Back to Legoland (25-27 May)

Legoland Billund is celebrating its 50 year anniversary this year, so we decided that was a good excuse to head back for a visit.  We'd also never been there in the summer when the water rides were open.

Since this was likely our last trip to Legoland (at least for a long time), we decided to splash out and stay at the Legoland Hotel, in the Kingdom Suite.  The room was great, but the only issue we had was that it had a huge window and no ventilation or A/C, so the room got really hot.  (It was 29-30 degrees each day).


We left Malmö straight after work and drove through Denmark to Billund.  To keep with the tradition we'd set on the previous two visits, we didn't tell the kids we were going - instead we told them we were going to visit a castle..  it wasn't a complete lie since we had the castle suite:

Lego Knight Wallpaper

Lego Torch

To get to our suite we had to walk past the pirate section, then the adventurer section.  There was also a Lego Friends section but that was on the other side of the hotel.

Adventurer Hall

Adventure Trail

Follow the bugs

Indiana Jones

Pirate Hall

Outside the pirate rooms

Captain Redbeard

Cam and Redbeard

Me and Redbeard

Kingdom Hall

Knight

Kingdom Hall leading down top Adventure Trail

 

 

The shield above our bed (the shield and swords was lego, the rest was part of the design

View from the side of the shield - showing the lego

We had a bit of time before bed (we arrived at 7pm), so we decided to go for an explore.  The kids had each gotten a puzzle book where they needed to find letters to answer a puzzle, so we went looking for those.

Lego Sculpture outside the restaurant

Monkeys in the play area

Cameron in the 50th Anniversary Throne

Waterbowl for dogs (although it was filled with lego most days)

Penguin model

Wizard

The band - there's also one of the letter clues to the right of them - that the kids missed at least 5 times

This Rhino looked pretty happy to be mounted

One of the big Lego 'graffiti' walls

The very bright corridor for the standard lego rooms

Contrasting only slightly with the more adult display in the conference centre

Lego-esque sculpture outside the conference center

Some of the over 2000 minifigures behind the hotel desk

The front desk

The display had a bike with magnifying wheels that rode back and forth magnifying the figures

The kids with Ollie the dragon in the hotel foyer

The globe in the restaurant outdoor section

Australia!

Cam and Yoda at the Lego hotel shop

We decided to take a walk along the creek to the Billund Sculpture park just behind the hotel:

Sculpture Park

Playing on the "Three Play Sculptures"

The slightly immodest "Fabulous Animal" by HRH Prince Henrik

Alana and Tomas in "Entrance"

"Welcome to My World"

The Little Prince (Den lille Prins)

The Businessman - I'm an old man and don't have time to dream

The Vain Man - I admire you, said the little Prince, and shrugged his shoulders, but what interest do you have in that?

The Fox - It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.  What is essential is invisible to the eye

Geologist

The alcoholic - Why do you drink? To forget that I'm ashamed.  What are you ashamed of? That I drink

The Lamp lighter - He is the only one of them all who does not seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking of something besides himself

The Little Prince - It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

King - "Ah! Here is a subject", exclaimed the King when he saw the Little Prince

By the time we finished up with the Little Prince it was time for bed, so we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the next day.

From the hotel we were able to enter the park through a side gate over the land-bridge.  On Saturday we entered at the same time as the general public, but Sunday we got to go in an hour earlier.

Since we had done Legoland before, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do.  There was a new ride - The Flying Eagle and the water rides were running.  The water play area had been removed, but we were still able to do the Pirate Splash Battle.  It was quite warm, so the water rides were the best.  We also caught the King's water show and the kids spent a fair bit of time riding the Ice pilot ride.

On Saturday we rode the Flying Eagle once and then the lines got a little long.  On Sunday we got the extra hour, so we rode it four times in a row:

Flying Eagle

The Eagle

Canoe Ride

The Pirate Splash Battle was running this time

The sculpture replaced the fountain at the entrance

Cam with Nexo- Knight Lance Richmond

A new dinosaur

and his friend

My favourite - the Pirate Boat:

Ice Pilots

Here's the kids on the ice pilots ride - they programmed their own set of moves.  Tom is on the far right, Cam is in the middle and near the end you can see Alana's ride on the far left:

Building a sculpture - Alana and Kristine's one across the top of the screens is made entirely from door pieces

Doors

Building

A support helps it go up the slope to the glass case

It got pretty long..

To the wall

And around the corner

50 years of Legoland!

History of Legoland - A New Country

History of Legoland - The Beginning

History of Legoland - A Train Trip

History of Legoland - On Two Wheels

1968 - On June 7, Legoland opens for the first time. As many as 625,000 guests visit the then-small park, which was more than three times as many as expected

1969 - YEEHAA! Pony rides become part of LEGOREDO with 12 horses and cool cowboys. A ride costs two Danish Kroner.
1974 - With 1.4 million LEGO bricks the legendary Indian Chief, Sitting Bull, is at that time the largest single figure in Legoland Billund.

1983 - The small Lego bricks have grown larger, actually 15 times larger than the original Lego Brick. DUPLO Land is ready to be taken in by the smallest kids.

2016 - This was our first visit - we arrived the first day they Ninjago opened in 2016 for our first visit

2018 - The new ride.

Overall it was a great trip and fun to visit on the 50th anniversary.  We've done everything we wanted  to do at Legoland, but it's one place we'll miss when we head back home.