Being the slightly nutty person that I am, I took Kiddo and Tiny for a two-day adventure to Legoland NY without Seth. (My poor beleaguered husband is a brand new nurse still in his training period in labor and delivery, and doesn’t get vacation time for a while yet).
It was a brightly colored blast!
We started off with a three hour plus drive down there, in pouring rain (thanks Fred). The kids were bouncing off the walls, while I was just delighted to have gotten out of the house before 8 am. I had purchased some car entertainment like scratch off coloring books and rubbery stretchy super heroes, which I doled out gradually across the three hours. Two pee breaks and a stop for food later and we arrived!
There were rides and playgrounds and restaurants and face painting and shops and lego building stations everywhere.
It was all brightly colored and super creative and well done.
The lines were long on a Wednesday – I can’t imagine what it’s like on a weekend.
The best part of the trip though? Yawa!
We met up with my friend from college and her two boys at Legoland. I have not seen Yawa in person in 25 years! Hot diggety. That’s a long time. She’s one of the three women I chat with daily in my life-giving group messenger chat though, so it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, but it has! And in that time, Yawa has produced two lovely and wonderful teen boys, E and A, who were an absolute joy to get to know.
Kiddo immediately went into Annoying Little Sister Mode with E, who is 15, and who is endlessly patient and tolerant. He took her on rides and waited in long lines with her, took pictures of her every time she said “take my picture,” and didn’t throttle her when she got him wet at one of the rides that involves pirates and boats.
Tiny was the most fun though, because at 3 she was pure wide-eyed wonder about everything. Bright colors and fun characters cover the landscape, and she was into all of it. Kiddo thought the incredible recreations of famous buildings out of Legos were boring, but not Tiny. Tiny wanted to explore it all.
And as usual, Tiny stole hearts. Yawa and E and A all adore her, and carried her around (she had a perfectly good stroller to ride in but apparently arms are better) and took her on playgrounds and rides. She drank it in. In fact, she loved the people dressed as mini figs so much she got teary when she finally got to hug one!
The only downside to the trip was the hotel service. At 4:30 on the first day, my two started saying they wanted to go to the hotel. We were all a bit beat from the blazing sun and tons of walking and stimulation, so I wholeheartedly agreed with their idea. Only problem was, when we got over to the Legoland hotel, for which I had paid a small FORTUNE (💲💲💲) our room wasn’t ready yet. Checkin time was 4:00. It was about 5:00. And if you want to get technical, I had checked in electronically that morning before we had even gotten to Legoland. We were told there were issues with housekeeping not having the rooms ready yet and there was nothing staff could do.
So in great irritation I went and sat on a bench and tried to corral my tired and cranky kids. Time passed. I watched more and more families try to check in and get the same message I had. Kids started melting down left and right as it got later and later. I had words with staff. Other people got nasty with staff and got passed off to the manager of the hotel who miraculously found them rooms. I started to get really pissed that the way to get a room was to get out of line and downright rude. Adult tantrums don’t look good on anyone but they were getting rewarded. I started calling other area hotels and found they were all booked solid. Finally I pleaded with a staff member and got into the manager’s office myself, and got a room assigned. Magically they had one for us when I got in there. At 7:30 at night.
They didn’t comp us in any way. No free meal in the restaurant (in fact, they refused to seat us in the restaurant while we waited), no discount, not even a coupon for a discounted future stay. Nada.
The room was very cool. Not cool enough to make up for the 3 hours of torture waiting while children screamed and melted down all around us, and I told Tiny to stop lying on the crumb-covered floor 1,057 times.
The next morning the kids woke early and we scooted down to breakfast right at 7 when the hotel buffet opened. By the time we left the hotel at 9:30, the breakfast line was so long it was absolutely absurd. So the hotel didn’t exactly figure out all its issues overnight.
In sum: go to Legoland! It’s clean and fun as can be. The 15 year old had fun and the 3 year old had fun and everyone in between. Go during the week – weekends have got to be way too crowded. Bring an old friend you haven’t seen in way too long. And stay at the Courtyard or Hampton Inn a few miles away and skip the Lego hotel debacle. The rooms are not so cool that they make up for all the terrible service.
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