One more day in Legoland
Started: 2019-03-19 10:06:38
Submitted: 2019-03-19 13:38:29
Visibility: World-readable
23rd February 2019: In which the intrepid narrator takes his family to another day at Legoland
After a one-day break from Legoland, we returned to a second day at the Legoest place on earth on our last full day in Carlsbad. (Also I ended up with discounted, two-day admission tickets, which made the decision to come back for a second day easier.)
This time we visited the park with my nuclear family: me, Kiesa, Calvin, and Julian. I took Calvin around the park, and Kiesa took Julian around the park. Calvin wanted to start with the Ninjago ride, which was open but was experiencing some technical difficulties, so we spent forty-five minutes waiting in line, starting in the queue outside, then inside the building, in a bunch of small rooms designed to keep us from seeing how much of the line remained in front of us. Some of the displays also showed how to operate the ride: it was an interactive ride with sensors on the front panel that would detect how we moved our arms, and interpret those as shots fired against the Lego enemies that were animated onto the screens in front of us (in 3D, with polarized glasses I wore somewhat awkwardly over my corrective lenses). I had some trouble keeping my hands low enough to properly activate the sensors (it appeared to be calibrated for people smaller than me; which is not entirely inconceivable given the target demographic of Lego Ninjago is about thirty years younger than me) but I did manage to amass a considerably higher score than Calvin.
After the Ninjago ride, we dropped by an exhibit where Calvin assembled colored 1x1 plates on an 8x8 plate, in the pattern to make a large mosaic that was being assembled at the back of the room.
Next Calvin found the video game room, where a bunch of current-generation XBoxes were set up all playing the Lego Movie video game. I found the game only moderately interesting (it took one linearly through the Lego Movie storyline; though it did have a free-play mode I didn't totally understand), but Calvin was quite amused until I managed to tear him away to see other things.
We met Kiesa and Julian for lunch (at the vaguely-Asian-themed restaurant in the Ninjago area, which seemed to be consistent with the vaguely-Asian-themed Ninjago property itself (or, less-charitably, cultural appropriation). I was, at least, amused by the way the area was decorated to look like scaled-up Legos, with street lights topped with large plastic reproductions of 1x1 angled plates on the end of 1x4 plates.
We walked across the park to get ice cream at Fun Town, then Calvin and I wandered back through Legoland, looking at the Lego Star Wars models, including a large-scale (roughly minifigure-scale, I think) model of the trench on the First Death Star. We found the Model Shop tucked away in an obscure building behind Miniland, where a couple of Lego model builders were at work, surrounded by brightly-colored bins stacked to the ceiling filled with Lego bricks, complete with ventilation pipes to exhaust the Superglue fumes used to keep the models together.
Calvin wanted to ride the Technic Coaster again, so we rode it twice, back-to-back; then rode the Technic-themed spinning teacups ride. (It occurred to me that we should take Calvin to some sort of amusement park with bigger roller coasters, which he would likely appreciate; though I don't actually know where the best nearest amusement parks are.)
We rode the Aquazone Wave Racers once more, then spent more time playing the Lego Movie video game before I pried Calvin away to see Miniland once more. We walked through Las Vegas, where the Strip's resort-casinos were all lined up next to each other, in a faithful Lego reproduction of the unfaithful Las Vegas reproductions of real buildings; then looked at the towering skyscrapers in New York City.
And with that we wrapped up our second and final day in Legoland. we headed back across the street to our hotel and prepared to head back to Seattle the next day.
