My boys have always loved playing with Lego's, Duplo's, and Bionicles. And it became an obsession when Star Wars, Harry Potter and Cars were added to the mix!! So when we decided to go to California I knew that a trip to Legoland's amusement park was a must do!
We decided to go for one full day... it was only a 30 minute drive to Carlsbad from our condo in Coronado. The excitement grew as we pulled into the parking lot and the line to enter the park wasn't very bad at all.
To describe the park in one word it would be charming. The park is well maintained and clean. The park map you get when entering the park shows the different theme areas to visit like Star Wars, Dino Island, Imagination Zone, Knights Kingdom, and Fun Town. There were smaller rides for Landon and bigger rides for Ayden and Jackson but the lines were a joke... shorter than Disneyland but took twice as long. Even Landon was frustrated at having to wait sooooo long. and let's not forget how rude the staff was, it was apparent that they didn't enjoy being there... it made us all uncomfortable!!
Each Lego theme area has its own unique rides, games or attractions except for Star Wars... it was strictly viewing Star Wars Lego sculptures. To be honest there was really nothing "special" about each of the areas. Knight's Kingdom had a small playground area that the boys could run around in but it was small and they were bored quickly. Jackson and Ayden went on Knights' Tournament that utilizes a robotic arm to twist, swoop and dive with two people strapped in to side by side chairs. They loved that ride the best even though it was a long wait for a very short ride.
The boys cold have spent all day just looking at the Star Wars mini sculptures, I think we spent 3-4 hours looking at the diffrent scenes... Jackson was in Heaven!! They had created something from each movie and they are opening a new section, we peeked through the tarp and it was cool... I think that was the best part of Legoland, watching my boys marvel at the Star Wars creations!!
There is a water park and SEA LIFE Aquarium but we only did the main park on our visit. The boys built Lego cars and tested them on the Lego race track. And we all enjoyed Mini Land which shows some incredible miniature replica's of famous cities, regions and landmarks made out of what else but-Lego's! We ate lunch and had a few snacks in the park, it was nothing special.
Unfortunately you cannot bring any food from the outside in to the park, but the food choices seemed ok and aren't too overpriced for an amusement park. We had lunch at the Garden Resturant and had sandwhiches that were dried out :( We also had Granny's Apple fries that are Granny Smith apples, dusted in cinnamon sugar and served with a vanilla cream dipping sauce, I think they were the best thing we atee in the park!
All in all I would say it was a entertaining day but for us there was nothing that we would go back to see or do and there was no "magic" in the park and personally I would have rather spent my time and $$$ going to Disneyland *LOL*
