Legoland

We knew that if we came all the way to California and Disneyland and didn't go to Legoland, Colby would hate us forever.  He has been wanting to go there since he found out it existed.  So our final day in California was spent at Colby's happiest place on Earth, Legoland!

We had a blast at Legoland!  To tell you the truth, I actually liked this place a little better than Disneyland.  Our kids were the perfect age for this park as everything was geared toward kids 2-12 years old.  The other great thing about Legoland was that there was not nearly as many people there so we got to do and see pretty much everything.  The kids absolutely had a great time.

The cool thing about Legoland was that everything was made out of Lego's and everything was life-sized!

The kids just ran from thing to thing looking at all of the Lego creations.  This life-sized Lego Lion was pretty cool.  Logan and Colby liked looking through it mouth like they were getting eaten.

Colby was even more excited because he told us he had grown an inch from last night. While he was in Disneyland he had to be 48 inches tall to do some of the rides and they said he was just under the mark.  At Legoland though, they told him he was exactly 48 inches and could go on any ride!  He was happy to have grown an inch overnight.

We had a lot of fun riding the rides at Legoland but mostly we enjoyed walking around and seeing the sites.  The first ride we went on was actually the longest line of the whole day.  It took us about an hour to get on but it was pretty fun once we were on the ride.  It was the Coastersaurus Roller Coaster.

We were able to get on all of the rest of the rides that day without waiting at all.  Our next ride was the Fairy Tale Brooke boat ride.  Charlotte loved this one.  We rode a little boat around a river and we were able to see a lot of different fairy tale scenes on our way.  All of the scenes were made completely out of Lego's.  As soon as we got off, Charlotte said she wanted to go again.

Next we walked over to Duplo land.  This area was a big playground for the kids to play on.  They all had a good time riding the motorcycles, climbing in and exploring the houses, and even pretending they were in jail.

One ride in Duplo Land was the carousel.  This was really fun.  In fact we rode it a few times back to back because there was no line and all the kids wanted to.  The fun thing about it was that the carousel horses were shaped just like the Duplo Lego horses.  Logan was a little too short to climb on the horses without help but he was so excited he wanted to try.  Unfortunately in his haste, he fell right of the horse.  He was sad about that but the worker operating the carousel made him feel better by giving him a cool Lego mini figure.  That made everything better.

The next place we went was Emily's favorite place.  It was the Lego Friends land Heartlake City.  

Emily loves the Lego Friends shows and Lego's.  She and Charlotte were so excited to get a picture with the Lego Friends figures.  Then while we were looking around Heartlake, Emily found out that there was going to be a Lego Friends show in a few minutes.  She wanted to see it so bad so Russell stayed with her and Charlotte while they watched the fun show.

The show was all about how important friends are.  The girls sang and danced about having a good time with friends at Christmas time and how important it was to make everyone feel included and loved.  Emily absolutely loved it and Charlotte loved the music too.  Afterward, they were able to meet all of the Friends from the show.  Emily was giddy with excitement.  This was definitely her favorite part of the day.

While the girls watched the show, Logan and Colby wanted to see more things.  So I took them to the next area of the park, Funtown.  This was one of their favorite parts as well.  The boys favorite part of this area was the Lego Driving School.  Here they got to learn how to drive these cool go carts.  There was no waiting on this ride so they got to go on it probably 3 or 4 times in a row.  Logan was having a hard day today because he was too excited.  While waiting to get on this ride, he knocked his knuckle on a screw or something on the metal fence and totally scraped the skin off his finger.  He ran to me crying and bleeding.  I had some tissues to clean up the blood but no band aid.  The workers said they had to call the park paramedics to come and check him out.  I said okay but really all he needed was a band aid.  Then this lady behind me said she had a band aid and was nice enough to give it to us.  The cool thing was that it was a Spider-Man band aid!  Once the band aid was on, Logan was fine and ran and got on the ride.  When the paramedic finally came, he told me he had to check Logan out.  I said okay but he was on the ride and was just fine.  He just said all right and gave me another band aid and was on his way.  Meanwhile the boys were having a great time driving the go carts around the track.

Another fun ride at Funtown was this Sky Patrol ride.  We got to pretend that we were riding in helicopters and fighting fires or other rescue missions.  By this time, Emily, Russell and Charlotte met us here after their show.  After riding the helicopters, Colby and Logan took Emily on the Driving School ride so that she could learn to drive too.  She also had a great time and they went a another time.

We continued to walk around and we found Santa!  This first one was made out of Lego's.

This one was the real guy!  This was a fun Lego mini figure guy that we were able to meet and be in a picture with.

Also while we were in Funtown, we went on a really fun ride called the Funtown Police and Fire Academy.  This ride was a competition to see who could get their firetruck down the road to the burning building, put out the fire with the water hose, and then race back to the station first.  We did boys against girls on this race and we worked our hardest.  I think the girls got the fire out first but the boys barely beat us to back to the station for the win.  It was really fun.

Next we walked to the Lego Star Wars area of the park.

Along the walkway we got to see all of the Star Wars Character Lego figures.  The boys loved it and then Emily was excited to see Princess Leia.  Then we made it to the Lego Star Wars land.

Here we got to see a bunch of different scenes from the Star Wars movies all made out to Lego's.  They were pretty awesome.  The life-sized Darth Vader was Colby's favorite part of this area.

