This weekend, we took parental sacrifice to a whole new level by taking four children; three of our own and a carefully chosen extra to Legoland in Windsor.

Dentistry is not a profession renowned for its corporate entertaining and unlike many of my friends who are wined and dined by clients, spending work time at sporting spectaculars on someone else’s pocket, there is rarely any perk other than the occasional free tube of toothpaste or a discounted electric toothbrush.

To our surprise, we had a freebie day courtesy of a dental insurance company; much to the disgust of some friends who rather bitterly remarked that at last they knew where their subscription fees were going.

Over the years, and the many hours spent visiting theme parks, we have become wise to the fact that you NEVER approach a day like this without a plan. All parents have spent hours on end standing in queues for rides that last two minutes and shelled out the cost of a week’s family holiday for the pleasure.

I was determined that we were going to buck this trend. And so it was with military precision that I awoke the troops at 06.30 hours for an early arrival – with hindsight, a rookie mistake.

Tired, already grumpy children waiting an hour for the gates to open was not one of my better plans.

During breakfast in the Legoland hotel; which resembles any generic mid-range hotel, with the occasional embellishment of primary coloured Lego blocks stuck randomly to the walls, we had time to study the map and plan the route around the park.

Given that our day was hosted by a dental company, trying to wrestle the free bags of Haribo sweets given to the children was something I hadn’t quite bargained for.

But hey; what the heck, it was Saturday and 8am after all.

Not being a great networker within my profession, a room full of dentists is a sight to behold.

More beige than you could shake a stick at, but thankfully not too much talk of gum disease and crowns.

At 9.30am when the gates opened we launched our carefully planned assault on the park and we were ready to shake off the dentists.

“Go go go, run as fast as you can, don’t stop until you reach the dragon rollercoaster” were my parting instructions to our sugar-fuelled troops.

The day was not so much about fun but beating the queues and ticking off some of the rides we couldn’t wait for on the previous five visits.

The dentist families were pretty easy to spot, they were the ones with kids pleading to be allowed ice cream instead of carrot sticks.

I had to Army roll my lot into the bushes to avoid them being spotted with a bucket of candy floss, as one particularly wholesome dentist family passed us in the queue for the Viking ride. By lunchtime, my plans had gone to pot and the usual hour-long queues had formed causing us to abandon the rides and aim to win a life size Minion soft toy.

“Just” knock three tin cans over for £5 to secure the totally useless bright yellow Despicable Me toy.

This was too much of a challenge for my husband to resist and in a display of dogged determination and stupidity, we became the proud owners of three 4ft toys to spend the rest of the day carrying for the princely sum of £40 – ignoring the fact that we could have bought them for half that price from Amazon.

But much as I hate to admit it, we had a blast.

There is unrivalled joy in watching children scream with happiness as they attack each other with high pressure water jets and I truly can’t remember the last time I enjoyed being plunged down a 45-degree incline in a log as much.

We left tired, happy and £40 lighter but with three extra members of the family – who as an added bonus can’t talk, argue or whinge.

Cheap at half the price I’d say.