In June we went to the Legoland Discovery Center at Grapevine Mills Mall and I was really impressed with it. It was a lot better then I expected it to be. The only complaint I have is the time it took us to get in.
I purchased tickets online and when you get your tickets that way you make a reservation and pick the time you want to arrive. I made the reservation for right when they opened between 10 and 10:30am, you can arrive anytime within your reserved time and you are supposed to be able to get in but if you get there later you aren’t guaranteed entry. When we got there a little before 10 there was a line…actually there were 3 lines…one was for those who made reservations online, the other was for walk-ups, and the other line was a school group. They said that the school group had priority so they had to get all of them in first. They can only take in so many people at a time because there is a limit to how many people can go in the first area. Once they finished getting the school in they started letting the other 2 lines in but they took in a few walk-ins and a few who had made reservations so we didn’t get in until sometime after 10:30. The thing that bothers me about this though is that we would have gotten in faster if we had been in the walk-up line. I think that they should have made sure they got those with reservations in at their time and then done walk-ups because there was really no advantage to making a reservation. Maybe had the school group not been there though it would have been different.
Once we got in we had to wait to be let into The Factory.
Once the doors to The Factory opened we were welcomed by Dr. Brick-A-Brack to the Lego Factory Tour. He needed some help making some legos so he picked some people from the audience and Connor was one of them. He got to spin one of the wheels.
After that we were all given a little yellow lego to take home. I had also purchased activity kits for the boys and there are 2 pages where you put a stamp next to everything you did so the stamp was right by where we exited. After leaving The Factory you go right to the Kingdom Quest ride. This was fun, it was one of those rides where you get a laser gun and you shoot the targets. I couldn’t take any pictures though and just a tip don’t shoot the dragon.
Once you exit the Kingdom Quest ride you can do everything else in whatever order you’d like. The first thing the boys did was the earthquake thing, you try to build a tower and then turn on the earthquake and see if it survives.
After that we went into Miniland. Miniland has a different Dallas/Ft. Worth area attractions/buildings (Cowboys Stadium, Southfork, the Texas Star Ferris Wheel, the Ft. Worth Stockyards, etc) made out of legos and there is also a scavenger hunt.
Right outside of Miniland they have this little Star Wars display.
After we were done in Miniland the boys wanted to play in the Lego City Fire Academy.
Once they were done playing in the Fire Academy we went to watch Legends of Chima in 4D. I have to say that this was great, it was the best 3D I’ve ever seen. I’ve always enjoyed 4D stuff at like Disney World and stuff but the quality of the 3D has never been great. I haven’t seen anything in 3D at the movie theaters but I loved this so maybe the movies at the theater are the same now too but I probably still wouldn’t go watch them because the 4D part is what makes it fun and I don’t think I want to wear glasses for that long of a time.
Next we moved on to the Forest Ranger Pursuit. This is a ride but it’s just for kids. You have to be under a certain height to ride and there were a couple of kids trying to get on the ride but they were too tall. One girl actually managed to get on because she was not standing up straight. They have the kids line up against a wall that has a big line on it and if they are over the line they can’t ride. The girl was kind of leaning back to wear she was just at the line, I noticed this but I guess they didn’t. Another little boy in the group that was too tall was upset because he wasn’t able to ride but they let the girl ride and he said she was taller than him. Anyways, the kids each get in their own vehicle and drive around. The story is that there are some burglars that they are supposed to be capturing.
JT loved this ride. He was the smallest one and he kept getting stuck but he was so happy and smiley the whole time.
At this point I think that we went to the cafe and got a snack and then after that we went on Merlin’s Apprentice. Merlin’s Apprentice is one of those rides that just goes around but then you can make it go higher or stay low…like the Dumbo ride…in this case though the faster you pedal the higher you go.
The last thing we did was the Lego Racers Build & Test. You build your car out of Legos and then race them down then slope.
There is also a Princess thing for girls and a little Lego Duplo Playground for little kids and the boys just got their stamps from these two and then we of course had to go to the gift shop.
We had a lot of fun at the Legoland Discovery Center and like I said at the beginning I was impressed. I wasn’t expecting much because it is inside a mall but there is actually a lot of stuff to do. We really enjoyed it.
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