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Dear Lego Enthusiasts!
The German Legoland-Park in Günzburg/Bavaria opened its doors to the members of
the Lego World Club and 500 "exclusive" guests from the 1000steine.de community
yesterday.
You may have seen the big amount of new galleries at Brickshelf and these give
some good impressions about the new park and the visit there.
First let me say a huge "thank you!" to Katharina from Lego-Direct. She invited
us and made it possible for us German AFOLs from the 1000steine.de forum to
visit the park before it opens to the public next week. Next "thank you!" to
René and Zany from 1000steine, who distributed the tickets and T-shirts to us.
Thanks a lot!
The Miniland in the new park is partly very similar to some sceneries as known
from Billund (and the other parks as far as I know these from pictures). But
there are lots of totally new models and these are really gorgeous!
I have spent nearly all the day in the "Miniland" and have seen so many small
surprising and funny details - I am still overwhelmed by these impressions. I
am especially a fan of the brick built writings on walls and of all the
vehicles in the Miniland. Among those I was glad to find lots of new ones I
haven't seen so far in Billund. A Smart, a Renault Twingo, a Fiat 500, German
Police vans, all kind of trucks we see daily in real life on our streets.
Another part of the park, that I really loved to visit has been the Lego
Factory. You can have a look in the complete manufacturing of a Lego brick from
melting the raw material to printing. In the end you get this brick 8and
yesterday it had a exclusive logo on that red 2x4x3 brick.
But now there are a few sidenotes that are less pleasing.....
- The impression to be an "exclusive guest" got blown away in the second we saw
the traffic jam that reached back from the park onto the highway. Later we
heard there have been 14 000 guests there. Despite of the huge amount of cars
we came in time to the parking area (parking has been for free this very day -
fine!). Guests that came later than we (30 minute before park opening) needed
over 1 hour for the last few hundreds meters as I heard later....
- the 1000steine guests have been begged to fill in a questionnaire: when I
came into the park, I asked at the entrance where to get rid of that. Nobody
knew about it and I had to ask several employees before I was sent to
information desk. Ok, only a first sign of confusion among the park crew. All
people have been very friendly, although they got partly under heavy stress.
- one of 2 the roller coasters was not running. :-(
- the second roller coaster got out of order for over 50% of the day.
I heard from families that stood for over 90 minutes in front of the gate into
that attraction, when it became closed. Very annoying for the kids....
- the river rafting had major technical problems too. People were caught into
their "boat" while driving with that, when there has been a break due to these
technical problems.....
- because of the low operational reliability of the attractions the queues in
front of the few running ones became longer and longer: I heard of kids that
needed up to over 90 minutes to have a ride of 90 seconds.
- the 4D cinema showed after over 30 minutes of waiting time a film that is
still unfinished. Some figures in the animated film are faceless, others have
no limps and there are lots of stripes and gaps running through the film
sequences (as I got informed by a 13 years old that was coming out half
disappointed).
- there have been queues in front of most sales places for drinks, food and
toys. The park employees have tried to manage this friendly but often enough
they appeared to be very untrained and quite helpless. (5 persons for at least
3 minutes in front of a cash register. In the end I paid without getting a
bill.)
- especially in the DINO GRILL (the less crowded restaurant we found), we had
to wait for over 30 minutes to be placed to our seats (I think nearly 33% of
all table have been free, but have never been used while we were in).
It took further 15 minutes of waiting before we could place our order. During
that time we tried to find out how the restaurant was organized: obviously
there was a crew to clean up the tables, one crew for taking orders, one for
getting payment etc. Again and again we saw the crew that brought the meals
going to a table and return with the meals to get on a search for the right
table. Other parts of teh crew were standing jobless in the way.
After 20 minutes the first part of our menu was carried to our table, but we
got no plates. So we started to eat directly from the dish. (our tables
neighbors had plates for the same meal.)
After further 5 to 10 minutes the rest of our meal has been carried to our
table (after the waiter had asked at a few other tables if they had ordered
what he held in his hands.) When he arrived at out table he asked us if we were
table 24, 25 or 26? But there were no numbers anywhere to be found....
The meal has not been too hot any longer, but still quite good and all eating
and drinking had fair prices.
When we were nearly finished with eating, we asked for our bill. That took
really a quite long time again. Lots of the DINO Grill people came along, but
we got informed another lady was responsible for that job. (Please paste here
the episode of the none working cash registry from above) When she came she
asked again for our tables number (We were just guests and nobody told us we
had to bear and remember numbers...).
After a time of 1:40 we came back into the park and understood at last the
excitement of some upset parents. We lost only one and a half hour in that
restaurant (and in the end we had eaten something). Other park guests waited
for hours in front of carrousels that never started for them.
So in conclusion let me say: I (as an AFOL) had a great time in the park and
basically in the Miniland. But lots of parents had to dry the tears of their
highly disappointed children..... They felt like testing a beta version of the
park.
In the end I had another personnel highlight of the day. We met (more or less
by chance) Brad Justus. A friend of mine (Kosmas) had asked for Brad at the
information desk and left his mobile number. When a larger group of the
1000steine people met at 15:00 somebody (as we later heard that has been Alex
Algermissen) was asking for Kosmas, because Brad wanted to talk to him. At once
a group of people came together and we had the chance to ask a few questions at
Brad (translated by Alex if in German).
But this question and answer thing was not too satisfying. Brad gave no
concrete answers.
- no information about the amount of planned MOC-models like the blacksmith
shop.
- no information about new sets
- no information about new track curve radius
- no information about return of themes "themes are never discontinued - they
are only resting for a wile"
After a while some of the bad moods where louder uttered in wishes for more
bulk items etc. I think Brad might have felt somewhat surprised about some of
the questions, but he has been asked not as boss of Lego direct, but as a
official person of TLC (and as if it was him who had invented Jack Stone, Town
Junior etc....)
As a small highlight somebody spent one of the most-hated Lego elements (the
ugly monofunctional green brick from the 6245 TV chopper) as a gift to Brad and
begged him to use this part in a senseful way in any MOC. He looked quite
amazed and unsure why he got this. And Alex told us he had never seen this
brick himself before.....
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=169404
Of course this was just given as a reminder what we Adult fans do not like to
see from TLC (even Lego direct is for sure the wrong address for this desire:
they have not offered nonsense bricks so far....)
After a few minutes Brad had to leave us anyway, because he and Alex had to
take the next flight back home.
Till next weeks official opening Lego has to do a lot of work, if they do not
want upset the visitors again. This was a test run (and for lots of visitors a
not successful one). I hope it works better next week! I wish this for both
sides - TLC and the park visitors also. If I should come back this year once
more, I will for sure choose a rainy none-weekend day outside the holiday
season to find an emptier park then.
Kind Regards,
Ben
P.s.: For more information (and lots of picture links) read the today entries
at the German www.1000steine.de/forum (of course only available in German)
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