Legoland, Carlsbad, California

Legoland is a wonderful, fun and enjoyable place. We've been going there since 7 years ago. They have great events all year round. For ex. this coming Jun 15-16 they'll have the Star Wars Days, with appearances from the 501st Legion dressed in outfits that we've only seen in the movies. The Darth Vader is very impressive and on point. They have many great contests, activities and plenty of photo opportunities. Our favorite event is their Halloween "Brick of Treat", it not only includes many costume contests, but it has great live shows and entertainers all over the park and every kid that wants to take the "brick or treat trail" gets a nice and healthy treat. It takes place during all the weekends on October. We went to their Water Park since they open, it's very well taken care off and clean, it has 3 different pools for all the ages plus slides and a fun and relaxing "floaty river". Legoland at Christmas time is beautiful and filled with fun activities and shows. Their "New Year's" event is fantastic, it has a live concert with 4-5 bands that come annually and they give the audience small party favors to join in the celebration and there's an amazing 20-25 min fireworks show at the end. Legoland is not just for little kids. If you're into lego building there's plenty of opportunity for that including the monthly lego build off where the winners are invited to the annual competition. They also have lego robotics at the "Mind Storms" hall for kids 9 and older, it's very interesting and fun, but you have to make reservations as soon as you get in the park because it books quickly. Their bathrooms are clean and roomy, Legoland was the first park to have family bathrooms. The food is good and not pricey, their restaurants often offer discount coupons printed in the program of the events of the day. One neat thing unique to this park is that if you buy something where ever you are you can use their "pick up purchase" feature that allows you to pick it up at the end of your visit from their front desk so you don't have to carry the bags all day with you.

Legoland Hotel is a great place to stay. The rooms are filled with Legoland themes and it is really nice and next to Legoland. Fun for the whole family.

Legoland is definitely geared more towards the younger kids. My almost 7 yr old daughter is already starting to be kind of old for it, of course she also is not into legos. My 4 yr old son loves everything about it. The giant legos to build with at the water park. All the different building areas. I was really surprised by how much he liked miniland considering he's normally a very active kid who doesn't even like sitting still for a tv show. All in all I wouldn't pay full price for a ticket but with all the deals they offer it's a nice cheaper alternative to Disneyland.

It's small enough that even with young kids you can get to everything you want try out, the food is actually healthy and reasonably priced, the staff is consistently friendly, and the rides are just exciting enough. There are plenty of gift shops, as you'd expect, but it never feels like a mall. Just an overall great experience, and much calmer and easier to enjoy than bigger parks.

We are not big fans of Disney type amusement parks, but my 9-year-old son is crazy about Lego. He’s been given the option of Disneyland several times and always chooses Legoland instead. The original Miniland seems a bit run down, but the newer opened Star Wars is very nice.