A couple of years ago, Ryley’s Girl Scout leader was taking her kids to Orlando just to go to LegoLand. I hadn’t heard of it before, but it was intriguing since our little family unit is pretty much obsessed with Legos.
Legos are what our engineer-minded daughter wants for every birthday and Christmas. She has a little Lego village mapped out in a spare room in our home, and Ryan and I are not beyond plopping down on the floor to build with her every now and then. You know that tinkling high-pitched sound of the plastic blocks knocking together as you dig through a bucket trying to locate that perfect piece? Pure bliss. ;-)
So when we decided to go to DisneyWorld, we carved out a day in our itinerary to hit LegoLand, too. We had read mixed reviews, so we weren’t sure what we’d find!
We teased Ryley that all the rides were actually made of Legos that were glued together. That caused a furrowed brow of concern. But for all we knew, that could have been the truth!
There were cute and impressive Lego models all over the grounds. And we loved the double-decker carousel with Lego horses!!!
The park is quite big, and we weren’t really following a map at first, so we were amazed when we rounded the bend and found ourselves in this courtyard filled with Lego models of famous places.
They had the Daytona 500. The bleachers of individually constructed people were amazing!
The Kennedy Space Center…
Miami Beach…
Vegas…
These poor people who, sadly, didn’t quite make it to the water stand in the desert…
The White House, with the First Family standing on the porch…
Washington, D.C…
New York City…
San Francisco…
It was all very overwhelming and inspiring. They were incredible models, and we spent a long time there before I finally realized I was getting sunburned and had to go in search of a gift shop for some sunscreen. My freckles were popping out like crazy!
We came across this octopus, and it was one of our favorites!
Then it was on to the rides!
The rides themselves were not anything special compared to our experience at Disney. The park is basically a refurbished amusement park and gardens with a Lego theme. But the grounds were beautiful, and the entire place had a somewhat slower speed than DisneyWorld, which was nice.
Doing some quick map reference and navigating… The grounds were so big!
After we’d pretty much seen and done everything, we wandered into some gift shops. Oh, the shopping!!!! Oh, the things you could buy! I could have gone a little crazy, and maybe I did…
I simply had to buy these salt and pepper shakers and this mug!!!
And a key chain and a magnet and Lego erasers for my piano students. I would have loved to go through the wall of bins of Legos arranged by colors of the rainbow…about four or five times bigger than any wall I’ve seen at any Lego Store. But it was starting to get excessive. :-)
Then, we had time and energy for just one more ride.
The view of the grounds from above….
It was a delightful day. It looks like they are planning an expansion too, so it would be fun to go back in a few years. All the models were definitely worth seeing, especially when you know and understand how much time and effort went into each one.
Would I travel to Florida just to see LegoLand? Probably not.
But was it a nice addendum to a trip already planned? Absolutely. It was a great combination of amusement park fun and celebration of all things Lego.
And with that, I conclude my 2015 Vacay posts. :-)
Happy Sunday, and happy March!
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