California 2014 – Day 2 (Legoland)

The next morning (also:  Mike’s birthday!), we were all up pretty early since we were still on East Coast time.  We chilled in the room until it was time to go down to one of the restaurants for breakfast.

http://youtu.be/1BRO9yfqHpE

After breakfast, Mike started loading up the suitcases into the car while the boys and I walked around the hotel a bit.

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After Mike was a little more settled, we took the boys back  to the room to change into their clothes for the day and do one last sweep of the room for miscellaneous belongings.

One last time down the elevator. LOL

http://youtu.be/lkKF7gCmO4M

Mike took the last of the bags down to the car and I took the boys over to take some pictures in their fancy Legoland shirts.

We had so much time to wait until the gates opened.  LOL We chilled outside and listened to the music, went back to the hotel to buy admission tickets, to let the kids play on the pirate ship, used the bathrooms, etc.

http://youtu.be/4cMT2z93I1M

Once the gates opened, we were able to get early entry via a special entrance for Legoland Hotel visitors only.  We hurried off to the one ride that I heard got really backed up – Sky Cruiser.

After that, we just kind of looked at or went on whatever ride caught our eye.   We didn’t have much of a plan. LOL

The LEGO Movie Experience was super cool.  They had the full basement set used during the movie.  It was insanely cool.  The employee running the attraction said that the master builders were asked to build parts of the set and had no idea it was going to be used in the movie.

After that, Mike and Matthew rode a jungle safari ride while Ian and I went on a dragon roller coaster.

My personal favorite was Driving School where kids get to drive around in LEGO cars in a street environment.  There were traffic signals, stop signs, and lines on the road.  It was pretty cool and the kids got a paper driver license as they exited!

http://youtu.be/eet4bEwje_I

Another fun ride was Police & Fire Academy where you race other families to put out the “fire” in the buildings.  We were first to put out the fire!

After lunch, I took the boys on the LEGO TECHNIC Coaster.  Matthew swore he was going to die the whole ride (literally screaming “OH MY GOSH I’M GOING TO DIE” the entire time) but Ian and I had fun. 🙂

Which is why it was so damn funny when I saw this was our ride photo.  Needless to say, I had to buy it.  The expression on Matthew’s face is absolutely priceless.  LOL

He said he loved it so we rode it again right after.

So, while we were waiting in line for the roller coaster the second time, a little boy in line in front of Ian asked Ian what his shirt said.  Ian told him “Ian” and I explained that it was his name and told the boy that Matthew’s shirt read “Matthew”.  The boy’s mom complimented us on the shirts and asked where I got them.  I told her that I had ordered them from Etsy before our vacation at which point Ian started his “technically, we’re on vacation” story that he told 100 million times while on vacation.  The mom said they were on vacation as well and I asked where they were from.  She responded “Buffalo” and I responded “us too!!”  LOL  Turns out they live about 10-15 minutes away from us.  What a small world!   What are the chances that the only people we make small talk with at Legoland are from the same city?!?!?

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We also checked out Miniland USA which had reproductions of 7 areas o the US all made out of LEGO bricks.   It’s hard to realize how big some of the buildings are but many of them were taller than Mike and he’s 6’3″.

We rode a handful of other rides.  The boys spent a while on some playgrounds too.  LOL  While they played on one playground, I got apple fries:  fried apple sticks with cinnamon and sugar with whipped cream on top.  They were okay.  I don’t feel the need to have them ever again.  LOL

We went back to check out Driving School on more time.

After that we did a handful of other favorite rides then headed out of the park.  We were all pretty tired and we had a couple hour drive to Anaheim ahead of us.  Matthew shed some heartbroken tears as we left the park and walked to the car but recovered quickly knowing that we were heading towards Disneyland.

On the drive, we watched a helicopter land right next to the highway (that’s the ocean right past it too).

We saw the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana that was advertising a Mythbusters exhibit.

I saw signs for LA and got super excited! LOL

We saw Angels Stadium in Anaheim.

Not long after seeing the stadium, we got off the highway and made our way to our hotel for the Disneyland portion of the visit.

I intentionally booked a hotel close to the parks but I was still kind of shocked at how close we were.  I took the picture below from the door to the hotel lobby before going to check us in.  Behind the green traffic light in the middle of the picture is the pedestrian walk way to Disneyland (you can kind of faintly see “Disneyland” on the sign).  The elevated bridge is the monorail track.

So, so, so close.  There is basically nothing to compare that to in Disney World where eeeeeeverythiiiiing is a looooooooooong walk.  We basically could walk down Main Street in Disneyland, out of the park, out the pedestrian exit, across the street, and to our room within 10 minutes.  That is NOTHING when you compare it to Disney World.  Waiting for a bus back to your hotel can take 30 minutes (or more) and then you have a 20-30 minute ride to your hotel.

After we got checked in and our luggage brought to our room, we walked to Downtown Disney to eat dinner.

Again, the proximity of the parks is ridiculously convenient.  As we walked to dinner, we had Disneyland on our right:

And on our left, Disney California Adventure:

We ate Mike’s not-so-birthday-y dinner at Tortilla Jo’s.  It was okay.  As tends to happen on our vacations, we were so tired and hungry that pretty much anything would have been acceptable. LOL

After dinner, we looked in a few shops but headed back to the room kind of quickly.  We were tired after a long day at Legoland.

Mike and I chilled in the room while the boys slept and we waited for Rachel to arrive on her airport shuttle.  After a while I started to hear some noises so I opened the door and found….

http://youtu.be/ue29bJBVncU

Since Rachel was watching the fireworks from the shuttle, it wasn’t long before she joined us in the room and we all went to bed.

Next up: DISNEYLAND!!!