Legoland: The DadCentric Review
Conundrum: what does one do when nice marketing folks offer you a day at a big amusement park, complete with a behind the scenes tour AND a free breakfast, in the hopes that you'll write nice things about their park on your blog...and you really don't have a whole lot of nice things to say about the big amusement park, and you feel sorta bad about that?
You hold your nose and write on.
Friday we got the VIP treatment at Legoland. Backstory: we live about 10 miles away from Legoland, and prior to Friday we'd never been. Simple logic behind that, really: Lucas is Spacially Aware, and having a big amusement park ten minutes from one's house means "Can we go to Legoland? Can we go to Legoland? Can we go to Legoland?" on a daily basis. My friend and UpTake colleague Kim Prince did some wheeling and dealing, and lo, there we were, with a few other bloggers at the Legoland entrance, bright and early, ready to partake in some Danish plastic brick-themed excitement.
We began with a tour of Legoland's latest "addition" (explanation of quotes to follow), the Sea Life Aquarium. Dirk, Assistant Curator, gave us the lowdown on the facility - its history, number and variety of species, and how the aquarists feed and care for all of the fish. Lucas and Zoe ate it up - honed by years of listening to his ex-SeaWorld Tour Guide parents drone on and on about marine life, Lucas asked Dirk a few questions about the fish - questions that revolved around which species was more likely to eat the other. Zoe simply wandered around saying "Wow! Wow!" The aquarium was actually pretty great - unlike most of the aquatic displays at SeaWorld (again, I speak from an insider's perspective), the place was built to accommodate young visitors - viewing areas are placed at kid's-eye level, as are the graphics and displays. There's lots of hands-on activities, and there are Sea Life staffers available to help the kids with their questions. It's worth the extra money you'll spend on the admission ticket (hence the "addition" - the Sea Life Aquarium is attached to Legoland, but there's an additional charge of $10 per person to enter if you buy the "Hopper" pass).
Following breakfast, we were on our own. We explored Legoland proper, free of our Lego PR/Marketing escorts (who were incredibly gracious and polite, which is why it sorta pains me to write the following).
One has preconceived notions about what one will encounter at a park named "Legoland". Namely, lots of Legos. It came as a bit of a surprise that, all things considered, Legoland wasn't Lego-y enough for my tastes. In fact, the whole place struck me as a bit generic - I was reminded of trips down the Target toy aisles, where on the one side you'll see, say, G.I. Joe toys, and on the other, you'll see the lower-priced, lead-tainted Army-Man John stuff. Legoland definitely falls in that latter category, a bit of a knockoff version of it's mouse-earred competitor.
We started off at the area for which the park is most famous - Miniland USA, where one walks through Lego versions of some of America's most famous cities. Lucas is a Legophile (two large plastic crates of Legos and counting), so he dug it; in fact, apart from the rollercoasters, this was his favorite section of the park. I thought it was pretty cool - the details are pretty impressive (although I did not spot little Lego FEMA officials wandering through the streets of Lego New Orleans, nor did I see Lego muggers and Lego crack dealers in Lego Times Square), but I was struck by the fact that everything looked dirty and sun-faded (which was actually a recurring sight throughout the park; lots of cobwebs and peeling paint on the buildings and attractions). And the Miniland area seemed relatively small in comparison to the other sections of the park.
From there, we wandered around to the other sections of the park. There was Fantasyland Castle Hill, which features The Dragon, a kid-sized roller coaster that Lucas and I both liked. There was Adventureland Land of Adventure, which features Lost Kingdom Adventure - a mashup of Disneyland's Indiana Jones and Buzz Lightyear rides, in which guests ride on jeeps and shoot at targets with a Lazer Tag pistol. Lucas liked that as well. Fun Town was a bit of a hit as well, thanks to the Volvo Driving School - here Legoland clearly trumps Disney's Autopia; the cars are not on tracks, and the kiddies have full control over steering - they actually get to drive the car. Lucas really dug that as well.
One of the hardest aspects of reviewing stuff aimed at kids is that you see the product through the eyes of an adult. Adults will likely find Legoland boring, even taxing; there's simply very little for grownups to do here, even those who are Ironostalgic (Ironostalgia: the term for why we grownups have a good time at Disney parks). I'd venture to guess that kids over the age of 8 will find it somewhat dull as well. Lucas had an OK time. But for the most part, he was surprisingly unenthusiastic about the park. (As for Zoe - well, she's 20 months old, and seemed to just enjoy the sights and sounds; good thing, since we found that there were very few rides that she was able to go on - the height requirements seem to be a bit restrictive, with most requiring that kids be at least 34" tall.) It might have been due to the weather - it was unusually hot (parents, be aware that drinking fountains are hard to find, as are places to sit and rest). But as I said, it didn't give off a Lego-immersive vibe, and I think that the kid picked up on that. The rides and attractions seemed like they came off a state fair assembly line (one of the newest attractions, Dune Raiders, is little more than a dressed-up racing slide that one might find at the local carnival), with a few Lego models thrown in, almost as an afterthought. I think Lucas expected EVERYTHING to look as if it were made of Legos. I think he expected something...cooler, as a five year old boy might say.
Will we go back? I'm not sure I'd spend the money - for admission and parking, it would have cost us $227; add to that the costs of food, drinks, and snacks, and we'd be looking at a $300+ dollar day. Would I recommend it to others? If you're visiting San Diego and aren't too concerned about costs, sure, why not. The kids might enjoy themselves. Just be warned: if you're like me, and your son loooooooves his Star Wars Legos, stay clear of Legoland's big Lego shop, because they have plenty of these in stock.
