We spent three full days in Billund, the home of lego. First up was the water park at lalandia. This is similar to a centre parcs type place but day guests can pay to use the pool too. It's interesting how relaxed they are with rules compared to the UK which meant no one policed the slide height enforcements and Liliya got to go on a couple that she was a couple of cms too small for officially (we tested them first and knew she'd be fine).
The water in the main pools wasn't that warm so when we eventually found the hot tub pools they were lush. One was partly outside too which was very refreshing with the Danish rainy weather. After 5 hours in the pool we headed to our destination for the night, Al has randomly chosen someone's garden and it's the first one we're having to pay for but it's off the beaten path so no road noise, got WiFi, use of a toilet and an outdoor shower not surprisingly we have the whole place to ourselves (it has space for up to 4 mohos).
The next day is a visit to the lego house. I was originally unsure whether to book since its very expensive for what is essentially just somewhere to build lego but it was great fun and kept the kids entertained from the moment we arrived until it closed.
The experience is divided into different coloured areas with activities to do in each area. You're all given a wrist band and when you've made your creation you either get to take a picture (and can download all the pics for free later) or the creation ends up in some sort of movie. It's really well done and the kids were being so creative.
They got to make cars which they test drove down different tracks, built a monster, designed a person to put on the front cover of a magazine, created a fish that ended up in a virtual fish tank, created a dancing emotion, coded a robot to collect water and plant flowers for bees and designed a building then added them together with others to create a city.
We ran out of time to complete everything and it was hard to get them to move between the stations. I really loved the historical museum which documented the story of lego from inception to the present day.
It was fascinating to see some of the earlier designs and also learn about product lines that were discontinued after a few years (often the ones aimed more at girls and of course Liliya wanted all these and the ones that now do exist of course are extremely expensive to buy). There was also a virtual catalogue of all the old sets and you could select which you had to create your own personal collection. We're lucky to have the very first technics set, a helicopter, that was given to us a few years ago by a family friend along with several other sets from the 70s which were on display. I've also still got my 90s lego, again some of these were shown.
The miniature village and buildings were amazing and so detailed too, I'm really being spoilt on this trip 😍
After letting the kids build their own minifigures in the shop we went across the road to the all you can eat sushi restaurant. The kids thought all their Christmas's had come at once!! Not only could they eat unlimited sushi, there was unlimited ice cream for dessert and the food was delivered by a robot. After much sushi, 2 servings of ice cream Robert still thought he had room for more sushi. They only allowed orders of 8 pieces so he managed to fit another 5 in him before he realised he should have perhaps stopped after the ice cream. On the walk back to the moho he had a serious case of food regret.
We slept back at the random persons house and was amazed to hear someone else turn up late at night. In the morning we took a look and found two people sleeping on a mattress inside an old German hearse!
I took the opportunity to have a very short run in another new country then we had a short drive to Legoland.
The weather mostly stayed dry for us and when it did rain it was more of a drizzle than a downpour. There were quite a lot of rides Liliya was too small for but both Al and I wanted to try so we spent a fair bit of time doubling up on rides for Liliya to go on but she was happy enough with that.
We didn't stop for lunch and none of the queues were that big but even then we didn't quite get through everything. Liliya's favourite ride was the uni kitty which was one of those poles with seats around and you bounce up and down, she said it made her insides tickle. Robert couldn't choose a favourite.
It's possibly smaller than the UK park but was a much nicer experience with barely any queues, they had also decorated everything really well for Halloween. We just had enough time at the end of the rides closing to walk through miniland as well to look at all the awesome models.
With no food left in the moho and facing a 2.5hr drive back to Germany we decided to order a takeaway pizza. The website was in Danish but we could work out hawaiian and family sized. Didn't quite expect a pizza as big as it came though. That's definitely the largest I've ever seen. Robert had quickly forgotten about the food regrets he had had yesterday but soon changed his tune when I said he couldn't watch the movie until he'd eaten everything. Given the long drive and the fact we've had two full days of lego we've put the lego movie on for the kids to watch whilst we drive.
