Is Legoland doable on a busy day?

[mfleeting]

Over Thanksgiving break we are going to California for 5 days. We are spending 3 days at Disney, 1 day at Legoland, and 1 day in the LA area. We are now trying to decide which day we should do Legoland.

I was looking at a Legoland traffic calender and the Monday before Thanksgiving shows that it is pretty slow and that Black Friday it is busy but is not considered as "stay away" like Disney is considered all week. We are now trying to decide which day would be better to do Legoland and then LA. We are a little worried that LA will be way busy on black friday (traffic wise). If we do Legoland that day instead we will get 2 extra hours but would we have enough time to really enjoy Legoland if its busy?

 

[corinne76]

wait, you'd only get 2 hours in the park?

That definitely wouldn't have been enough time for us. We went last year with hopper passes to the park and the aquarium. The park closed at 5 or 6 I think. We never made it to the aquarium. My 2 yr old wasn't too fascinated with Legoland, but my 5 yr old loves Lego and loved the park. She did a couple rides more than once. with waiting in lines and walking around, we wouldn't have been able to do everything in 2 hours

 

[mfleeting]

wait, you'd only get 2 hours in the park?

That definitely wouldn't have been enough time for us. We went last year with hopper passes to the park and the aquarium. The park closed at 5 or 6 I think. We never made it to the aquarium. My 2 yr old wasn't too fascinated with Legoland, but my 5 yr old loves Lego and loved the park. She did a couple rides more than once. with waiting in lines and walking around, we wouldn't have been able to do everything in 2 hours

Oops I meant 2 extra hours. We will be there 6 hours or 8 if we go on Friday. We are not doing the Aquarium either.

 

[corinne76]

Are your kids really into Lego? That could make a difference. And how tall are they? There were only a handful of things DS (2 at the time) could do. DD was 5 and could do alot more. But going with just a bunch of little kids limits the rides you can go on I think

 

[mfleeting]

Are your kids really into Lego? That could make a difference. And how tall are they? There were only a handful of things DS (2 at the time) could do. DD was 5 and could do alot more. But going with just a bunch of little kids limits the rides you can go on I think

My kids are older - 9 & 11. I know many people say that Legoland is not good for kids over 10 but they both love Lego and really want to go. My daughter looked at some rides on YouTube today and they don't seem interested in going on many there. We will probably do like 3 rides and spend most of our time looking at the lego city and stuff. We have been to Lego Discovery Center & Sea Life and they enjoy it and that's why they want to go to Legoland.

 

[corinne76]

I had heard that too. That Legoland has a start, and end, age. DD was 5 (and will 7 when we go again next year) so I think she's still at a perfect age.

If they aren't that interested in the rides, I'm sure you don't need that extra 2 hours. When we went, the walkthru Lego factory thing (sorry, IDK what it's called) had many parts of it down. It was lackluster and kinda a let down. We didn't do any Lego building or anything, but rode the Dragon roller coaster maybe 6 times since right before closing there was no line at all)

I asked about ages because there's a Duplo village and a water play area that could take up a ton of time of they were younger.

The mini cities are pretty cool

 

[HerbivoreMom]

Ages 9 and 11 who like Legos? Sign up for a Mindstorm!

Legoland can get busy but it is not like Disneyland, not even close. You'll have enough time to enjoy it.

You can enjoy miniland anytime throughout the day. No lines.

The Lego Movie set is fun to visit.

 

[laura&fam]

There's hardly any information available about it online. What's mindstorms? And about how long is it?

 

[Diszona]

There's hardly any information available about it online. What's mindstorms? And about how long is it?

It is a class where they learn to use Mindstorms to build programmable robots to do a series of tasks. It is really cool, my son loved it last year (he was 10). If I recall correctly it lasts 45 minutes. We had to sign up for it early in the day (we did it a the Legoland Hotel, I am not sure where to do it if you aren't staying at the hotel). It filled up pretty quickly so you might want to call about it ahead of time.

 

[laura&fam]

Thanks! We're staying at the hotel so we'll just sign up there.

 

[Diszona]

Thanks! We're staying at the hotel so we'll just sign up there.

