A Day Visit to LEGOLAND California

If your family is obsessed with LEGO, LEGOLAND California will most likely be on your bucket list of theme parks to visit. We allowed a day to visit this theme park on our recent trip to America.

Despite not seeing everything the park had to offer, the kids loved this park. And the parents and grandparents enjoyed visiting too.

We had limited day time hours at LEGOLAND as we visited the week before Christmas. While it wasn’t as busy as Disneyland, the drive to and from Anaheim combined with Christmas traffic meant we didn’t get a full day in the park. But we still got to see what we wanted and purchased rare LEGO to bring back home.

LEGOLAND location

LEGOLAND is located an hour south from Anaheim (where Disneyland is located) and a half an hour north from San Diego. To get the most out of your time at LEGOLAND the best times to visit would be during their spring and summer. This ensures you can make use of the waterpark.

Due to its location, staying at one of the LEGOLAND hotels (which flank either side of the park) would allow for more time in the park and would certainly give an extra experience to remember. Friends who have stayed at the hotel said they could enter the park earlier than the general public, which may be advantageous if you want to do everything the park has to offer.

For our family trip, we hired a car and drove from Anaheim. We left the park early in the afternoon as it gets dark by 4:30pm, and the highway during Christmas season is bumper to bumper. We wanted to get back to our hotel at Disneyland in daylight hours and avoid the highway during peak hour.

If we have the opportunity to go back, I’d stay the night at one of the hotels for sure. 

What to do in LEGOLAND

There are rides, shows and displays to wander through at LEGOLAND. It is a great park for all ages to enjoy, however it is targeted to kids between the ages of 2 and 12. The rides are great for littlies. My four year old was able to go on most of the rides as long as she was accompanied with an adult. 

Lines for the faster rides took forever. They were not as fast moving or efficient as Disneyland. Our first rollercoaster ride (the Coastasaurus) took us an hour and a half to get on. But once the kids had their thrill, it was easier to walk through the LEGO displays.

We literally walked on the Fairy Tale Brook ride, which was a boat ride that allowed you to see LEGO built scenes from popular fairy tales. 

The USA Miniland and Star Wars Miniland were the main highlights of visiting LEGOLAND. It was pretty amazing to see world buildings and landmarks built out of LEGO. We spent a bit of time looking at each scene.

My husband especially loved the Star Wars LEGO displays. 

We finished our visit with the 4D LEGO movie and the Ninjango Game Ride.

Is buying LEGO cheaper at LEGOLAND?

We completed our visit to LEGOLAND by purchasing some LEGO to take home. The LEGO was expensive at the park and the currency conversion made us question if it was worth buying LEGO there in the first place. We were told by friends who had visited the park previously to buy LEGO at Walmart. We weren’t sure if we were going to get to a Walmart, so we allowed the girls to spend their Christmas money on LEGO sets not yet available in Australia instead.

My husband didn’t get to purchase from LEGOLAND, but the LEGO store at Downtown Disney had rare Star Wars sets. This was what he brought home for Christmas. 

Overall, our time at LEGOLAND California was fun. We will look at visiting again and staying at one of the hotels in the future. 

Have you ever visited LEGOLAND? What did you think of your visit? How amazing is the USA Miniland?