Let’s go to Legoland!

After 2.5 years, the husband makes a return as a guest blogger. The official reason is because he was my editorial rep on a visit to Legoland with the kids (the 2 big ones). The unofficial reason has more to do with me phoning it in and making him do work while I lie down for a nap. 

So despite the wife’s attempts to secure a covert last minute exit to Malaysia a week after giving birth, we all decided it made sense for her not to travel. Being the dutiful husband, I was thus assigned volunteered to bring the kids down to the media preview of Legoland on Saturday.

For those of you thinking of driving down, a quick word – DO IT.  It’s just a 15min drive from the Tuas checkpoint, and with hardly any traffic along the way we made it there in slightly over an hour. Of course if you’re the sort that gets panicky with with road names like Jalan Persimuang Berhenti Muas 1/125, you might wanna plot the address into your GPS or something but either way getting there is pretty much a breeze.

When we arrived we were quickly ushered into a world where everything was literally put together, Lego brick by brick.

Now I don’t know your thoughts on Lego as a toy but wading through a darkened room littered with Lego bricks is akin to an ancient Chinese torture for belligerent parents. It was really nice to see them all properly set in their place in the form of Lego architecture and OH WOW THAT’S THE MERLION.

Apparently, over 50 million Lego bricks have been used to build the models, and it shows – the attention to detail is simply remarkable. More than once I had to stop the kids from attempting to yank the miniature figurines from the various recreated cities; heck, even I wanted to steal the Taj Majal below but settled for a picture instead.

On to the rides and attractions, and there were plenty. Legoland Malaysia boasts over 40 attractions and many of them suitable for the younger ones. With Kirsten, height limit was always going to be an issue but I’m happy to report that she made it for quite a few. Usually when I bring the kids out I do the  “Are you having fun?” check but I think it was quite evident from her whooping (“WOAH THAT WAS GREAT, DADDY! YIPPEE!”) and frantic waving after every single ride.

Oh, and a big shout out to the very encouraging instructors at the Junior Driving school who egged Kirsten on after a shaky start. She got so good at it after five rides she was waving at me as she drove past with one hand on the steering wheel.

Being the adrenaline junkie that he was, Truett was clamoring for roller-coasters after the umpteenth horse-ride (seen above) which he complained was ‘very, very very slow.’ The boy has seemingly, and rather unfortunately, picked up my penchant for exaggerating stuff. Anyhow,  we manage to find one at Lego Kingdoms and six loops later he was beaming with a satisfied grin and an Edwardian hairstyle to boot.

I have to make a special mention for the Lego Build & Test Centre. This is like a builder’s workshop of sorts; you’re handed a set of wheels at the entrance and there are working tables and benches with a variety of Lego bricks strewn all around. Pick a spot and you can just go on to build your own vehicles. There’re even tracks provided with automated launch mechanisms so you can race your prototype against others.

After the brief respite from the blazing heat in the airconditioned Build & Test Centre, we ventured out again and decided to take up the noble task of firefighting.

The station marshalers spiced things up a little by pitting us against three other families in a bit of a competition. There’s a sequence to it; first you’ve got to pump this hydraulic thingee in the vehicle to drive the fire engine towards the house. Once there you dash out of the fire engine, grab a hose, put out the ‘fire’ with sprayed water from aforementioned hose, head back into the fire engine, and pump hydraulic thingamajig to return fire engine to base. First one back to base wins bragging rights.

We did emerge fourth which I suppose wasn’t too bad, with two tots in tow. There were only four lanes, though.

Towards the end of the day we started to wrap up by slowing things down a little. We caught a couple of 4D shows – ‘Spellbinder’ is pretty good – and took our taking our time just exploring the sights and sounds. In between the various zones were carnival booths like this, and the kids had a great time doing a bit of fishing on a extra large version of a toy every child of the 80s should be familiar with.

We spent close to eight hours at the park and while doing a bit of research writing this post I realized we’d only covered about half the park or so! Some of the rides weren’t quite ready at the point of completion and the rest, we missed out just because of the sheer size of the park. Does that warrant a trip back up any time soon? Hell yeah, but the next time I’ll be bringing my sunglasses along and slapping on generous dollops of sunscreen- the kids and I are 50 shades darker from the expedition.