That's great! The concierge should be able to help you when you get there. You will have a blast, the hotel really adds to the experience. Given how short the park hours are the evening activities at the hotel really round out the day. Last year they had an early entry for hotel guests for certain rides. It is a limited number but it lets you knock a couple of rides out of the way (especially the Sky Cruiser which usually has really long waits but isn't really worth waiting that long for).

 

[mfleeting]

It is a class where they learn to use Mindstorms to build programmable robots to do a series of tasks. It is really cool, my son loved it last year (he was 10). If I recall correctly it lasts 45 minutes. We had to sign up for it early in the day (we did it a the Legoland Hotel, I am not sure where to do it if you aren't staying at the hotel). It filled up pretty quickly so you might want to call about it ahead of time.

Awesome I will have to look into that. We have been trying to get my son (11) into Mindstorms and he's actually joining a club at school for it next semester and taking the class next year so hopefully we can do that and he will get more into it!

 

[mfleeting]

Thanks! We're staying at the hotel so we'll just sign up there.

That's awesome yall are staying there. We looked at it and even though the kids really wanted to I couldn't justify the cost.

 

[Skimassey]

Has anyone found a "touring plan" of sorts for LL? I don't need a full, step-by-step plan, but I'd like to know which rides are the most popular and/or slow-loading so I can plan to hit those at park opening. Thanks!

 

[laura&fam]

We stayed 2 nights at Legoland hotel and then changed hotels for the last night. It was a bit of a pain to change hotels but we couldn't justify the extra weekend night $$$. It was worth it to get to the hotel at 1pm, hang out, swim, check out the hotel, and then get early entry. On the day we were at the park all day it probably wasn't as worth it. The hotel is amazing though. My DS10 didn't want to leave the hotel to go to the park.

My husband took my older two (DS10 & DD14) to mindstorms and they liked it, but I went off with my DS6 so I don't know much about it. We didn't sign up early we just walked past about 1.5 hours before park close and the last session had spots. That worked out well because it actually ended 15 minutes after park close and didn't take up as much park time.

 

[laura&fam]

Has anyone found a "touring plan" of sorts for LL? I don't need a full, step-by-step plan, but I'd like to know which rides are the most popular and/or slow-loading so I can plan to hit those at park opening. Thanks!

Maybe I have poor research skills but I found nothing. Absolutely nothing. The best I could find was that Sky Coaster gets busy so do it first. Now that I'm back I did find this: http://travelmamas.com/legoland-for-all-ages/ which talks about an 'Unofficial guide to Legoland' that sounds like it would have been helpful.

My experience was that everyone stops at the first ride(s) into the park. The second morning after waiting 20 minutes to ride Jungle Safari they announced on the speaker that the wait was currently 1 hour (the sign at the first of the ride said 5 minutes) and that it was the longest line in the park. They suggested coming back later in the day because the wait would be shorter.

My advice is don't trust the wait time signs, they never seemed to update them while we were there. Also a line may seem short however their loading is extremely slow so the line moves much slower than you think it will. Look at the line (most lines are outside and visible) and see how many people the ride loads and make your best guess. There wasn't any one or two rides that seemed consistently worse than others the days we went.

Good luck!

 

[Skimassey]

Maybe I have poor research skills but I found nothing. Absolutely nothing. The best I could find was that Sky Coaster gets busy so do it first. Now that I'm back I did find this: http://travelmamas.com/legoland-for-all-ages/ which talks about an 'Unofficial guide to Legoland' that sounds like it would have been helpful.

My experience was that everyone stops at the first ride(s) into the park. The second morning after waiting 20 minutes to ride Jungle Safari they announced on the speaker that the wait was currently 1 hour (the sign at the first of the ride said 5 minutes) and that it was the longest line in the park. They suggested coming back later in the day because the wait would be shorter.

My advice is don't trust the wait time signs, they never seemed to update them while we were there. Also a line may seem short however their loading is extremely slow so the line moves much slower than you think it will. Look at the line (most lines are outside and visible) and see how many people the ride loads and make your best guess. There wasn't any one or two rides that seemed consistently worse than others the days we went.

Good luck!

Thanks for the link and the advice! I'll definitely make a note to bypass the first rides we come to.