Wanderings and Ramblings : A Pleasant Day at Legoland Deutschland

The first two years that we lived in Germany we had annual passes to Legoland Germany and spent quite a lot of time there on summer weekends. It was always fun, and with an annual pass made for an inexpensive outing--and it felt very familiar, back when Germany as a whole still felt rather foreign.

It's been nearly three years since our last visit, so we were overdue--and having acquired 50% off coupons Dave, Rio and I headed down yesterday. The day started off cool and raining lightly, but really pretty pleasant to be out in.

Our first stop was the mousecoaster, Project X

The actual ride cars at Legoland are always pretty small and a tight squeeze for someone Dave's size. I never did get a shot of him seated and shoehorned in, but you can tell in this one how little space there is for long legs--it is very typical of their rides:

After the coaster, we headed in to see one of the 4 D movies--the Chima movie is new since our last visit. It was cute, but we like some of the older ones, with a full plot and no dialogue better.

After the movie, guessing (correctly) that not many people would be on the water rides in the rain (why is that?) we headed back to the flume ride. The ride is supposed to be a jungle adventure with "Johnny Thunder" (sort of a Lego version of Indiana Jones) as your guide. It has some odd juxtaposition of dinosaurs, giant spiders, Little Shop of Horror style minifig eating plants, etc. and ends with the requisite drop, of course:

Making sure that we hit all of the "big rides" (big being relative, this is Legoland after all), Rio lead us over to the castle next, to ride the Dragon Coaster:

The ride starts off as more of a dark ride through the castle, past various humours Lego scenes, before exiting out onto the mild but fun coaster section. Here are a couple of scenes shot as we rode past:

We were getting hungry, so we decided to try out the new ride next, since I was not sure I would feel up to it on a full stomach. Ninjago is a really unique (or at least, I have never seen anything like it) ride. It can only take 12 people at a time and has a somewhat slow load speed, so the line tends to stay long, but it is worth a wait. The little flight seats rotate around as a group, swooping high on one side of the rotation and back down pretty low on the other side. What makes it so unique is that each rider controls his or her own "wings" and uses those to rock back and forth or even spin all the way upside down if wanted (okay, I wanted to, as did RIO, but neither one of us quite made it over--we got close but did not succeed--we saw others do it thought; we probably need to ride more and get the hand of when best to rock to work with the momentum of the ride as a whole and get that full spin going). It was tons of fun and not too fast and very, very smooth.

(can you see how the people hold their own wing handles to control their side to side movement?)

They were advertising a really good deal on upgrading tickets to annual passes; we were not sure that we could take advantage of the deal using our discount tickets, but decided to head over and ask before lunch because annual passholders get a 10% discount on food). Sure enough, they DID let us upgrade, so we now have year long passes--an added bonus is that they are valid at several other Merlin owned attractions in Germany, including the Aquarium just down the road in Speyer. Yay!

After a lunch of pizza and pasta, Rio rode the Hero Factory--in which the robotic arm swings you all around.

When the Hero Factory was new, there were two sets of robotic arms, one on either side of a large room. Now that the novelty has worn off, keeping just one in operation makes more sense, and the other side of the building has been repurposed: it contains several large Lego models of Star Wars items--including what was billed as the "largest Lego model"--a life size version of an X Wing fighter (actually, a life size version of the Lego model of an X wing fighter):

(close up of he wing showing the many normal sized Lego bricks making up the big Lego brick circles of the model)

There are also several other Lego Star Wars items in the room:

While we were inside looking around, the sun came out and the temperature started to rise rapidly; in about 30 minutes it went from near 65 degrees Fahrenheit to in the high 80s. Being hot, it seemed like a good time to ride the "yellow boats" The Wave Riders have been a favourite of ours since our first visit to Legoland San Diego back when the kids were much smaller than I am.

We wanted to see the new (sometime in the last three years) Egyptian section, but were starting to drag in the heat (and no longer felt like we had to see it all in one day), so we hightailed it back there. It is a bit poorly thrown together and feels like they wanted to expand but were low on space. It's fine, but not up to the standards of the rest of the park. There is one ride there--a dark ride to shoot lights for points, much like Buzz Lightyear Rides at Disney parks, but not as well executed. We rode that, and had fun with a cute "sidewalk chalk" painting photo op:

And, still being hot, we decided to ride the pirate ride to cool off and then wander a bit in Miniland before heading home. The Pirate ride WILL leave you drenched. Riders spray water at those in other boats, as well as those waiting in line (who can also spray water at riders). ON a hot day, count on being fairly damp before you even make it through the line and VERY wet after riding. It's lots of fun as long as you are prepared for that:

Rio got an Icee to sip while we explored Miniland. He can refill the plastic cup for half price for the rest of the time on the AP.

There was a new Star Wars themed section in Miniland. I took lots of photos because I have a lot of friends who love both Lego and Star Wars and I thought they would enjoy it. I've only seen the original three films, and even those I have not seen since I was a kid, so I have no idea what half of this is:

I DO remember this bar scene! It was fun to see recreated in Lego.

We only looked at a few of the other displays, some are really getting faded by the sunlight, but others have been rebuilt in fresh new colors. Here is the huge stadium in Munich where the Bayern Munchen football (soccer) team plays their home games: