Legoland, Old Town, And The San Diego Temple All In One Glorious Day

LOTS and lots of photos in this blog post...we had one busy day!

After a (reasonably) good night of sleep, we awoke refreshed and ready for fun at Legoland--the main attraction we'd be visiting on our trip. There was just one problem: Legoland didn't open until 10 am, and our kids were up and ready to go at 5 am (thanks to our bodies still being on Mountain Standard Time). What to do while we waited?

After catching breakfast at the hotel, we decided to take a little walk through Old Town, which was only a block or two from our hotel. Old Town is a large cluster of historical buildings, museums, restaurants, cemeteries, shops, theaters, etc., which depict life hundreds of years ago, before San Diego was even part of the United States. The end result is a bit of a stylistic mish-mash, but it's still a cute, fun place to hang out, with a lot to see and do. Because of our close proximity to Old Town, we went back a few times over the course of our stay.

On this particular trip, we took a walk through the Heritage Park Victorian Village in the southeastern section of Old Town. There was a whole cobblestone street there, lined with a series of beautiful Victorian-era homes and a lot of lovely greenery. Most of the homes are empty, though, and unavailable for touring (in fact, I saw a sign in one of them that was offering to lease the building for business purposes...weird). There was also a small synagogue in the village...the oldest one in the city, apparently.

This was our favorite house! The girls and I agreed to come back and live in it someday.

It had a lovely backyard, too!

After some more sight-seeing, we hopped onto the freeway and headed north towards Legoland, with one other small detour...

...we stopped by the San Diego Temple of the LDS Church, and spent some time walking its beautiful grounds and admiring its breathtaking architecture.

 

 

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to visit the inside of this temple for an ordinance session. Maybe we can try that at our next San Diego visit? I can only hope so! At any rate, it was a lovely, inspiring little visit.

After a nice dose of the spiritual, we headed further north for a more "secular" experience...Legoland! It was our first (and possibly last? More on that later) trip to this park, and we didn't know exactly what to expect.

We started out our trip with a boat ride, taking in the sights...

 

 

Later, we moved on into a more "thrill-ride heavy" section of the park...

which featured the little wave-rider ride shown above, and also this "race-car-coaster" that Nathan, Lorelai and Celeste rode.

 While they waited in the very long line, Aurora and I kidded around in the "ancient Egypt" section of the park, which had lots of great little kid rides, including pint-sized airplanes, a jumbo slide, a playground, and other delights...

...like this mini-free fall ride which we apparently took a lot of pictures of.

The next area of the park was medieval in theme, and it included the famous "Dragon" roller coaster, which is one of Legoland's signature rides. I didn't get any pictures of it, but it was a fun, short coaster with a cute tour of the Lego "castle" beforehand, which included trips to the throne room, kitchen, and wizard's dungeon. It felt much like a Disneyland-type of "theme ride," which I was okay with. Speaking of theme rides...

 

In the "sword & sorcery" area, there was this cute jousting ride for little kids. It was nothing fancy; the kids buckled into a tournament horse and "rode" it through a large area. Aurora begged and begged for hours to ride the "horsey ride"...only to get to the front of the line and find out that the age limit was four, not three, years old. Yes, despite being tall enough and heavy enough, Aurora wasn't old enough for the ride. Her reaction was predictable...

Poor kid! While Celeste was enjoying her horsey ride, Aurora sat alongside the ride weeping bitter tears. I eventually took her to a prize booth and got her a toy ball, which eventually cheered her up a bit.

 We also found this exciting ride nearby; it was a huge robot arm that rotates, spins, and sweeps the riders around over a lake. The novel thing about the ride was that the riders could request specific "degrees of difficulty," ranging from 1 to 5. When Lorelai and Celeste rode the arm, they were only allowed to go as high as Level 2. And Celeste had to wear this interesting contraption to fit into the arm properly.

Celeste rode at Level 1, Lorelai picked Level 2, and Nathan went back later for a solo ride at Level 5. He later said his brain felt as if it had come loose in his skull, so I was secretly glad I hadn't ridden at that level!

Then we wandered throughout various "mini-scapes" for a while; there are several cities and notable landmarks recreated entirely out of Legos. They are all pretty amazing and adorable.

Lego Washington DC.

Lego Iwo Jima Memorial...soo cute!

 

Lego Los Angeles

We also particularly enjoyed all the Star Wars locations (since the Lego Star Wars game franchise is a family favorite).

Die, Darth Maul!!

 

 

 

 

Of COURSE Celeste wanted to be photographed with the "princess"

 

Me and my furry bowcaster-wielding friend

At this point, we were starting to run short on time, so we hustled to the few remaining areas of the park we hadn't yet visited. We first hung out at Pirate's Cove, and had a great time riding in a pirate ship shooting water at innocent bystanders...

 

 ...and having fun in a miniature log ride. Granted, some of this might have been more fun in the summertime, when getting splashed with water would be refreshing, and not chilling!

The last place we visited was the "driving school," so all our girls could receive their first driving lessons...

...in cute little Lego-cars! There were two separate tracks, one for 3-5 year olds, and another for 6-13 year olds. Considering Aurora was on her own on the driving track, she did a pretty decent job; she even managed to press the accelerator and turn the steering wheel at the same time once in a while!

 

 

Lorelai, too, did a good job driving around. After all their practice, the girls received faux "driver's licenses," which they clung to proudly the rest of the day. Then, with the few minutes we had left, we scoped out some of the cool Lego creations in the area:

This fountain contained several musical instruments. By jumping on the circles on the ground in front of the fountain, kids could "activate" each different instrument, and create a new sound. It was pretty neat.

 

After that, we had to reluctantly leave Legoland (it closes at 5 pm! Kind of frustrating...we weren't able to visit several sections of the park). Our verdict? A really fun day. The kids enjoyed it even more than I thought they would, and Nathan and I had fun watching them have fun.

Will we ever return? At this point, I'd say definitely maybe. Before coming, most people I know told me that Legoland is best for younger kids, and that older kids are easily bored by it. Nathan and I thought the girls (seven, five, and three) were the perfect age to visit, and in this we were proven correct. Although I saw older kids at the park, I'm not sure if our kids would stay patient with it after multiple visits. Also, our girls are not fans of Lego toys at all, so thematically it's merely a novelty, not a passion. The biggest question mark, though, is, "Is it worth visiting Legoland again instead of the many other cool attractions in San Diego?" We still have a lot of things to cross off our "To Do In San Diego" list, and Legoland may not make that list a second time. But since it was such a pleasant surprise, we don't want to rule it out! Time will tell. At any rate, we still had a great day.

Since this is California, we had to sit almost still on the freeway for long stretches of time on the way home (rush hour! Whee!). At least I was able to catch one more beautiful picture of the San Diego Temple, which sits right next to the interstate like a watchful angelic guardian:

It's great visibility for the LDS church! I can't wait to see this temple again someday...hopefully the inside and outside!

After finally making it back to the hotel, we scarfed down some dinner, rested up a bit, then went to Old Town for dessert:

Ice cream...yum! I ordered pumpkin ice cream, because I love pumpkin-flavored anything, and how often do you see pumpkin-flavored ice cream in late February? It was a wonderful way to cap off our evening.

The girls, unsurprisingly, zonked out very quickly that night...

Nathan and I followed soon afterward; another big day was coming up!