A couple of weeks ago J and her Girl Scout troop went to
Legoland CA. She had gone once when she was about four but this would be Max’s
first visit (16 at months old).
What I love about this theme park is that we rarely heard
whining about how long the lines were, and we had about 12 kids under the age
of 9 (not including the babies in our group)! The park wasn't overly crowded
but as many schools have been slowly closing out their school year it definitely
wasn't a “slow” day. One of the main contributors of happy kids in line was
that there were Lego play areas in the middle of where the line snaked around.
Kids could enjoy building models while parents made their way thru the bulk of
the line, and one could easily keep an eye on the kiddos. This allowed the grownups to
engage in conversations or enjoy the intercut scenery with minimal “I’m bored”
comments from the peanut gallery.
In every themed area there is also a play yard of some sort
where children are encouraged to explore and burn off some of that energy. One
of our group’s favorite was the Pharaoh’s Revenge, where kids could shoot foam
balls out of cannons and climb around the hut. Caution it gets loud in there, so
if you are sensitive to loud booms and shrieks keep an eye from outside.
Juliana and her friends had a blast running from one ride to
the other, many times without needing an adult/ older sibling rider. This park
is really geared towards the 6-12 age group or those who are really fascinated
with Legos.
I remembered when we came with Juliana at age 3 ½-4 she was
very limited on what she could ride based on height and age requirements. We
encountered this same issue with Max, there wasn’t much all inclusive family
friendly rides. Below are the rides and my 3 star rating on how family friendly
and inclusive they are for ALL members of the family.
***LEGOLAND Express- Fun Town
***Fairy Tale Brook- Explorer
Island
***Coast Cruise- Miniland USA
**Mia’s Riding Camp- (stand next
to your little rider)- Heartlake City
*Cargo Ace- (not all adults will
be able to fit alongside of their little flyer)- Land of Adventure
As you can see out of the whole park there was only 5 rides
spread out far and wide that Max could enjoy.Wwe relied heavily on the play
areas to keep him entertained while everyone else was on the other rides.
This visit we stopped at the Knights Smokehouse, members of
our group had the chicken tenders, pulled pork, beef brisket and ribs. Everyone
said that the food was tasty, although one said that their German salad was
WAAY to sour to be enjoyable so be warned.
While you are there you must try their Apple Fries! Yumm they coast around $5 and make a tasty treat.
There was an incident in which we spoke to management
about- more on that later, but we had that conversation away from the kids and
all in all they had a marvelous day!