Then we made it to one of my favorite areas of the park.  Miniland USA.

This whole area was different major cities in the US built completely out of Lego's.  It was so impressive.  We spent a good part of the day just wandering around this area looking at all of the cool Lego city scenes.  

Some of the cities displayed in Miniland USA were Washington DC, New York City, Las Vegas, San Francisco, New Orleans, and parts of Southern California.  The scenes were amazing and very accurate and detailed.  We loved seeing everything there.

Near Miniland, we found an area where we could build our own boat and sail it.

The kids had a blast building and seeing their boats sail down the river.  They didn't want to leave.  That was one cool thing about Legoland, there were a lot of spots throughout the park that we were set up just for building and playing with Lego's.  

Next we went on the Coast Cruise. 

On this boat ride, we were able to cruise around the park on the water.  The guide told us all about the places and scenes in Legoland and also took us to the backside of Miniland USA to see a few more mini scenes.  We were able to see the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore.   This was definitely a fun relaxing tour of the park.

Next we went to the area the boys wanted to go to all day, Ninjago!

There we met Jay the Blue Ninjago Warrior.  The kids loved seeing him and showing off their Ninja moves!  We also found other statues of the other Ninjas, Lloyd, Zane, and Nia.

While in Ninjago, we went on the Ninjago ride.  Here we went though different Ninja training scenarios and then were able to fight some bad guys.  This ride was cool because with our 3D glasses, it felt like we were in the scenes.  We used our arms making karate moves to chop and slice the bad guys and even shoot blasters out of our hands.  It was really fun.  Emily had the highest score at the end of the ride so she was the Ninja Warrior.  

Next we watched the 4D Lego Movie in the Lego theater.  There we watched a fun movie of the Ninjago ninjas teaching us some moves.  Because it was 4D, it felt like we were in the movie when we had our special glasses on.  Then, when the ninjas went in water, we got sprayed in the face and really got wet.  It was pretty cool.  

We continued having fun by going on rides.  This is the Aquazone Wave Racer.  Russell took the kids on this one while Charlotte and I waited.  The kids had a lot of fun on this one because they got sprayed with water.

Next I took the kids on the Bionicle Blaster.  This one was similar to the Tea Cups and we got really dizzy!

Then we got to meet Emmett from the Lego Movie!

He was so cool and the kids were excited to see him.  They love the Lego Movie.  

By this time, it started raining a bit so most of the crowds left.  We were not going to let a little rain stop us from having fun so we continued riding rides.  Unfortunately we didn't get a lot of pictures because we didn't want the camera to get wet.  

Another cool thing about Legoland was that everywhere there were long lines for rides, there were area to play with Lego's.  It was nice to let the kids play while we waited in line.  By the time we got closer to the ride, they could come and get back in line.  This helped a lot.  Disneyland should do this.

Some of our favorite rides were the Knight's Tournament (where we were whipped around and upside down like a scorpion tail), and the Lost Kingdom Adventure (where we got to blast Lego skeletons with our laser guns).  

Another fun ride was the Dragon Roller Coaster.  Because we could do the Parent Swap thing here as well, the kids got to ride most of the roller coasters and fast rides twice.  Outside of the Dragon Ride we found these cool Knights:

We loved pretending to be knights in shining armor.  

Everyone we talked to about Legoland told us we had to try out the apple fries made there.  So before we left, we grabbed a container.   They were fried Granny Smith apple slices covered in cinnamon sugar and then we dipped them in whipped cream.  Yes they were so good! 

Finally the last ride we went on was the Deep Sea Adventure submarine ride.  This ride was so cool!  We rode in this submarine and were able to see a bunch of real live underwater creatures.  We saw fish, starfish, stingrays, and even sharks!  The kids loved it and so did Russell and I.  

By this time, it was around 5:00 pm and we were wondering where everyone had gone.  We thought that maybe everyone had left because of the rain but we were really confused.  Then we found out that the park actually closed at 5!  We had know idea!  So we decided we had better make our way to the entrance and head out.  On the way though we found some more penny smashers to add to our collection and then rode the carousel one more time.  As we got to the entrance, we let the kids make their own mini figure to take home as a souvenir.  They had a good time building their own personalized Lego person.   

Before leaving, we signed the kids up for an annual pass to Legoland.  They were doing a special that day so the annual pass for kids was free.  We decided that even if we don't come back, we would not be out anything but if we do decide to come back, it would save us over $300.  So we did it.  

We had an great time at Legoland and we were able to see pretty much everything.  The kid loved it and I think this was more enjoyable than fighting the crowds at Disneyland.

The boys had so much fun at Legoland that on the way back to the hotel, they just crashed in the van!

It was a great day.  

Jessica told us that if we were going to Anaheim, we had to stop at the Creme & Sugar Cafe for a shake.  We decided since this was our final night there, we needed to go.  We were not disappointed.

The shakes were enormous and so delicious.  We decided to get the Animal Cookie shake and their famous Unicorn shake.  The shakes were giant and decorated with whipped cream and candy to the hilt.  If we every go back to Anaheim, we will definitely go back to this shop to try their other flavors.  This was the prefect ending to our vacation.  We have had a great time and are so happy that Santa gave us a trip this year rather than presents.  We have definitely made a lot of fun memories that are priceless.