One of my favorite Legoland rides was this little fairy tale boat ride. You got to ride around in a cute leaf boat and see different fairy tale scenes made out of Legos.
Emma liked it until we went into the Cave of Wonder with Aladdin. That was a little too scary for her. There was also a fun dinosaur rollercoaster (and right next to it a sand dinosaur dig play place for smaller kids) and an animal safari ride where you right around in a little car and see animals, like the ones you might see on safari, made out of Legos. It was cute.
Another fun boat ride took us around to some different Lego landmarks
The Taj Mahal (or Taj Ma-Small)
Eiffel Tower
Big Ben and the London Eye
Mount Rushmore
New York skyline
It did rain on us a few time and got a little cold and windy at times. During some of the rain we went inside to watch the Lego 4D movie. One showing of the movie was Lego Ninjago themed and the other was Lego Movie themed. It was one of those shows where you get squirted with water or they have bubbles come down and different times. Lots of fun and kept us warm.
We also checked out the Lego video games for a little bit
In the middle of the park is Lego Miniland USA. They have recreated a bunch of American cities out of Legos. It was so cool and the detail that went into it was just amazing. I think this was part of New Orleans that they were looking at. They had a little Bourbon Street with a lot of the old New Orleans homes and even a little Jazz Funeral.
Here's little Bourbon Street with a Mardi Gras parade in progress
Washington DC
Las Vegas. They had a lot of the Las Vegas casinos in amazing detail. There were even little cars driving around in some of them. It was so fun to look at all the little details.
Stratosphere Las Vegas
Part of NYC
Sadly Southern California was under construction and walled off with barricades...which caused us a bit of a problem later.
Lombard Street - San Francisco
Ghirardelli Square - San Francisco
Little Northern California rodeo in historic Ferndale, California. Why they chose to immortalize that town with Legos, I don't know.
It was around this time that we realized John was no longer with us. He had been with us looking at Ghirardelli Square which was only a few feet away but was now gone. We later found out he had wandered back towards Southern California and gone out of view behind the construction barricades where he couldn't see us and we couldn't see him. So he just kept walking in the wrong direction until he found a grandma and a mom who helped him get with a park employee. Scott and I spent about half an hour looking for him. Finally I found a park employee who had seen him and radio-ed to the other employee to bring him over. John was very sad - he hugged me and wouldn't let go - and the mom and grandma who had been helping him were very glad they found us. We were reunited by the Lego Star Wars displays so now those will always remind me of losing and finding John. Poor John!!
Back together again. Phew!
We went and had lunch after that to regroup.
They did have lots of cool Star Wars displays
I liked this one where the walls of the trash compactor room actually move in while they play the dialogue from the movie. Lots of fun.
Grant with the gold Lego man.
We also went to the Lego Aquarium, which was fun and worthwhile but only took about an hour or so to get through.
Jellyfish
Touch tank
Still lots of Lego creations throughout
Lego scuba diver
Matthew nearly got eaten by a shark.
One of Legoland Aquarium mascots was Magnus the Shark.
We thought of our nephew Magnus - I'm sure he would love coming here
Despite kind of chilly evening temperatures the kids wanted to swim in the hotel pool. Three nights we stayed in Grand Pacific Palisades Hotel right next to Legoland. It was really nice and reasonably priced. I recommend it. You can walk to Legoland. They didn't have a room for the last night so we stayed somewhere else. Here we are at the Grand Pacific Palisades pool.
On our last night we stayed at Homewood Suites. Not walkable to Legoland but still good. We mostly stayed in the hot tub which we had all to ourselves. The next morning (after three days at Legoland) we drive back north to home. It was a fun and busy trip. Now back to our usual routine!
