LEGO Racers & Rocket Racers it was classed as a walkthrough attraction with no queue. Instead, guests walked round much like the main Miniland land. In 2016, a large model of the Death Star was installed as the centrepiece of the attraction. However, the attraction closed on December 31, 2019 echoing other Legoland Resorts which all closed their Star Wars Miniland if they had them, rumoured due to a licensing deal between Lucasfilm and Merlin Entertainments ending. Currently the space is empty and Legoland Windsor have announced no plans for its future.
  The Creation Centre is also home to Legoland Windsor's model makers who display busts of famous figures as well as a view of their studio in a space on the second floor of the centre. On the ground floor of the centre is Apocalypseburg which is part of the The Lego Movie 2 set used and shares space with a Movie Store. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Creation Centre is currently closed.
caption: Creation Centre, 2007.
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