Legoland coverage part 1 - Billund, Denmark

Art drawn map - Legoland Billund, Denmark

Places to go before you grow up!(Or after)

Hello lego fans! My following posts will be dedicated to the various lego parks scattered across our dear blue globe, places every lego fan or simply park lovers should go! I had the opportunity to go to a few of them myself and it was such a amazing experience, that I hope others can check them out whenever the chance comes!

The first of these parks I will cover today will be the Legoland Billund, in Denmark. It's the original and the oldest of the lego parks(original open date 1986!), as of 2012 with the addition of the new area in the park called Polar Land during April, the park features roughly 10 different worlds for people to enjoy. Currently the worlds consist of (Duplo Land, Lego City, Knights Kingdom, Imagination Zone, Adventure Land, Miniland, LEGOREDO Town, Pirate Land, Viking land and Polar Land). The Park is conveniently located next to the original Lego Factory and Denmark's Billund Airport. With a annual guest estimate of 1.6 million, this Legoland is the largest tourist attraction in Denmark outside of Copenhagen. The legoland parks that followed where modeled after this original one, specially the most popular feature: the Miniland area.

A updated leaflet with the new area!

Worlds

Duplo Land
This world is full of attractions and rides aimed for younger children (ages 2-6), with the Lego Duplo brand theme. In here there is the Duplo Playhouse, which in essence is a themed city that children can play in and they can also build using lego, or go crazy on the many other variety of riding plane and cars, slides, stairs or the interactive elements and role-play areas.

Duplo houses and train

 Last but not least, how can it be fun if there isn't a train(!), the Duplo train is a train for children who looks like it was made of Duplo Bricks, your children can ride the track which is a straight piece with 9 turns, making a full ride just over 2 minutes. Also before I forget, one of the gems of that world: Duplo plane and Duplo driving school, both are remarkable because they let the children control the vehicles to some degree even before they aren't of age for driving school! The Duplo plane lets the young ones control the plane with a joystick to go up and down as it is attached to a hydraulics mechanism while the driving school is a safe environment supervised by legoland employees.

Duplo plane

Water ride!

Lego City

LEGO City is a modern age city in miniature. There are a couple rides in the ‘City’, one of the most popular being the indoor robo-coaster in the dark or known as the Power Builder Robot where you go up, down, turn and twist in every which way. You can actually program your own ride if you wish, all robomatic arms hold 2 riders and all attractions are themed after the Bionicle series. Visitors can also help a put out a building fire with the  Flunck Fire Brigade, thebrigade operate emergency services throughout Denmark and it's also another of the popular attractions in this area, the ride takes you in vehicles to a building that needs a fast team and streaming water to win the challenge. There are also 2 restaurants with American food and the Lego Clubhouse for the more avid fan shopper needs.

Knights' Kingdom
Knight's Kingdom contains the largest building to date in the park - the Grand Royal Castle, with the tallest tower risen to a high of a six-story building and a area over 2.500 sq ft, over a million of lego bricks went into creating the beautiful and colorful interiors that gain life with light, sound and animation plus the smells and smoke. One of the main attractions that the visitors must not miss is the Dragon coaster, the ride starts inside the castle with slow moving dark scenes and lego features themed after the medieval times, goes up a hill and then drops down into turns, helix' and drops with parts accelerated to a speed of 40 km/h! Afterwards you can check the photo taken near the end of the ride at the final drop and purchase if you like it.

It's definitely a play worth watching!

Another amazing attraction is the Viking's river, a adventure of splash and river rapids ride themed after Vikings that was added in 2006. The ride begins with a circular moving load platform where visitors board a Viking themed raft and it moves around turns, whirlpools and waterfalls and as it spins around, there is no avoiding getting wet with Lego Viking figures throughout the ride course, after that part of the ride the raft traces a path to a Elevator lift system track that takes you to the top and drops you down through a 40-foot (12 m) drop while spinning down the drop into a lagoon with Lego sea monster figures. Lastly, like the dragon ride you splash down and your raft goes back to the station with your your photo available at the photo kiosk from the ride into the drop portion . To rest up there are Viking gifts and photo shops, Knight's Kingdom also has granny's apple farms restaurant, Knight's barbecue grill and Castle burgers.

Nice ride!

Lastly one other thing I just have to mention, the Mini-Castle, located right behind the Royal Castle has on a daily basis(during a yearly time frame) theatrical performances are held after the medieval theme or for those who prefer more hands on activity while others watch there is the Eagle's Nest - a huge playground where visitors can run, jump, climb or keep the balance in those tricky swinging bars and also solve a maze!

Lego sculptures, always amazing

 Imagination Zone
This is one probably my favorite world, with the Lego Studio, a amazing 600 seat 4-D Theater, complete with special effects and a giant screen. They do a rotation of 4 movies that play daily, they are Lego Racers, Spellbreaker, Bob the Builder 4D, and Clutch Powers with the addition of Lego Atlantis by Sea Life later. The attraction starts off with an animated movie, featuring Lego figures and a submarine, traveling down to the submerged city of Atlantis. Following the movie, there is an aquarium and other hands on activities with more than 800 sea creatures. Numerous Lego figures and models are in and around the aquarium.

