We headed down to Legoland for the first time today, as part of Niall's birthday (he skipped having a birthday party to do this). I had a hard time finding good, solid info ahead of time, so I was really worried about how it would go, but it turned out awesome.
We got there a little late. We were just getting out of the car at 10am, and we had to stop to pick up our homeschool tickets (an amazing deal, btw, if you homeschool). We were going to do Lego City (Driving School and Boating School - Flying School was closed), but the maps suck and by the time we found ourselves in the Technic area, we decided to just do those rides instead of doubling back. We rode Project X twice (walk-on both times), Wave Racers twice (didn't even get off the after the first time), and only waited through one cycle for Technicycle.
Then we went into Lego City (oh, after stopping to buy flip flops for my Fiona, as hers broke). It was probably close to 11 by that point. There was no wait for Boat School or the Jr Driving School, but we did have to wait about 10 minutes for Driving School. Rescue Academy was the first ride we weren't too thrilled with (though it was a walk-on, at least). Way too much work for just a simple ride!
The Jr Driving School was too hard for the littles, and the regular one was too boring for the big kids, so we'd probably skip those again.
We went into Land of Adventure next, and rode Coastersaurus, Safari Trek, and Lost Kingdom Adventure (skipped Beetle Bounce). Fiona was really scared about riding Coastersaurus, but went on anyway and did great. I will note that as a bigger woman, Coastersaurus was uncomfortable and my husband had to actually help push in the restraint enough for it to unlatch when the ride was over. Super embarrassing, and made me appreciate Disney all the more. The kids also played in Pharaoh's Revenge and had an awesome time. The only thing we had to wait for was Safari Trek because it loads so slow, but that was only about 5-10 minutes.
We got food at Castle Burger. OMG, is the food there overpriced.. even moreso than Disney. We read up beforehand and saw that you can bring snacks into the park, so we brought a small cooler with Gogurts, cheese sticks, and granola bars to cut back on our food spending.
After eating, we rode the Royal Joust, played at the Forestmen's Hideout, then rode The Dragon (Fiona and I skipped it), and Merlin's Challenge. The Dragon was the only ride that had a wait - maybe 10-15 minutes. After that, Doug took the big kids to do Quest for Chi while I took the littles to Duplo Valley. They still play with Duplo a lot, in addition to regular Legos, so my littles LOVED Duplo Valley. We rode the train, played in the barn (oversized Duplo stuff to climb on/play in), and rode the tractors.
My boys showed up part-way through, completely drenched. They wanted to ride Quest for Chi again, but Doug didn't, so we sent them off on their own. We took the littles over to the splash pad and THEY got drenched, while the big kids rode the Chima ride four more times. At least one or two of the rides, they were the only people in their boat. We spent about 10 minutes in the big store on the way out, and were back in our car around 4:40.
So.. we skipped most of Miniland, though we saw it a bit while walking through. We also didn't do any of the shows or other non-ride attractions, and we skipped Flying School (it was closed), the carousel, Beetle Bounce, and Island in the Sky. We didn't even go into the Imagination Zone. However, all they wanted to do was ride rides (and play at two of the playgrounds), and they got to ride several of them multiple times. Since we're local, we'll be able to go back and check out the other stuff another time, especially with that homeschool discount.
But I can't imagine doing everything in the park in a single day. However, if you've got bigger kids, you could easily skip the younger stuff to make room for the shows and Mindstorms thing.. and if you've got littles, you'll have plenty of time to do the stuff geared toward them. Trying to fit every single thing in one day, especially if you go on a busy day, seems too stressful to me. We had an awesome time, though.. got lots of stuff done without rushing, and spent very, very little time waiting in line.
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