Chris took the big girls on a trip to New York back in April to visit one of his bucket list places … LEGOLAND! Here’s what he had to say about their adventures.
When Dad is a huge LEGO nerd, and you have family that only lives 15
minutes from the new LEGOLAND in New York, you make a special trip to “take
your kids” to LEGOLAND! This is how it went down:
While we were visiting for Grandpa’s surprise 60th last year, it
dawned on me that I had never taken my oldest ladies (Lotte and Grace)
on a trip by themselves. They are six and seven now, so traveling is A LOT
easier with both of them … and I had always wanted an excuse to visit
the new LEGOLAND theme park. So I put two and two together, and we
found a Friday that Lotte and Grace didn’t have school, and booked the
trip!
As we were planning our adventure, our team of three LEGOLAND
enthusiasts snowballed into a crew of 13 covering three generations,
including grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and best friends. When
visiting a theme park, the more, the merrier! We had such a blast with
everyone.
The girls got a little treat by getting out of school early the
Thursday before and we took an afternoon flight to New York. To say it was fun
traveling with my two adventurers was an understatement. It also felt
like a wonderful parenting transition — away from the stressful,
exhausting travel with young kids into a new type of travel that felt
so much more free and easy. It was truly one of those moments like
losing a first tooth or seeing your kid ride a bike for the first
time. I highly encourage it. I felt closer and more connected with
both of them after we got home.
We landed around 9:30 pm ET, but were able to get into
our rental car by 10:15 and got to my sister and brother-in-law’s
just before midnight. The girls slept in the car and fortunately
settled right back down to get a decent night’s sleep.
We intentionally picked a Friday early in the season for both better weather
and lesser crowds. The weather was spectacular — 55 F and sunny — a perfect day to
spend outside. The crowds were really light as well. Getting there
right as it opened at 10 a.m. helped. We waited maybe a combined 30
minutes for all of the rides we went on. I am glad we chose the day we
did to check it out.
The park itself is a blast! It is certainly geared towards younger
LEGO fans, but I (a 40-year-old man-child) had just as much fun, both
watching them experience it and also getting to experience it myself.
Grace’s highlight was the Dragon Rollercoaster, and Lotte loved the
pirate ship. My personal favorite was the Mini-land, which had
realistic recreations of so many beloved U.S. landmarks. The detail and
interactivity were incredible. New York and the singing Mt Rushmore
really stood out.
It isn’t a huge park, and you can certainly cover it all in a single
day. But there are a lot of stairs and hills, so the energy was
starting to lag after lunchtime. We made one more loop on the
rollercoaster, built custom mini-figures, and called it a day around
3:30 pm.
After some pizza and playing with their cousins, our ladies crashed
for the evening. We then went to watch our cousin play soccer on
Saturday and headed back to LGA for an early evening flight home. LGA
is so fantastic now that it has been updated. The girls even wanted to get
there early to play at the playground and see the fountain.
We got home around 9:30 pm on Saturday with two busted-but-happy
little ladies. It was a short but very sweet trip and something I will
certainly repeat in the future.
Bis bald, friends! Until next time …