Legoland Vacation: 10 Tips for Planning Your Trip to Legoland

Thinking about visiting Legoland? Here are 10 Tips for Planning your next Legoland Vacation.

As mentioned in my 10 Reasons to Visit Legoland post, we recently returned from Legoland, CA.  Today I am sharing some of the tips and tricks I learned to help you in planning the ultimate Legoland vacation.

Legoland Vacation : 10 Tips to Know Before You Go

1-Check the time/dates that the park is open.

Periodically throughout the off season the park closes on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Also, in the off season the park closes earlier than the rest of the year.  While we were there the park closed at 5:00 pm so plan your day accordingly.  If it is busy, plan to head to the back of the park first.  Enter and go right and up the hill.  That is where the bigger roller coasters are and you can ride them before it gets too busy and then work your way back down and around to the rest of the park.

2-Check your child’s height before you go

The height requirements were actually a little bit of a surprise to me.  If your child is under 36″ tall, there are only a handful of rides they can go on so be prepared for that.  My 15-month-old could only go on a few rides, even with us holding him,  but he was young enough that he was happy just to ride around in the stroller.  But if you have  a little one who is a bit older it may have been hard for them to not be able to ride.  Also, my 4-year-old was barely tall enough to go on the roller coasters and we were incredibly relieved!  You have to be at least 42″ tall to ride most of the bigger rides and his head barely reached the bar with his shoes on.  If he hadn’t been able to go, we probably would have been miserable because he would have had a major meltdown.  He’s my one child with no fear. 😉  I would also say the park is geared for ages 3-12 but any age could have fun.  I know my husband and I did.

3-Watch for Age restrictions

Some rides require kids to be a certain age before riding and some of the smaller rides have a maximum age limit.  This wasn’t really an issue for us since most of the rides were for ages 4 and up but you can check their website for specifics.

4-Parent Swap!

This was one of my favorite things about the park!  If you do have a child who is too young/short to ride on the rides, you can wait in line with your family and send one parent with the older kids and then swap when they get back.  My older boys loved it because they got to ride each ride twice in a row without waiting in line.

5-You Will Get WET!

If you ride all of the rides, you will get wet!  And I don’t mean a little wet but drenched from head to foot.  The Pirate Shores area is designed for getting wet.  They even have a huge splash pad area with slides for the kids.  It was chilly when we were there so we didn’t do that part but the Pirate Reef ride left my boys drenched.  I watched from the side and was going to swap with my husband until I saw the HUGE wave of water go crashing down on them, and decided I would pass.  🙂 But they do have huge family dryers you can rent for $5 to stand in and dry off.  We did the wet rides right before lunchtime and then went back to the Legoland hotel to change.

6-Extra Games and Attractions

Throughout the park there are extra  games and attractions that you can pay extra to do.  They have a dinosaur dig where kids can dig for bones and a miniature gold course.  They also have carnival-like games you can pay to play.  But don’t worry, the workers were not in-your-face like at a carnival.

7-No Outside Food

No outside food is allowed except for special diets and for babies.  I brought in a small cooler with milk for my baby and some snacks for him and they were fine with that.  Since we stayed at the Legoland hotel and were close I had an ice chest in our room with food and went back to our room and ate sandwiches and took a little break.  But, I was impressed with the variety of food offered in the park.  Lots more than your typical amusement park food.   Also, you can bring bottled water so I highly recommend that so you aren’t spending unnecessary cash in the park.  Save that for Lego store!

8-Schedule in a 4-D movie

We saw Chima in 4-D while we were there and it was one of my boys’ favorite things about the park.  Plus it was nice and cool in there and a great chance to take a break from walking.

9-Shopping!

We loved all of the Lego shops throughout the park.  In the back of the park you can visit the LEGO factory and see how LEGO is made and right next door you can buy Lego by the pound and design your own mini-figures.  My boys loved that!   We also found that The Big Shop, which has every Lego set on the market right now, is actually open for an hour after the park closes and if you don’t mind the craziness of lots of people, you can get your souvenirs and bigger Lego sets then and then take them out with you.  That way you don’t have to pack things all day and you can enjoy more time playing while the park is open.

10-Plan to Stay Two Days at Least

If you are planning a Legoland vacation I would say that 2 days is needed to see everything, especially if you are going on the off season when they close earlier.  When you purchase tickets you can also purchase SeaLife Aquarium tickets and tickets to the Legoland waterpark.  If you get those, you definitely need 2 days or more.  My boys would have stayed for weeks, actually indefinitely, if they could.  😉

We had a blast on our vacation and that is why I wanted to share these tips with my readers.  If you have Lego-obsessed little boys like I do it is definitely worth the trip.   If you are planning a Legoland vacation make sure you read my Top 10 Reasons to Visit Legoland.

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