Legoland

Legoland now, and easily the most childish big park on the trip. I did visit this place in 2002 but don't have much recollection of the park layout at all, so I was treating it as new.

The entrance is similar to the others around the world. I still have a few to visit but the gaps are both new. The park in Florida that opened a year or so ago and the one in Malaysia that's due to open anytime now!

The ticket has to contain the longest small print ever!

"Make it a day they won't forget". The day the parents stuck their kids' heads together.

Construction is underway next door to the park on the new hotel, due to open later in the year. It's a real shame they've not made it look like it's being made of Lego.

If you let your kids take advantage of you, smile and don't let them see they've won. The position of the camera is a little unfortunate, and what is the boy doing with the whip?

Inside the park was the obligatory impressive models and structures. Unlike the other parks they have barriers that prevent you getting anywhere for the first hour. Something to bear in mind if you get here early.

Looks like the water scooters won't be open today, and this was one of the rides on the right side of the barriers...so not a lot to do then.

We were saved by the Sea-Life centre, which was included in the price of the ticket, and fortunately was open for us.

Inside was a numerous number of fish tanks including a varied selection of animals such as this "NEMO, NEMO, LOOK MUM IT'S NEMO" fish (well that's what the kids were all shouting so I guess that's it's name).

For many years it was believed that sharks had to always keep swimming but then evidence was shown of them sleeping on the bottom of the tank. It couldn't have been a rare occurrence as this shark was doing it and refused to budge.

I think rays are my favourite of all sea life despite what they did to Steve "Strewth, look at the size of the claws on that" Irwin.

Some of the tanks include Lego theming, which as theming goes does work a little bit.

A lot of the animals are hard to photograph due to the low light reflections and the speed they travel at. The more stationary creatures therefore come out better.

Spider crabs are huge and photos of them never do them justice.

This shrimp was bigger than your usual shrimp boo-boo.

A small number of areas have been set up for the kids to interact with some of the animals. It's just a shame that the piranha tank wasn't one of them.

The poor lobster didn't have the most roomiest of tanks.

Overall the Sea-Life centre was pretty decent and whilst nothing more than a means to pass the time for us, the kids in there were having a blast whilst being educated. Having seen enough of the animals it was time to head into the main park to check out the bricks.

First coaster was a mid-sized kids ride called Coastersaurus. It's nestled nicely amongst the trees and whilst the throughput was a little slow, the ride did offer two laps and overall the ride was pleasant. This was the only new coaster for me.

Wanting to avoid excessive exertion and having suffered at this ride in Windsor I chose not to partake in the fire fighting attraction.

I'm not sure if the character outfits are good or creepy.

Next up was the largest of the rides in the park, the nicely themed test track coaster. Now this one I remember back in 2002 and the ride was much the same although we lacked the skidding sounds on the hairpins that I'm sure was there the last time I rode it.

Nice themed tea-cup rides.

Final coaster in the park was the Dragon ride, which is half dark ride, half coaster and despite the slight queue it was OK. However none of the coasters gave us the urge to ride again, and we had to kill time somehow...oh, what to do.

Looking at this I had the sudden realisation that if you merged these two together you get me.

The Egyptian themed shoot-em-up ride was ish. With a small number of targets and a gun that didn't aim straight I didn't score very well on this at all.

There's a little museum that shows how Lego is made and we were commenting on the park maps and how we'd visited most of them. Then a member of staff overheard us, and discovering we were interested in theme parks gave us a private tour of the plant.

"Pick up the red pieces" she told us "Properly" when we didn't do it right, "now smile for the photo". So doing as we were told at risk she'd keep us locked up we posed for the photo with forced smiles. Actually she was really nice and friendly, just a bit too friendly :)

New to the park are some Star Wars sections featuring an array of character models and stages. Chewbacca was kind cute, but Boba still rules supreme!

A couple of the stage models. A little tricky to see but in the right of the Cantina, you can see Greedo pulling the gun on Han.

It all gets to be too much for one of the AT-ATs and in the California heat it slumps to the ground exhausted.

Throughout the park there are some really nice touches such as the row of owls, complete with one facing the wrong way.

This is a life size model of a car made of bricks.

These Kumbak rides are very cool to watch but a bit scary to ride. You have to put your trust into a robot arm. I'm just worried that one day skynet will take these over and they'll begin killing everyone.

and remember children if you have a robot arm in your garage don't copy what you see in this park. Just look how close his head gets to the ground at the start.

Some more nice theming. She's listening for the screams of the child that was pushed into the well.

The park has a new water park section, which I wasn't interested in. It was popular with the locals however.

Musical fountains where the instruments play as you stand on the circular mats. Just a shame the girl was too light to trigger it without jumping very hard.

Now with plenty of time still to kill I decided to look for odd things in the model village, and where I couldn't I'd just make stuff up. The rest of the report is just stupid comments on models. If that's not your thing you can leave this page now :)

In the redneck section there's an ostrich farm, and they're probably fed on unruly young kids.

Dodgy child molester finds perfect front for getting closer to kids, and his van does come with a warning.

In New Orleans a nice touch that some of the people are awaiting the parade are wearing beads.

Whilst the boys were up in the mountains indulging in man-talk, their bored wives were indulging in their extra-marital affairs back home.

On first sight this looks like the woman is moving home, but her arms up in the air displays distress indicating that she'd defaulted on her mortgage and was being kicked out.