Our family first visited LEGOLAND California in the summer of 2009, right after their Sealife Aquarium opened, but before the water park opened. The kids were little then, oh so little. Didn’t seem like it at the time. Any age your kids are, they seem to be getting so big. But we visited again earlier this month – over four years later – and the differences were remarkable:

Our boys are now 8 and 6, approaching the upper end of the age range of children who would still consider a day (or two) at LEGOLAND fun, young enough that they still enjoy the wonder of Miniland, can spend an hour building cars out of LEGOs to race in the derby, and are not at all concerned about looking “cool.” To take advantage of their all-too-short youth, we visited the park again and this time spent an extra half day at the water park (open weekends through October 2013 and then closed until next spring).

Overall:

We had a fabulous time. As I had suspected, my boys aren’t too old for LEGOLAND. In fact, they’re just right. They scampered off to the rides with no fear, no height restrictions, and no running away and getting lost in the crowds, either. We visited on a school day (but not for them – it was that random LVUSD “fall break”) when it was a little bit overcast at first. The park was never crowded, and we barely had to wait in any lines. Score!

A few things we hadn’t done before:

X-wing Fighter – this full size fighter ship from Star Wars is the biggest LEGO sculpture ever made. It sits inside its own special tent, and as we walked up I said “Wow…” and so did many other adults. The kids just ran right toward it, unaware of how SUPER COOL it is.

Miniland – we had never taken the time to wander through Miniland and we were delighted by the little cities and buildings and yes, the scenes from all the Star Wars movies.

The Ride of Insanity – The Knights’ Tournament (in above photo upper right) – either it wasn’t here the last time we came, or the kids just weren’t big enough. Now they are big and brave enough but we had to go on it with them. A robot claw tosses you up in the air and spins you and swings you. It’s insane. Luckily you can choose your level of insanity, and even level 2 was too much for me. I guess I am a wuss. The kids loved it.

LEGOLAND is showing its age, though. I noticed that some of the brick sculptures are looking faded. A few of the water features had garbage floating in them. There were cobwebs in the corners. It made me a little bit sad to notice this passage of time, and I hope that those sculptures are scheduled for some facelifts, and that maybe some regular maintenance was scheduled for Friday night.

Water Park: the LEGOLAND Water Park is situated at the northwest corner of the park. You can only get into it as part of your admission to the main park, but it’s an extra fee. We ended up coming back the second day which required an add-on of a 2-day pass, but that only cost $15 per ticket. It was a good move though because the next day was sunny and hot. Perfect!

A few things that make this water park great for families:

Lockers: for $7 you can get a small locker for the day, big enough for your backpack, keys, wallet, and phone. The “key” is a wristband with a sensor in it that opens and locks the door. You don’t have to remove it to ride the slides or splash in the pool.

The park is small – just three waterslides, a lazy river, a big wading pool with water features, and a miniature version of all of those things for younger children. While that means you won’t need to spend a long time there, it’s great for keeping track of your kids. We lost track of one of ours when he got on the lazy river ahead of us, so have a family meeting ahead of time and decide on a place where you all meet if you get separated.

There are plenty of chairs where you can stake your claim with a towel and your flip flops, but not much shade. There are clean restrooms and changing rooms and plenty of working showers for rinsing off. The snack bar is small but has the requisite hot weather fare, including slushie drinks which are a big hit with my kids.

The best feature of the LEGOLAND/Water Park combo is the access to Pirate Reef, our family’s favorite ride over BOTH parks. It’s a simple log flume ride but you’re in a wide boat, and there’s only one drop, but it’s a big one:

We went on this ride, not knowing truly how wet we would get, early on our first day, in street clothes. Luckily we all dried off quickly, but it was key to be a good sport about it! At the Water Park, you can enter and exit the ride from a special opening, and there is a separate line for Water Park people. Riding Pirate Reef in a swimsuit is a MUCH better way!

In another post I’ll write about where we stayed and dined. We have done this trip three times now, and we have our favorites. Until then, here’s another flashback, this time to 2010:

For a limited time kids get into LEGOLAND CA free with a paid adult ticket. Visit this website to get the link and the offer code. I received two free passes to facilitate this review, plus I used this deal to get two more tickets.