Oh my gosh has Legoland been SO much fun! Here's a good overview of our time:
Sleeping: It's has been VERY minimal. The girls wake up early and it wakes Pierce up and he REALLY doesn't like being in his Pack N Play so we all get up once that happens and we've been just trying to get Pierce to nap in the stroller when he can, but it's been worth it. The skipping napping was okay...until it wasn't. I think 3 days without regular naps kind of took it's toll on...well, everyone, really. So I was glad I didn't plan this trip to be too long. I'm hoping it'll be okay to get them back on track once we get home.
Food: The buffet for breakfast is SO nice! Every day we load up on as much as we can and then grabbed some to go items to pack with us and take into the park. We haven't really paid for lunch, just snacked all day and then have a big dinner (which is nice because dinner is pretty pricey it pretty much eats up all our food budget I had set for the trip). I picked a treat each day in the park to try something new though. One day it was black cherry and orange popcorn, one day it was churros, another day it was apple fries with cream to dip them in, we also tried a pretzel (that was probably the least favorite one). We've all been pretty happy with those treats for sure. I will say we ate something weird because by the end of the trip, some of the kids were having bright green poop...so weird.
Hotel: Our hotel was absolutely fabulous. I loved the location (I could NOT imagine coming to Legoland and staying somewhere else and dealing with parking and all that). The kids looked forward to their legos in the safe every day, and we even got 4 of each kind so we had lot of fun building during the few "down time" moments we had. The kids (girls AND Pierce) really seemed to love doing the dance party room every night. I'm sure we have a few clubbers on our hands with how much they really, really loved being there. When we'd tell them it was time to go they hated it haha. I loved watching their dance moves AND one of the nights they played some 90s songs so all the parents were singing along while the kids danced. It was probably one of the greatest nights. I do wish our room had been set up a little different, but if we came with older kids (a little older) it would've been totally fine. They even had a whoopie cushion spot near the elevators that made fart sounds if you stood on it and the girls LOVED doing that as often as they could haha. Also, having that early hour to get into the park was nice (although not a lot of the rides are actually open at that time). The breakfasts in the hotel are yummy, but dinners are just so-so. I was kind of disappointed with our dinner options every night (we tried both restaurants in the hotel and then just Little Caesars our last night...I wish we tried something in the park, but it was just so pricey).
Brick or Treat: This was FANTASTIC! We got the kids dressed up on Saturday and brought their buckets (as well as grabbed some of the bags the park provides) and hit up EVERY stop except the witch one. I read more about the witch one and we decided to make it the first stop on Sunday so we could say we did it all. That ended up being pretty fun, but I don't know that I'd wait in the LONG line to do it. We even found some of the candy stations that weren't too busy throughout the park so they got even more candy from those as well (we got LOTS of candy!!)
The Park: Okay so the rides and the park, we had a lot of fun. However, I was sad that the height restrictions put the biggest damper on our trip. I paid attention to what the heights were before we left, but what I didn't realize is most of the rides any of the kids needed an adult to ride with them. I figured it I went with two of them that would count, but they needed an adult in the same lane as the kid so Larry and I had to take turns taking the older kids on the rides, while the other one stayed in a play area with the younger two. Luckily, there are a lot of really cool play areas so that was nice (and even one splash pad area), but it felt like we didn't get to see each other much because one of us was in line with a kid to ride rides. Lucy could also ride a chunk so we'd take turns with her too. There were only a few that Pierce could actually ride (and he loved what he could ride), but that was kind of a bummer on the trip.
Also, NO ONE told me that with 4 small kids you will be making SO many bathroom stops. It would end up being I'd take one kid on a ride, while we waited Larry would take the others to the bathroom. Once I got off that ride my kid would need to go so I'd head over there and then while he took a kid on a ride someone else would need to go (or a diaper would need to be changed) so we'd were CONSTANTLY going to the bathroom. I think we spent more time doing that than anything else in the whole park. I feel like we also spent SO much time in the lines and that was aggravating. Luckily, I figured out how to work the app pretty well by the third day to that helped avoid too many lines (but then we were running all round.
One REALLY annoying thing was we planned to do the Aquarium on the first day (Friday) since the park wasn't open as late that day (the hours online said the park closed at 5, but the aquarium was open till 8 every day) so I figured we'd do as much of the park and then do that once we were done. We stopped at this dance party thing by the aquarium entrance and Larry noticed a sign that said it closed at 5 that day. I was SO bugged so I went to ask the guy at the ticket place which time was right and he said as long as you were in BY 5 you could stay...okay, that's fine. We were going to let Pierce take his nap in the stroller while we did that, but then we found out strollers weren't allowed in at all. UGH!! So we let the girls dance and let Pierce have a short nap, then at about 4:30 we headed in. Pierce was PISSED he couldn't keep sleeping and basically cried throughout the entire place. I really felt bad for the other people. They gave us this stamp thing for the girls to do for a "prize" at the end, so we had to make sure we stopped at each spot. Not a problem, except that about 10 minutes into the place they announced it was closing soon and to make your way to the exit (apparently the being in BY 5 was total BS!). So now we had to RUSH through the place just to find the stops for them to get stamps, we didn't really see anything in it, Pierce is still crying HARD CORE, and by the time we get to the end, the prize place was closed. I was SO not happy about that and wished we hadn't even gotten those tickets...such a waste.
But onto the good parts. Like I said, the play areas were really cool. They had so many fun things within them (like I wish we had playgrounds like this back home). The kids loved the splash pad (we learned after the first day to bring extra clothes so they could actually get wet). They were at the best locations where we could do so many rides around them. Also, we signed up to do a free minifigs one of the days and that was really cool since you could customize them (I thought they just gave you one that was already put together) and you got to do 3 each. We also got to ride all the rides, I wish we had time to ride our favorites more than once, but the only ones we did multiple times were the ones Pierce could ride on so we could all go on as a family. Cara loved roller coasters. Gwen likes them if they don't have big drops, Lucy doesn't LOVE them just yet (but tolerates them...I'm hoping when she's bigger she'll like them more), Pierce loved what he could ride (especially the airplane ride that went in circles, he laughed a lot on that one). Cara really liked the splash ride, Gwen liked it when she could prepare herself for the wet part, Lucy HATED that one haha.
So while there were bummer parts, overall it was a good time and everyone had so much fun. That's all I can ask for. And the meltdowns were way less than I thought they'd be.
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