Review: Adventures at LEGOLAND Florida!

I love theme parks so much. Living in Florida, we have passes at a few of them and, I think you’ll agree with me here, a day at a theme park with children is a true endurance event. What with the holding of tired children and the pushing of a double stroller and the marathon eating like you are Kobiyashi, and the walking, my God the walking. 

The thing is, even despite some of the challenges, theme parks are magical! And those little faces that light up with glee are so very, very worth all of the sweating!

We spent the day out at LEGOLAND Florida the weekend right after the last day of school. My kids are Lego fanatics right now so it was a nice way to celebrate the start of summer. It also just happened to be our first theme park outing since my surgery and the first time I walked for any real amount of time in oh, about 6 weeks.

He’s happy on the inside.

After we played around in the front of the park for a while, we went in and rented a double stroller ($14. Not bad! The single is $9.). We have a Sit & Stand but it’s a really old model and doesn’t corner well (or maneuver at all, really) and the park strollers are usually just way more efficient for us and yes, we still use them for our boys 4 & 6. (They still get tired from the long day’s walk and to be honest, I aint carrying them! Well I can’t anyway, right now…)

And because we moms know in our heads the times in which our little bundles of love are at their best (and worst) we tend to look at the map and then mentally  formulate then a loose plan of what to do and when, keeping in mind various important factors such as the vicinity to places to eat and rest rooms. We started at the carousel at the front of the park which is always a winner.

Glee!

We made our way through MiniLand USA, which is a giant mecca of Lego cities. I mean, seriously it’s amazing. There was the Daytona Speedway…

Those look like real people down there, don’t they?

Tampa…

Kennedy Space Center… (keep in mind THIS IS ALL LEGOS! I can’t even build a Lego car accurately…)

LEGOS! Can you believe it? Seriously so cool.

Little Havana in Miami…

It was so lifelike, these little cities.

New York City…

VEGAS, BABY.

We ran that overpass when we went to Vegas last… it was much bigger but still.

It was unreal. Some of the displays are interactive and you can squirt water from them or race the cars by pressing the buttons and there are people in Little Havana who dance. It was so cool that I could picture all the Lego peoples coming to life at night when everyone leaves the park. (What a great movie idea!)

I took so many more pictures than this that it was hard to whittle them down (not pictured: Washington, DC, California, and so.much.more.) so I am adding them to my Flickr page if you want to check it out.

The kids were pretty overwhelmed by all this awesomeness and it was already starting to hit noon so we headed off for lunch. We passed up the pizza buffet which was actually really reasonably priced ($10.99 adults and $6.99 for kids). Unfortunately I was the only one who wanted pizza buffet, can you believe that? Instead we headed here:

A quick place to eat which had really healthy options: sandwiches and fruit and lots of water. Also, the ingredients for some of the food was locally grown. PRETTY COOL! (Also it was right near the pirate show, which was next on the agenda.)

The meals were reasonably priced! Less than $10 a person isn’t bad at a theme park if you ask me! They were mostly pre-packaged sandwiches and salads, but there were plenty of other options too like a burger joint near the pirates and barbecue near the rides. There’s lots of dining options.

Then we wandered around by where the old Cypress Gardens had its famous waterskiing show and they still do now, even, LEGOLAND style! Over at Pirates’ Cove.

All about waterskiing Lego pirates. TOTALLY up our alley.

We’re sooo into pirates right now so YES! That’s awesome.

The Battle for Brickbeard’s Bounty was one in which you might get wet and the kids didn’t want to sit in the splash zone. What kind of hoo-ha is that???? Do you know any kid who DOESN’T want to sit in the splash zone??? I ALWAYS wanted to sit in the splash zone but my parents never wanted to. So I made us sit in the splash zone.

We got splashed.

It was fun though and they had a blast. The show was really cool and full of lots of pirate water-skiing and jet skiing trickery.

After the show was over, we hung out with the pirates.

Then we headed off toward some rides.

