'I was stunned by what I saw in the queue at a busy theme park - it's so wrong'

One mum saw a few things happen in the queue at Legoland that she just couldn't handle

When Dianne Bourne took her boys to the Legoland Resort on a rare sunny Sunday, she knew that there would be queues.

But the reporter was not expecting to find "queues upon queues upon queues" as she headed into the Windsor resort with her two young children for a weekend birthday treat. She said that "many rides had a wait time of over 80 minutes when we got there, so when we found one with a relatively short 40-minute wait we decided to take the plunge and start our day of queuing there."

But what was about to unfold left the mum stunned, reports the Manchester Evening News.

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There are certain unwritten rules when it comes to being British and queueing. Parents with younger kids know that there are going to be occasions when mums/dads/carers will have to leave the queue for an unplanned toilet break with their little 'un.

Dianne said: "In my experience, it's kind of a given that people in the queue respectfully allow them to jostle back through to return with said kid to wherever the rest of their family are stood."

But what about when it's adults? She continued: "To be fair, if someone says to me 'I'm just heading back to meet my friends' I always let them through as well and also give the benefit of the doubt that they must have needed a toilet break too. So it's fair to say my jaw did an actual drop when this very situation arose, in the very queue I was in."

Explaining the story, she explained: "Two adults politely made their way through the queue, explaining every so often with an apologetic 'we're meeting our friends'. That is, until they encountered a woman who REFUSED to budge.

"'No, I'm sorry you're going to have to go and queue like the rest of us have had to do,' she firmly stated."

Dianne was utterly gobsmacked. Standing her ground, the woman simply turned her back on them and left the pair stuck mid-queue, several people shy from their mates who were nearly set to board the ride by this time.

She added: "The couple beat a small retreat, but fellow queuers they'd bypassed said they didn't mind them sticking around. This led to an awkward wait for everyone else, all bracing to see if tensions would escalate between the determined woman and the interrupted queue returnees."

Thankfully, it didn't kick off, and the couple simply accepted their fate mid-queue. Their friends, however, did the respectful thing, and left their place further up the queue to rejoin their pals nearer the back.

Was she right to not let them pass? Dianne said: "I wondered how things like this are dealt with if it DOES get a bit hairy in the queue as there was literally no one managing the queues from the theme park itself, you're all just herded up and left to wait and expected to play nice together with a bunch of strangers."

While all this drama was unfolding, another woman joined the queue behind Dianne and loudly told those all around her that "Just so you know, I'm waiting for five of my family to come in". It appears that this strategy at least enabled her to get the tacit approval of those all around her in the queue.

Dianne continued: "As we got closer and closer to getting to the ride though, I couldn't help but notice that her friends hadn't arrived. She started looking nervously around, and of course then the phone calls started, trying to get in touch with her missing family members.

"It became perfectly clear as she got to the front of the queue that her family were STILL not ready to join her, presumably they were lost somewhere in the sprawling theme park. It meant she then had to forfeit her place, that she'd waited in for the past 40-odd minutes, while she rang her friends again to try and locate them."

Dianne wondered what the point of that was when she could have spent that time just getting herself a nice hot drink or an ice cream sundae instead.

In conclusion, Dianne said: "I get that queues are a frustrating business at theme parks, but surely it's better to just stick together with whoever you're with and try and make your own entertainment in the queue instead of making one poor soul wait for the rest of you. And potentially face the wrath of the crowds.

"It also made me wonder where all this 'saving a place for my friends' business falls under the terms and conditions of entry."

If you look at the small print when purchasing tickets to any Merlin Attraction (like Legoland, Alton Towers, Chessington and Thorpe Park), it expressly states that management "reserve the right to remove from the attraction anyone who queue jumps at the rides or Attraction without an authorised fast access."