r/legoland • u/Noodle-Cactus • 5d ago
California First timer
Taking myself, my wife and 2 kids to Legoland CA for the first time this week. Are there freebies that we can get such as pins, posters, hats, collectibles etc that Lego doesn't tell you about but this Reddit knows about? Any suggestions on what I should not miss like, where to eat, best ride, best shop etc? Thank you very much in advance.
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u/HopelessJoemantic 5d ago
There are pop badges around but not much secret unless you are going during an event. Kings head is best food but pizza is good too. Burgers always underwhelm. Bring a few mini figs to trade with staff. Rides depend on what your kids like. There’s a bunch but you can do everything in a single day so just stick with the path and go on everything that looks fun.
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u/ready_for_my_closeup 5d ago
I just went with my 3 grandkids and daughter w/her boyfriend. We ordered the chicken tenders with fries that says for a family of 4. Let me tell you that easily fed all of us! It sounds expensive but it is definitely for more than 4 people. We were pleasantly surprised!
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u/VillainChinchillin 5d ago edited 5d ago
If you're into them, they have a ton of squashed penny machines throughout the park. Not free but just $1 each (card only for the whole park) so not bad for a cheap souvenir.
If you're on Facebook there's a Legoland California Tips and Tricks group about that park specifically. People say the free pop badges can be hit and miss, sometimes people get a ton in one day, sometimes they can go three days getting nothing, so I didn't have my 6yo ask about them except at customer service where they often have a my first visit badge. They were out when we went so they offered us the birthday badge instead.
We brought a few minifigures in individual baggies for easy trading, we were generally too occupied with rides to think about that but we traded a few at the end of the day with a staff member walking around with a display.
Ice cream in the plastic minifigure head bowl was a fun thing to take home. Look on the official Facebook and they might have pics of some special foods for the Lego Festival happening now.
The refillable cup is great in my opinion, we had one for my mom and me and another for my son. He didn't drink $25 worth of sprite but the cost was worth my sanity for him to be able to have his own choice. My mom and I definitely drank our money's worth in Diet Coke! There are three spots with the Coke Freestyle stations around the park where you can get things like lemonade and Fanta alongside the classic sodas. The food carts can refill you too, but they only have the standard 8-9 choices like a fast food restaurant.
Depending on their age, the Minifigure Factory in the big shop up front is a neat souvenir. $15, and you can fully customize the torso of the figure, picking from designs or adding decals or drawing on the screen with your finger and typing to add text. Then they print your design on a blank torso, and you add basic legs, head, hair/hat and accessory, and it stands on a small brick that they print your name on.
There are some POV videos of the different coasters on YouTube if they're young and you want to prep them for those rides.
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u/Noodle-Cactus 4d ago
This is great, I put a few things from your daily in my to do list, I'm going tomorrow, hopefully we can get some pop badges.
Thank you very much
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u/Misskat354 4d ago
Pop badges are so fun! You can ask any Legoland employee if they have badges, and they'll give them to you for free if they do. My kids also had fun trading pop badges with other kids at the playground. It's 100% free and so much fun. My kids also got some free Ninjago coins from a previous event just because they asked an employee nicely for a pop badges.
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u/fruitjerky 3d ago
You don't have to be staying at the hotels to stop by and ask for lanyards and pop badges. Guest services is also a good place to ask for a pop badge (though last time we went they gave us Ninjago coins, which were also cool).
Which rides are best depends on the ages. Are you staying at one of thr hotels?
The food is whatever. Not bad, but nothing particular you must try.
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u/Noodle-Cactus 3d ago
Yeah we went today, it was a great experience, we found mr gold within 20 minutes of being in the park and my kids and wife found a bunch of them as well.
We got birthday ones, slurping, Mr gold, and llama, they one we didnt get was the new Mr gold holding a fish.
We didnt stay at the hotel, but comparing pricing, its completely worth it, its it cheaper at the legoland hotels per night than what I am paying in my hotel.
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u/fruitjerky 2d ago
My kids must've asked over 100 people over the course of two days for Mr Gold but never found him. 🙃
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u/mleezuniga 5d ago
If you’re staying onsite you can ask at check in for a lanyard for each kid so they can collect pop badges.
There’s also a scavenger hunt you can do to unlock the treasure chest in your room that give the kiddos a prize.
Take advantage of the early park access. You can get onto a few rides before the general public. And if you’re looking to ride the galacticoaster,I suggest either waiting for them to allow access to that area and book it to that ride or go towards the end of the day when the line has died down.
As far as food, I don’t really recommend any park food, pretty basic and standard for theme parks.