Legoland Summer Trip Review 2018

This past weekend, my family took off on a short summer vacation to Legoland California.  We've been there before, but at every age, the kids seem to find something new to love.  This time, we stayed at the Legoland Hotel on the adventure floor (floor 3).  Instead of a standard room, we also chose to try a suite as we had 3 adults and 3 children on the trip.  The suite was spacious and it was nice to spread out.  Our only complaint about the room itself was that it was a little hard to find the light switches for the adult bed area in the dark.  Otherwise, it was wonderful.  Since it's a little hard to find pictures and videos specific to the suites, I took one for you.  Pardon me if I sound exhausted.  I took the video after a whole day in the park before my family came up.

In addition to a fun kid-friendly room, the hotel has a comprehensive free breakfast buffet, a pirate ship playground, a bar for the grown-ups, a fabulous zero-entry pool, a scavenger hunt for free small lego kits, and nightly programming including a dance club for kids with a real DJ, disco dance parties in the elevator, hero training, model building contests, and movies by the pool at night.  Overall, it's a fun hotel and one of the best parts of the Legoland experience.  If you can afford to splurge on the onsite hotels (there's also the Legoland Castle Hotel which opened a couple of months ago), do it.  You won't regret it.

 We were at Legoland for Star Wars Days once again.  We've done this a time or two in the past and love seeing all of the people out there in their costumes.  My kids were thrilled to see rebels and sith alike.

Legoland is a lot more fun with kids that are 4 and almost 8 than kids that are younger.  My kids could ride almost anything they wanted to at this point as long as they had an adult chaperone.  My 8-year-old could have gone on his own on most of the rides if he wanted to as he's over 48 inches.  Some of the highlights in terms of rides are the driving school/junior driving school where kids can drive their own cars, the Ninjago ride, and of course, the classic boat cruise highlighting many amazing lego constructions.  The kids all enjoyed something a little different and all had a blast.

We also managed to get to the water park, though we didn't make it to the aquarium this time.  The water park was nice, but some of the guests not so much.  My mother has a physical disability and needs to be able to sit down.  We found an empty chaise lounge for her, but a few minutes later, the person who had claimed the 3 seats next to her told her it was theirs and she needed to leave.  After she got up and left, we watched as the family only used 2 of the 4 lounges they had claimed.  So, if you go, don't be wasteful or greedy.  There are a lot of people who want/need a seat and only a limited number.  If you aren't going to use more than 1 or 2 seats, don't "claim" more.  And if you're claiming them, leave something in the seat so it's clear that the seat is claimed.  Next time, we will bring my mother a wheelchair so that she doesn't have to fight with unkind guests.  Luckily, that was our only issue and it wasn't Legoland's fault.  I also have to say we came across one wonderful family who overheard we were looking for a seat and gave up one of theirs for us.  So, I guess the point is to be kind.

We enjoyed the water park while we were there.  My older son was able to explore the bigger slides while my little ones stuck to the more toddler/preschooler area.  I would probably have more to say if my kids were better swimmers or if we hadn't had to leave when my mom couldn't get a seat and was in pain, but I will say the water park is a lot of fun.  Just get there early if you expect to have anywhere to put your towels and shoes while you're in the water.

The food is one of the highlights, at least for adults, at Legoland.  While the kids were able to get hot dogs, mac n cheese, and chicken tenders, we also had options like chicken curry, shrimp fettuccine, cheesesteak sandwiches, and smoked "Texas-style" barbecue.  There were many health options along with the not so healthy choices, so it's pretty easy to find something to eat.  I'm not sure how it would be for a vegan, but there are definitely vegetarian choices and the resort is very good at asking and answering questions about food allergies.

So, will we be back again someday?  Probably at least once before my kids get too old for it.  It's really a park for 2-10 years olds.  Anyone older will probably get bored.  But, it's still a lot of fun as a family destination.

S'mores for Memorial Day

In the United States, today is Memorial Day, a day to remember the many men and women who have fought and died for our country.  It is also common to barbecue, have picnics, go to the beach, and generally celebrate the unofficial start of summer.

