Legoland Early Entrance

[PurpleKomodo]

Any Legoland people able to help me out? We are using a SoCal City Pass on our trip and spending a day a Legoland and a night at the Legoland Hotel. It says we get into the park an hour early since we are staying at the Legoland hotel. We are going to the park during the day and staying that same night so we won't have checked in before we go to the park. Does anyone know how the early entry works? Anything we need to do to get in for the extra hour?

 

[Epek]

I just stayed there for 2 nights a few weeks ago and this was very confusing to me. They say that hotel guests can get in a half hour early, that only certain rides were open, and they give you their version of a pin to proove you are a hotel guest. But it seemed to me, that they were just letting anyone who made it there at that point in and most rides looked to be open! There was no special line or gate, nothing holding anyone back and not everyone had the button on (well, they only give one per kid, but still, i saw kids without them). I think that the crowds are no big deal to them that early in the morning, so they don't really care if they're hotel guests or not. I mean, we returned 4 days later and got there about noon and tons of people were arriving at the same time. I just don't think they have people clamoring to get there before park opening like DLR does.
It's possible that I missed whatever they do to separate who is from the hotel, but it was all so casual compared to DLR, so I doubt it.
So, I'd say just go at the early time and walk in. Worst case, someone runs over the 10 yards to the hotel and checks in real quick while everyone else hangs in the coffee shop/lounge and the kids play in the castle that's right there. It's all so close, it wouldn't be a big deal at all either way!

 

[cadien]

We've stayed in the hotel twice (last summer and last week) and they never gave us a pin. We just walked up and showed our tickets. If some rides weren't yet open, we didn't notice. And they were the online advance tickets, not something they gave us when we checked in, so I don't think you need to hit the hotel first to get early entrance. They're ridiculously close together if you do, however.

 

[ariel1025]

We were there two weeks ago and they gave both the kids a pop badge (I think they call it) for early entry. We didn't need it to get into the park, but we did have to show it to get on the rides before the park opened to the public. In most cases, we went through the Reserve 'n Ride line, showed the pop badge and got onto the ride. Not all of the rides were open. The ones I can remember for sure were NINJAGO The Ride, Safari Trek, Dino Coaster, Legoland Express and the Carousel. Sorry if some of those names are incorrect. I think there were two or three others but can't remember which. A little before the hour ended on our second day we lined up at their rope drop into the rest of the park (near the 4D show) and headed to the back of the park where the Dragon Coaster is. That was our son's favorite and they day previous we waited about 20 minutes to ride. We were able to do it the second morning 5 or 6 times in a row with no wait, pausing long enough halfway to switch who he rode with (our daughter was too short). While he rode that we took turns taking our daughter on the jousting ride (her favorite) and the frog jumper type ride; both with no waits as well. Hope that helps!

 

[oakleycat]

In my experience they're really inconsistent. On one visit we got lanyards at check in for early entry, once we got slap bracelets, and sometimes nothing. We've only used early entry once and just showing a room key worked, and only some rides were open. If you want to be safe it's easy to go to the hotel first and ask, it's really close to the park entrance. You want to park in the hotel lot anyway rather than paying to park in the park lot and then switching later, just tell them you have a reservation for that night.