We have been to Legoland twice, and stayed in the Legoland hotel once. We have 3 boys, ages 4, 7 and 10...all obsessed with Lego...you can just imagine the amount of Lego my house has! First time we went, baby was in a stroller, and the Chima section was the bomb - the water blasting ride was a hoot. I waited near the stroller while my older two went through the boat ride with DH - I got to soak them, they got to soak me, it was fantastic. There used to be a Chima race section, but it wasn't there on our second visit. There was a wait for the driving school, so we remembered on our second trip a couple of years later when baby was 3 to go straight to the driving school.
On our first visit, it was late January/early February. There were some lines for some of the rides (the jousting one is really slow), but most were decent. It was freakin' hot, the minisection HAS NO SHADE be warned do not leave this until late in the day, you will be pooped. Last time we went...it was in the December just before the Ninjago section was going to open (my kids made us promise we'd be back!) The rides were all walk on, there just weren't any crowds, it was fabulous, sometimes they'd just let us re-ride stuff 5 times in a row (until I cried uncle at a roller coster and wanted off!!!). They had a giant Lego Christmas tree! The kids had an absolute blast everywhere. It's really geared for their age range. I asked my kids on our upcoming
Disney cruise trip March 1st if they wanted to do another few days at WDW before or after, and they said no, they wanted to go back to Legoland! Yup, it was that great for them.
Of course...last time we stayed at the Legoland hotel, which wasn't open the first time we visited. We received a great deal, as early December was low season I guess. Well, let me say that the theming in the hotel is fabulous. The lobby has a gazillion minifigures behind the front desk, there are giant vats of lego for kids to build with (or swim in, like my 4 year old did), a giant lego structure (I want to say pirate ship, but it might have been a castle), they have nightly entertainment for the kids and build competitions (my eldest won!), and a large bar area next to the play area for the adults to lounge in, lol. The restaurant was massive, and the breakfast buffet was awesome, really great as you'd spend the rest of the day walking in the heat. The dinner buffet was also great - lots of things my picky kids ate, which was great. I think we had reserved the times for dinner, and lucky we did as it got pretty packed as everyone let out of the parks pretty much at the same time. There was an area where you could have a master builder session (and keep the build) - you had to sign up for it, but the times weren't convenient so we missed ours as we were having too much of a blast in the hotel pool. Which was awesome! Full of floating lego. And we saw characters come o
ut to visit by the pool - Captain Brickbeard came by to say hello, and Emmett too. Not sure how many in the pool were Canadians like us, but the water was heated and we weren't alone, lol.
the rooms are veery nicely themed, once my husband had covered the huge friggin' lego spider with a towel. We stayed in the Kingdom series of rooms. Rooms come with bunkbeds, with a trundle bed coming out of the bottom, so all 3 of my kids were in heaven. Ithink I even remember a tv in their section, but I might be confusing it with another hotel. Plenty of storage space. There is a safe in the room, and the kids have to solve a puzzle to unlock it to get a lego surprise for each. Lots of cool lego models in the room (and they mark the price down in case they "disappear", lol). The little gift shop inthe lobby was pretty lame, compared to the parks of course, but it had sunscreen, towels, a few swimsuits, in case you forgot yours. Being a hotel guest gave you the parking which was great. And the early park entrance and separate line was fantastic. WE really took advantage of it, and scheduled some of our stuff so we'd do the wet rides (like the Chima boat ride again) just before we'd head back to dry off, then go back in. It was literally 120 kid steps from the hotel front door to being inside Legoland, enough said. We never did the water park, not our cup of tea and impossible with the ages we had in the past. Best part of the hotel according to my kids? THE DISCO ELEVATOR!!! Yes, as son as the doors of the elevator close, a disco ball with lights and music activates, very cheesy disco music but the kids went nuts every time. I think we rode the elevator for a good half hour, just because it was so fun. Yeah, that trip was hard to beat. It was almost perfect, except for the giant signs saying "Ninjago coming soon" in the park, lol. We did all of the rides as we had 2 days. We did the play areas, the discovery areas, but we didn't do the movie as we have a Legoland discovery center in Toronto and we'd seen all the movies already. The skies opened once on us, but we were in the store on our way out already, so we didn't see anything shut down really.
So in 6 weeks, we are going back. This time, we will be staying in the Legoland Beach Retreat bungalows for 3 nights right after getting off the Disney ship (and visiting Kennedy Space Center during the day). I think the restaurant is different at the beach retreat, as dinner isn't a buffet but we could pre-order food. Anyways, these hotels are crazy expensive, and we didn't get the great deal we got the first time, but for March break timeframe it's still way cheaper than Disney, so it's all perspective I guess. It was still cheaper than renting a two bedroom condo, so there is that.