We're still a couple of weeks away from our next trip, but I wanted to share something fun you can do with the kids that won't cost much.  If you don't have a barbecue/grill because you live in an apartment, don't want one, can't afford one, or any other reason, I recently found this great video of someone making s'mores in an oven.  For those of you unfamiliar, a s'more consists of a roasted marshmallow, melted chocolate, and graham crackers.  It's every bit as bad for you as it sounds, but it's also a staple of the classic American summer.

I did a slight variation on this using my convection/toaster oven.  I set it to broil at 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  First, I toasted the bottom layer of graham cracker with just the chocolate on it for 1 minute.  Then, I added the marshmallows and added another 3 minutes of cook time (could have been 4 minutes if you want a darker marshmallow).  Finally, I topped them with another graham cracker and let the kids loose on them.  It was fun, delicious, and only cost about $4.  The marshmallows didn't catch fire the way they often do on a grill and the chocolate was much better melted than doing it the traditional way.

Street Fair

Today I took my children to our local street fair, put on by the city chamber of commerce.  It's an opportunity for people to see what services their community has to offer.  The event includes booths for various businesses and government agencies, candidates for political office, activities for kids, police cars, fire trucks, and garbage trucks for kids to explore, a small car show, live music, and food trucks.  The best part?  The event is free (though the kids' attractions cost a bit of money similar to a carnival).  My kids loved going to each of the booths and exploring.  This year, they moved it from the center of town to our local mall.  It was nice to have more space for everything, but I hope next year they have more volunteers for parking and crowd control, a more detailed map, better crowd flow, and possibly offsite parking with a shuttle as an option. 

If your town has something like this, it's worth going.  We had a lot of fun and the kids were kept entertained for hours.

Disneyland After Dark: Star Wars Nite

Last night, I had the pleasure of being able to ring in May the 4th with thousands of other rabid Star Wars/Disney fans at Disneyland After Dark.  This was a new offering at Disneyland to celebrate Star Wars Day, a popular moment in geek culture.  The event sold out within hours of going on sale and people were eager to see what there was to offer.  I was only able to get one ticket, so I went by myself.  While it would have been more fun with friends and/or family, there were plenty of people to talk to and generally a positive atmosphere.

First, I went to a panel where I got to see some of the head Imagineers discuss their roles in developing Batuu (aka Galaxy's Edge, aka Star Wars Land).  Unfortunately, I couldn't take videos or pictures because we had to seal our phones for this part of the event, but needless to say, it's going to be amazing to walk through the streets of a real Star Wars planet and come face to face with the Millennium Falcon.

There were many food offerings throughout the park.  I did not get to try many because I spent a good portion of the evening in line for other things, but Beru's special was delicious (blue milk with boba) as were the clone potatoes.  The offerings were whimsical and most people had a positive response to the food.

Merchandise was kind of a disaster.  There was a line from Starcade all the way through the normal queue for the Tomorrowland theater area.  I considered myself to be fairly close to the front of the line, but it still took 45 minutes to get through.  Unfortunately, this is where Disney fell short big time.  The lower level cast members did a great job with what little direction they were given.  However, the "ties" (you know, supervisor and up level) were all standing in a huddle laughing and chatting when they really should have been helping out.  At one point, myself and the people around me were helping direct traffic properly and one man that looked like a bouncer was shuffling people through who were cutting in line.  The people who exited Star Tours were not forced to wait in line for the merchandise as the ride exit spits itself out in the store, so people waiting in the merchandise line were pretty frustrated.  I scored a May the 4th t-shirt, but honestly?  If I had known how little variety of merchandise they had, I would have skipped that part of the night.

There were many photo ops throughout the park.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any.  I was too busy trying to see the professional lightsaber duels and catch a glimpse of Captain Phasma and her troopers. 

Overall, it was a fun experience.  I am hoping they make this an annual event and that they manage to work out some of the kinks and start training their employees better so that when Star Wars Land opens, they don't have riots.  I will say, above all, it was sort of magical to see the park without it being packed wall to wall.  It's especially beautiful at night.

Here are some other pictures from earlier in the day before the event began.  It was a beautiful day and I couldn't resist taking some photographs.