A fun way for kids to learn!

Legoredo Town

Fans of cowboys and indians will enjoy LEGOREDO, it's a Western-themed land which contains rides such as the Timber Ride, LEGOLDMINE Train(will bring your children to a special area, the Klondike where they can become prospectors! The lucky and skillful ones can refine nuggets into a shiny coin!), Lego Canoe(you can sit on the canoe and float down the river and enjoy the scenery and float pass the banks with bears and pumas!), LEGOLDMINE, Westernride. There is also an Indian camp led by the popular Chief Long Ears (referring to the long rabbit ears on his headgear). LEGOREDO also has its own band called "The Rattlesnakes" and they play country music all day long grand orchestra style to enhance the western experience!

Canoeing has never been more exciting!

Found gold?

Adventure Land
Adventure Land is where the thrill of speed and exciting experience is at! The line for the famous roller shutter X-treme race is commonly longer then 400 meters! There is also the widely known Jungle Racers waiting for those who aren't afraid to ride a speedboat and dash through the river and the dangers of the jungle! Or test your physical prowess in the Jungle Trail, where you have to squeeze through narrow logs, climb to the mountain summit and overcome all obstacles.

How's this for adventure?

For those not afraid of the heights, Mack Rides might be just the thing for you, it's a wild mouse roller coaster with a peculiar twist, the ride starts going up a 80 foot(24m) elevation, does a wild turn at the top and plunges down those 24m into the tracks with a series of turns and finally returns tot he station with a photo of the riders taken and ready to display your courage(or not!) later. And if you are like me who like attractions with water involved, there is a dueling water carousel in a lagoon with splash effects and jet ski cars that spin circles at fast speeds.

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Later in 2010 a new ride called The Temple was added to this world and quickly became another of it's most popular attractions, a dark ride where riders board Explorer jeeps with capacity of three passengers in 1 row, in a indoors setting and on a continuously moving track with laser guns and a scoreboard that will help you shoot the targets inside the ride and to see your score throughout the ride, your vehicle enters the ride scenes through an automatic door and then they move throughout all 10 show scenes inside the ride culminating in a exit from the scenes through an automatic exit doorway and to the unload station, then you exit into the gift shop to shop and view your on-ride photo. The Temple game's a midway games area themed to the pharaohs with ring-toss, water shooting game, balloon popping game and a mummy games. Two gift shops within with Temple gifts and adventure shop plus another two restaurants themed after the setting.

Miniland
The Miniland is the biggest attraction of the park, in fact, it was such a tremendous success in the beginning when this was still the only Legoland built, that all following Legolands ever constructed has one modelled as part of their attractions. The goal was to build world-renowned buildings and whole neighborhoods set in about 20 million bricks. The visitors will feel like giants in a world of small scaled countries(Denmark, Germany, Japan, USA and many others). There are many new and fun experiences for the children, such as in the Los Angeles area they can feel like the directors on the set6, where everything including the cameras and actors are made out of lego. There is also a remote controlled track for racing cars called the Silverstone race track. And how can we forget airplanes? When the Legoland itself is situated next to a heavily trafficked airport, within the zone there are model airplanes that move from terminal to runway. A look through the terminal window let's visitors see the passengers, baggage pickup, flight registering and diner in the restaurant.
And the uniting feature of the entire area is the 30 meter high tower called LEGOTOP where visitors can view the whole world as a whole, granting a unique experience that the other worlds won't have.

Amazing Japanese castle replica

War damaged wall in detail

Volkswagen branch replica in Denmark

Pirate Land
If you like movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean then you will definitely get into the piratey theme of this world, equip yourself with a hat and maybe even a wooden leg - fight with swords with pirates and watch during the battle,cannon balls falling into the water near the ship. After the victory your ship will sail to the land full of hidden treasures of Lego. Millions of Lego bricks come to life in the rays of bright light. And while you are there don't forget ot climb to the to of the lighthouse and overlook the world you helped conquer! After such a great adventure visitors can eat hearty meals onboard the ship, and perhaps get to meet Captain Roger and his talking parrot.

Onwards to the treasure, savvy?

Polar Land (New for 2012)
This area opened in this year(2012) April, featuring a much awaited new coaster of a astounding 20 meter height called Pollar X-plorer said to be the first to combine a 5 meter vertical drop mixed with penguin encounters, visitors can experience the thrilling excitement of breaking through the ice in this ride. And also the Penguin bay, that will feature live penguins and a new restaurant in that world specialized in deliciously(frosty?) Polar Pizza and Pasta!

Waiter, where's my pizza?

Overview polar land map

Cutest polar bear!

For Parents
Kidspotter, for those who aren't familiar with this service, it's provided by legoland allowing parents to always know where their children are, the kit consists of a bracelet with a transmitter that is worn by the child and a special Kidspotter card, if ever comes the need to know where your children are, you can send a SMS to the provided number and get the missing child's coordinates in the Kidspotter map. This is a very useful feature that sadly isn't more often implemented, as fun in the park can lead to distraction and distressing circumstances, I am very supportive of parks that are able to provide such a safety measure.

New post coming soon...