Tuesday, August 30
Bill’s alarm went off at 4. I stayed in bed longer since I had showered the night before. Though I was up and ready before 4:30 when I woke the kids. They were raring to go. We were all ready, bags in car and pulling out of the driveway at 4:59. Our scheduled departure time was 5
o – good job!
We had about a 45min drive to ACY. Checked our bags, cleared security and were sitting at the gate by 6:30, earlier than necessary for our 7:45 flight. We had a fantastically uneventful flight on Spirit. Boys sat on one side of the plane and girls on the other. I hadn’t paid the extra to pick our seats and was a little nervous about us all having seats together but we were all in row 15.
Arrive at MCO early, got our bags and headed to Alamo. I had checked us in online so we could “Skip the Counter”. DH didn’t believe me, he wanted to find someone in the terminal. I said “head to the parking garage and pick our car”. I had upgraded us to a minivan from a full size. Bill looked thru every minivan in the row. But there only were Town and Countries and Grand Caravans. We went with the T&C with the entertainment package and left the lot with no surprises. I programmed the GPS for Winter Haven and LEGOLAND Resort and we were on our way. We made a pit stop at Target to pick up supplies and even grabbed lunch. The sky looked clear but we knew storms were coming so we were trying to rush to Legoland to get some park time in before it turned nasty.
A bit about the weather. Tropical Storm Hermine was just named before we left home. “They” were sure it would reach hurricane status but they were unsure where it would make landfall. We knew we would be facing rain and lots of it, we just hoped it was nothing worse.
We arrived at Legoland after noon. We were staying at their hotel so we circled all the way around the big parking lot to the free hotel lot. Though we were anxious to get into the park, I check in and our room was ready. So we decide to unpack the car and head up to our room.
I could take days to describe this hotel to you. It is now my kids’ favorite place in the world. It is AWESOME!! Next to the front desk is a giant
Lego pit. Over by the bar/restaurant is a play land with more Legos. There are Lego builds and Lego decorations and Lego creations everywhere. It is not subtle. I loved it!
Checking in took longer than expected as they have a lot of events to fill me in on. Eventually we grab our bags and head up to our room. I booked us a Pirate themed room and we are on the second floor. So we have to get on the elevator. The elevator is unusual. It plays regular elevator music but then the doors close, disco kicks in and strobe lights and mirror balls. It’s a party each ride. We had to take a few trips up to the top floor (5th) to get a longer experience. We make it to our room (#211) and it is totally AWESOME!!! Kids have their own ‘room’ with bunk beds, trundle and TV. DH and I have the main space with a queen-size bed, TV, fridge, etc. We drop our bags and get out of there reasonably quick. The kids notice the note about the room scavenger hunt. I manage to convince them to save it for later. They love scavenger hunts so this is beyond amazing to them. Later they would complete it themselves in less than 5 mins. You need to come up with the combination for the pirate treasure chest. They give you clues for each number. I pretty much missed the whole thing because they did it so fast. In the treasure chest was Legoland lanyards, activity pages and a Lego Mixel (small Lego set if you don’t know) for each kid.
We make our way to the park. The hotel is about a ¼ walk to the park entrance, maybe closer. It is ridiculously close. We even have our own bag check guy in case there is a crowd at the main one. At the gate the worker couldn’t get my tickets to scan. I’m a bit worried because I bought the steeply discounted tickets thru FL PTA. But the worker looked clueless so I’m not too panicked. I head over to the ticket counter they scan my tickets and they are fine. They get another worker to let us in the gate.
There has been some rain and there is more in the forecast. Also most of the country and all of FL is back to school by now. The park is EMPTY. We had no lines the entire time we were there. Every single ride is walk on. Often they would ask us if we wanted to stay on and ride again. Over the next two days, occasionally rides shut down due to the rain, but we still manage to do everything multiple times. On that first afternoon we manage to do about 75% of the rides. Our kids, even the big kids, loved all the rides. They are not crazy thrill seekers so it was good enough for them. We have Sesame Place close to us and the rides were of a similar level but more of them. I appreciated the theming of the rides. Again similar to Sesame Place’s level of theming.
There is some drizzle and around 5 it starts to get heavier. We are done. The park is scheduled to close at 6. I’ve already upgraded our tickets to 2-day. (They nicely warned me that tomorrow is supposed to be a wash out, am I sure I want to buy a second day?) We haven’t even entered the water park yet and there are still a few more rides to try out. We take the 2 min walk back to the hotel which nicely has towels waiting in the lobby for us. We dry off and change and are ready for dinner. We are looking for something close and convenient and there is a buffet restaurant in the hotel. It is resort pricy and not the best food but we aren’t too picky. Towards the end of dinner the kid activities began in the lobby (we could hear them, they are quite loud). The kids were too excited to eat anymore, so off they went.
The kid’s activities were hosted by two woman in costume (a princess and an adventurer). 6:00-6:45 was different games; hide and seek and I don’t know what else. Then 6:45-7:00 was the Lego building contest. At 7:00 the kids start presenting their builds. That lasts until 7:30-ish. A winner (or two) is announced and they are awarded a pin or something. (I will tell you it is definitely not based on the best Lego creation.) Then it’s time to get PJ’s on for the 8:00 PJ Dance Party. DH had his fantasy football draft this night so it worked out that he hunkered down in the hotel room and the kids had tons of fun without disturbing him. This whole time the play area is a kids paradise with kids running every which way using their imaginations to play every which game. The bar that is adjacent to the play area is a parent’s paradise. By 9 the organized activities are done and my kids were off to bed. I’m not sure how late all the other crazies hung out down there. There is a sign saying Quiet Time from 10pm-8am. We didn’t notice much noise once were back in our room. Of course the hotel, like the park, was far from capacity.
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