Legoland 2012

i do so love theme parks. i think i'll be spending a big chunk of my holidays at one theme park or another for the next 20 years or so...and then some. i was over the moon to get complimentary entrance tickets to legoland malaysia before its official opening. the boys were excited too and hubby was just happy with a road trip.

i browsed for a hotel and decided on puteri pacific. affordable-ish but it was under renovation. when we got there we had to wait for our rooms. a two-hour whole lot of a long time to wait, especially after our long journey down south. we wanted to go out but the car needed a rest and we couldn't face being in the car a minute longer. so we waited at the half-useable lobby until our rooms were finally ready.

the rooms themselves weren't bad. good size, decent furniture and not too noisy from the renovation. we stayed in the room for another couple of hours before going out for an early dinner at tepian tebrau. good thing we arrived early because it got packed by 7pm. the food was good, a wee bit expensive actually, but good nonetheless. akmal felt a bit under the weather and we stopped by a pharmacy to get paracetamol for him.

the next day we had a quick breakfast at the makeshift coffee house before making our way towards legoland.

it was about 15-20 minutes from the hotel. when we got there we were diverted to a huge parking space. it was open with no shades. oh the poor car. then we had to walk about twenty minutes to the entrance, which was also filled with excited families. from what i heard, they wanted to test the park at its full capacity so there was probably about 5000 people there that day.

when we got in the boys ran to the first mascot they saw to get its picture. i was more interested in the map of the theme park (and trying to avoid queries from the office).

the first stop we made was at lego city the where the boys could drive lego-made cars. queue at that time was really very short and we did not have to wait, really. first in line at both places - one for under 7s (junior driving school) and one for above 7s (driving school).

we then made our way to the boating ride but the queue was horrible, made worse by the speed of each boat on the water. oh well...save this for the next trip.

then off we went to take the legoland express. a bit of a queue but the train had plenty of space that we had to only wait 1 trip. it took us around the inner part of the park, mainly around mini land. lovely to see all the famous landmarks come to life via lego. we didn't walk on foot to see, though i wish we did.

we stopped for a cold drink and to get a feel of the aircond as it was a hot hot day. we then went to the land of adventure, tiza unhappy that the dino island ride was not in service yet while the boys took beetle bounce ride. we then went to the covered playing area nearby imagination where the boys took the duplo express and get to run around the smaller non-moving rides in the area.

we moved on to lego kingdom where the boys took the joust ride and, with hubby, the merlin's challenge.

we made a turn and took the same route to market restaurant to have our lunch. it was packed to the brim and it was quite difficult getting the food and bringing them back to the table in such a crowded area. but the food was pretty good though and we had it at a discounted price, somehow it tasted better heh!

we absolutely loved the various lego models around the area. fascinating and i cant imagine the amount of time and manpower and patience it took to build each one. the boys were majorly impressed.

our final stop before making our way out of the park was the shop near the entrance to get four lego sets and many, many ice cream cones, more for the adults than the kids, actually.

we suffered the walk back to the car and the drive back to the hotel. the boys were drenched in buckets of sweat and literally had a meltdown.

all in all, we do like the park. the rides were good, the lego models around the park were jaw-dropping, each food area was huge and food served were pretty good. the only drawback was that it was just too (too times a million) hot. there were hardly any trees, some places (like the covered playing area) had no fan and you could see people seeking refuge from the sun in the restaurants. but the park has good prospects. maybe on our next trip we can see more of the place.

the next day, we had breakfast at the makeshift area and checked out quite early. we arrived home just after lunchtime, with the boys asking when will our next trip be.