Legoland
While Disney World is awesome, it’s not the only bit of fun in the Orlando area. So, Saturday we chose to leave Disney World for the day to try out a different park - Legoland. Since the girls love Legos so much, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check it out while in town.
To get there, we rented a car from the Car Care Center in Disney World using a deal from Undercover Tourist. They picked me up from our hotel and brought me to the center to get our car. When I told them I wasn’t interested in upgrading from our Economy (Kia Rio or similar) car, they told me they didn’t have any and gave me a lovely Jeep Patriot. We hopped in, and off we went, to be at the park when it opened.
We opted to pay $40 for their photo package, which turned out to be underwhelming compared to the Disney one. Oh, well - live and learn. All the pictures here with borders are from them.
Upon entering the park, one of the first things you see is the carousel. That’s right - they have a double-decker carousel where all the horses are giant Lego horses. We got in line right away and made sure to get a horse on the top level.
Then we wandered over to Heartlake City. The girls have long been fans of Lego Friends, and were excited to see that part of the park. Unfortunately, the only ride over there was not for us. Leah was not tall enough to ride it, and Molly knew she’d get sick if she tried it (as would Jen or I). So, we passed on it.
Instead of riding anything in Heartlake City, we decided to head toward a different ride. On the way there, we passed through Miniland. It had some of the most impressive Lego displays I’ve seen. Also, it had a small activity. They were creating a mural out of Legos. Each of us could take one square and build it with the provided Legos according to the pattern on the square.
Then we stuck our square on the giant board in its appropriate spot.
None of us knew what the final mural would look like, but it was fun to make anyway.
Next we made it to the ride that the girls had been looking forward to - Coastersaurus. This dinosaur-themed wooden roller coaster was right up our alley (now both my girls have developed a love for wooden roller coasters like mine). Leah rode with Jen and Molly rode with me. This coaster did have a couple of decent drops in it, but that didn’t scare Molly off.
Leah did not like it the first time around. But, she said she wanted to try it again. Jen and I figured she’d change her mind about doing it again, but she didn’t. There was absolutely no line, so we went back for more. This time Leah rode with me and Molly with Jen. Leah did great the second time - so well that she even lifted her arms after a bit (another first for her).
We then wandered over to my favorite part of the park - the Star Wars section. There were several life-size Lego builds of Star Wars characters, including R2-D2.
Molly was amazed at this Millennium Falcon, which was even lifted up and lit up in back.
There were several scenes from throughout the movies around the area, most of which had buttons you could push to make things happen (Luke climb up the cable under a walker, Obi-Wan and Anakin have a light saber battle, etc.).
Then we found a picnic table to eat our PB&J lunch. We planned to go on the Project X ride after we finished eating, as it was near our picnic table and looked like fun. Sadly, that’s when it started to rain. And shortly after it started to rain, we heard them stop Project X due to the rain. They actually shut down many of the rides due to the rain (maybe they were afraid of lightning, but I never saw any). So, we had to find other things to do.
First we headed to see the ‘Friends to the Rescue’ Live Stage Show, with fun singing and dancing. It contained lots of songs the girls knew from watching the TV show. It seemed geared towards kids a bit younger than ours, but the girls enjoyed it anyway.
After that, we wandered through a bunch of the shops. Surprisingly, they sell a lot of Legos at Legoland. We saw sets we’d never seen before from lots of different lines, including the giant crazy expensive ones. We gave the girls a budget and they looked for what the could get within it. No buying yet, but just making a list. While browsing the Heartlake Mall, the girls sat down with some life-size Lego Friends.
Then we headed over to the Lost Kingdom Adventure ride, where we got to ride through and shoot things. It was lots of fun. Leah didn’t quite get the hang of it the first time through, so we hopped back in the short line and did it again. I gave her a little help the second time around.
Then we headed to the Pirates’ Cove Live Water Ski Show. Yes, that’s right - Legoland has a live water ski show. We couldn’t believe it, and we certainly weren’t going to miss it. The stadium for it was covered as well, which kept us out of the rain (though the rain was slow at that time).
The show was lots of fun, if a little silly. It was certainly the first time I’d ever seen life-size Lego minifigs water skiing.
After the show, the rain gave us a brief reprieve. Leah wasn’t interested, but Molly wanted to try out the Kid Power Towers. Since Jen handles heights better than me, she and Molly pulled themselves up to new heights.
Next we wandered into Build & Test. This is the most interactive part of Legoland when it comes to building things. They even had Lego Mindstorms (programmable robots, like what Molly and I did after school), but you had to sign up for a 45 minute class in future time slots which was more than the girls were up for. But they also had cars that kids could build and race.
The girls had fun with this, though they were tired by this point. When Leah’s car crashed and broke into pieces, and another girl picked up some of the pieces, she had the only meltdown of the trip. But after a bit she cheered back up.
We then watched the only remaining show - The Lego Movie 4D: A New Adventure.
After the movie, I wanted a snack. They have a very unique one - Apple Fries. These are Granny Smith apples, sliced up like french fries, dredged in sugar and cinnamon, fried, and served with whip cream and caramel to dip in. Yum! Jen and I both thought they were great. The girls thought they were weird.
Then the girls got to do what they’d wanted to do the entire day - buy some Legos. First, Molly built and purchased 3 minifigs at the Minifigure Market.
Then, Leah bought the Olivia’s Exploration Car (with telescope and robot) as well as the Disney Palace Pets Daisy’s Beauty Salon set from the Heartlake Mall. And last, Molly bought Rey’s Speeder (our first Star Wars Lego set) from the Studio Store. (pictures below are from after we returned; the girls built them the morning after we got back home).
Then we headed toward the exit, stopped by the photo place to finish out our photo package (yes, you need to do this), and hit the road. We stopped at Publix to get a bit more cereal for breakfast, then stopped for dinner at Zaxby’s (hooray!) (yes, I love Zaxby’s).
Then drove the 45 minutes back to our hotel in Disney World, where I dropped the ladies off.
Because it was after hours at that point, I couldn’t return the car to the center. Fortunately, there was an alternative. After stopping off at a gas station in Disney World, I dropped it off at the Dolphin hotel (which is so fancy it handles rentals at the hotel). Then, to get home, I took a bus from the Dolphin to Magic Kingdom, and then a bus from Magic Kingdom to our hotel. Finally, time to rest. It was a good thing as well, since we had to up very early the next morning to make sure we got a spot in the most important event of the trip, but I’ll tell you more about that later.
