Legoland

Legoland, in Carlsbad California (between Los Angeles and San Diego), was something of a disappointment. In its defense, though, it is peak visitor season and the park might be much more enjoyable if it were less crowded. As it was, it was very expensive ($240 for the four of us) and then there were a lot of "extras" on top: $3 for the climbing wall, $10 to park,$8 for a happy meal, and so on. One felt a little nickel and dimed and it didn't really seem worth the money. In addition to the mini-land, (Legoland re-creations of various cities and monuments) there were also a number of kiddie rides. The lines for the rides were very long, made longer by the fact that so many adults- without accompanying children- were riding them. In one sense, its hard to figure out why adults would want to go on rides clearly intended for little kids, but on the other hand, after paying $75 bucks for a ticket, maybe some of those folks are saying, at this price, I am going to ride the choo-choo train no matter what anyone says.

It's also hard to figure out why the adult ticket costs more than the children's ticket in a place like this. One would assume that most of the adults there (except the ones riding the kiddie cars by themselves) are only there to accompany their kids: shouldn't the adult ticket be less not more than the child ticket in a child's park?

Irene went to the Legoland outside of London when it first opened (sometime in the 90s?) and remembered it very fondly. The re-creations of the various cities are totally cool and worth seeing (just not at this price). We probably wouldn't go there again.

Above is picture of the girls with a Lego-man and also a photo of Lucy being rescued from the climbing wall. She made it halfway up then froze like a cat in a tree. One of the workers had to climb up and bring her down. Grace made it all the way up to the top.