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As some of you may know, I'm an infrequent participant in these areas due to
the intermittant bouts of heavy travel I have to do. Sometimes, however, this
works to my advantage, and last week was an exceptionally good example...
I was originally scheduled to spend the whole week in the San Francisco Bay
area, but an impromptu invite to participate in some customer visits in Los
Angeles fitted in well. So when my LA-based colleagues announced on Tuesday
that the next appointment wasn't until Wednesday afternoon, the diary suddenly
had this huge gap to be filled...
So I hired a car and headed South to Carlsbad... (LA rush hour reminded me of
the M25 on a weekend :-) although Inglewood was reasonably bad). It was a shade
over 100 miles from where I started in Santa Monica, and I checked into the
hotel on the West side of the park for the evening. The hotel is not
exceptional, it doesn't have a restaurant for example, but otherwise,
acceptable. I spoke to the staff about visiting the park and they pointed out
that since it was close enough to walk to the entrance, I might as well leave
the car in the hotel car park and save the fee at the park.
As a season ticket holder at LLW, I went straight to customer services and
queried it's applicability at LLC. The staff seemed to think that no-one had
asked the question before and happily waved me through :-) With having to be
back in LA by 2:30, I had about 75 minutes to skim the park - so my main focus
was Miniland (some of which I had seen being built back in the Windsor
studios).
As we know, TLG work hard at their branding and the "feel" of the park was very
familiar, with the Big Store located at the Beginning etc. This Big Store
though is smaller than the UK's and is more focused on park mechandise than
sets - the Legoland "tour" jackets were tempting, but a little OTT! Unlike LLW,
LLC doesn't have that huge hill to descend, and although built on a hill side,
the landscaping tends to hide it. A group-based boat ride, complete with guest
activated water sprays was something unfamilar, I guess that drying in the
California sun is easier than drying under Berkshire's leaden skies...
Then there was the (naturally) US-centric Miniland, with Manhattan dominating
the show. As ever, I was attracted by the little features that had been
addressed, like a working bungee-jumper, the animated zoo and the diving
scenario. The sinking cargo ship was a scream, the Washington DC tableau even
had a presidental motorcade, and New Orleans, a jazz funeral. On my previous
trip to the US, I had taken my camera kit and not used it... This time I had
left it at home, so a couple of disposables had to make do. Perhaps it's a good
job because I can loose off a roll of film pretty quickly when inspired.
I didn't have time to visit the castle area, although from a distance the
Dragon ride gave the impression of being longer than that at LLW.
The most irritating feature? Despite California's reputation of being
ultra-PC... LLC has a peeing dog! I think I'll start a campaign for the
reinstatement of the one at LLW... And LLC have what they call an Ambassador
pass - lifelong 4-ticket passes, plus benefits, for $1000...
A word of caution to other visitors from Europe who might be more familiar with
buying children's clothes based on ages. I bought kid's polo shirts for our
two, and reasoned on a "Medium" and a "Small" for the 6 and 4 yo respectively -
let's just say that the older child has about 6 months of growth to go to get
into the smaller one...
Gotta go...
Kev
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