We stood in line for the Lego boat ride, which was really cute. And look at this! A little cordoned off place for your kids to play while you’re waiting in line, how cool is that?!

Of course for some reason my kids wanted to be with me with one of them putting their mouth on the railing instead (hooray!) I didn’t get a picture of that, I was busy freaking out.

The boat ride was really fun, the kids got to drive them.

After that, we sunscreened up (bad mommy! I had forgotten! Don’t forget the sunscreen, even though there’s lots of shade at the park, there’s LOTS of sun!)

We headed off toward the Lego Firetruck races where we were miserably last in the race (sorry honey), he had to do both our work in making the firetruck go and at the end the LEGOLAND crew had to push us. Ha! Then it was snack time!

2 p.m. is our ice cream break at any theme park ever.

Mmmmmmm.

We couldn’t pass up this cute little ice cream shack called “Sunny’s” and these delicious cones with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and caramel!!!!!!!! (Which is what I had.)

After ice cream, we got our second wind and headed off to play some more. We found this. Which is mostly the nice shady break for moms and dads (to text and Facebook) while the kids go play.

It’s like a giant medieval tree house with a giant slide.

Mid Air!

There is only one way out and in, hurrah! I was sure to check this since we had “lost” someone, oh, twice now on account of double entrance/exits. (My wish is that one day every play area would JUST HAVE ONE IN AND ONE OUT!)

This one did.

We left and went on more rides including the Lego train, which was really fun and really fast. And then we went on Lego safari.

He’s so life-like!

This was really cool, we were in a little zebra train in the middle of a tiny Lego zoo.

No! Don’t eat us!

There were quite a few bigger kid rides, but they weren’t up for that yet…

(I was but I’ll have to do it next time.)

It was starting to get toward that late afternoonish and with a little over an hour drive back, it was time to head out. But not before we hit up one more show, a 3D Lego movie in a nice and cold and air-conditioned theater. And afterward I made a Lego friend.

He was sleeping already so I don’t think he noticed us.

Then of course we hit up the gift shop, where we got (of course) more Legos and a stuffed Lego Man that my four year old couldn’t wait to “introduce to all his stuffed friends” at home.

We really did have a blast there. It was perfect for their ages and it’s fun for the bigger kids too. I mean, who doesn’t love Legos?!

Someone couldn’t quite make it to the car on his own…

I felt pretty fantastic myself.

If I thought they loved Legos before, this trip to LEGOLAND certainly catapulted their love way into the beyond, they can’t get enough of them now.

Here’s some more quick facts about the park:

• The toilets are not automatic. This may not matter to you, but my kids tend to be scared of the automatic flushing on account of it’s so loud and unpredictable like a jack-in-the-box and it took my six-year-old a year to get over this fear, which was disastrous in other parks.
• Free pads and tampons! I didn’t happen to need any but there they were in the ladies restroom! So nice, Legoland. So nice.
• MiniLand USA has over 30 million Lego bricks in it.
• It took over 100 Master Model Builders from all over the world two years to build it. Wow.
• LEGOLAND’s summer park hours are from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Park costs $75 for adults, $65 for kids 3 & up
• Parking costs $12
• Check out the rest of my LEGOLand Florida photos at my Flickr page!

 By the way, there’s a special going on right now too!

For the next six weeks only, Florida residents can get an unlimited, 12 month Premium Pass to LEGOLAND Florida and the all-new LEGOLAND Water Park for just $159 plus tax, which includes all their events for the holidays, including 4th of July, Christmas, etc. It also includes parking and meal discounts. If you go just twice, the pass pays for itself.

Also: the new LEGOLAND Water Park just opened up and families can now get $10 off a single day combo ticket to both parks. The special is good through October 28th and is available only at www.LEGOLANDFlorida.com.

We loved LEGOLAND Florida. Have you been before? What were your favorite things about it and do you have any tips or tricks for other visitors??

Disclosure: I received three tickets to LEGOLAND Florida for review purposes. The opinions expressed are my own.

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