Subject:
|
My impressions of Legoland Hotel, Billund (long)
|
Newsgroups:
|
lugnet.legoland.billund
|
Date:
|
Wed, 8 Aug 2001 02:46:54 GMT
|
Viewed:
|
6519 times
|
| |
|
|
Most of my impressions are gone now, but after sleeping on a LEGO bed,
the pockmarks don't wear off for most of the day...
OK, I'm kidding. The LEGOLAND Hotel is not made out of LEGO blocks. Nor
were there any LEGO products in the hotel room, unless you include the
cloth towels with a brick design sewn into them. But the fun of LEGO was
nearly everywhere, making the room only a place to rest. (And to sort.)
LEGOLAND Hotel is easy to find; just drive past the park and take a
right. The directions are well marked. With a park ticket, you can get
into the hotel from inside the park, or you can just drive up to the
hotel and go in. There was parking in front of the hotel even in the
height of summer on a weekend.
The rooms are split by theme into Castle, Pirate, Paradisa, and so on.
The only connection between the theme and the room is the theme element
outside the room on the wall. For instance, our Castle room had a dragon
shield. Still, it's a nice device that may help young visitors find
their room.
The room was quite nice and spacious. It was the only one I saw in
Denmark that had screens on the windows (although our screen was torn).
The bed and pillow were quite comfortable, and we had no reservations
extending our stay for a second day. We literally had no reservations,
but were quite lucky that someone canceled and were allowed to stay in
the same room.
There are LEGO blocks everywhere in the hotel. There are places to build
Scala, Belville, Duplo, basic bricks. There are LEGO games running on
computers in hallways. There are sculptures and mosaics everywhere you
turn.
The LEGO block stations aren't by themselves unusual. Nearly every bank,
general store, real estate office, that I looked in had a LEGO or Duplo
table somewhere. There was even one at the baggage claim at the
Copenhagen airport. But I was so taken by the LEGO sets available for
purchase that I didn't pay much attention to the building stations.
When we first checked in, I saw FreeStyle buckets that may not have been
released in the US (at least not that I've seen) by the reception. The
price was OK, but I didn't want all of the ordinary bricks, and couldn't
imagine how I was going to get them home. But around the corner, was a
huge pile of boxes dumped randomly in a container about the size and
shape of a sandbox. All marked to 50% off or more. About twice each day
I uncovered new sets in the sandbox -- and got to see the enormous room
from which they came. Nearly everything I bought has never been
available in the US or hasn't been available for years, like 6316, 6319,
3303, 3308, 3309, 5820, all at great prices. I ended up buying a large
LEGO Cargo suitcase (also marked way down) just to get the stuff home. I
also ended up sorting and reboxing most everything to make space.
In the main park, the LEGO store had pretty much everything current,
with a few sale items that weren't special enough to worry about. But
each day, they had some different item that made me turn my head. One
day I picked up 30 copies of 809, windows and doors. Another day I
snarfed 24 copies of Paradisa 1815. Another day it was the square box of
33 degree red roof bricks, which includes the 3 x 3 double convex. Is
this set 633? It seemed so common (I also saw it in several toy stores)
that I didn't bother to keep a box. But it's not in the set reference!
But I digress. The LEGOLAND Hotel is the most kid-friendly place in the
world, according to a child therapist (my wife). There are toys and
games around every corner, a scavenger hunt, and a friendly and playful
staff. They kept foam swords behind the counter to dual any child at a
moment's notice. During a swank dinner at the restaurant, one child ran
around blowing out the candles on all of the tables. And no one cared.
The hotel has a bridge access to the park, so it's possible to walk from
your room to the park in a couple of minutes. I bought the package deal
with two days of park admission and one night; when I added on the
second night, I found that a friendly word to the ticket lady allowed me
to get in the main store without a park ticket on the third day. And get
at all of that Paradisa. Yum.
Next installment: Trolling for LEGO in Denmark (not sure which newsgroup
it should go under, maybe market.shopping?)
Cary
|
|
Message has 1 Reply:
2 Messages in This Thread:
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
