Lego Land Discovery Center

[1mom2dylan]

Has anyone gone to a LegoLand Discovery Center? I am planning on going to the one in Westchester.

[LD92599]

I just saw that one! Curious too!

[sail731]

Wondering about the one just outside of Chicago. Anyone been there? Do they have coupons for the Discovery Centers?

[caheinz]

It's a fun place to spend a few hours with a Lego-obsessed kid. A couple of rides, some cool shows, a neat "how bricks are made" "demo", and even master building "classes".

As to coupons, yes. You can save money by buying the tickets online (right now, the Chicago one is about $5 off per ticket online), or by getting an "after 3pm" pass (though it's only a few dollars less than the online ticket). Googling will also find you some. (I was able to find one for $5 off tickets and another for 1 free child with 1 paid adult online this week for the Chicago one.

[wifecat]

We went to the one in Kansas City and we were really disappointed. We got discount tickets with a coupon and my sister-in-law and I took the kids (2 and 4). The staff was surly (really...almost mean), the rides were unimpressive (and one was basically just my kids shooting at stuff while we rode through a weird video game-ish exhibit), and the 4D movie we saw was pretty violent.

The lego building areas were not set up to be developmentally appropriate. Like, there was a 'build a pumpkin' challenge area, and there were some cool pumpkins on display, but no directions anywhere. If you were great with legos, you could build some incredible stuff. But if you were hoping for a tutorial on how to make a 3D lego pumpkin, you were out of luck (no matter if you were building with the duplos or legos provided). There were just a ton of orange legos. We made flat versions because we could easily figure out how to make those! The car racing section was similar - no helpful tutorials. If you were older, no big deal, but I think it's great to have some posters with instructions on pick one of these, add this, and voila! A basic race car. Then you can be as creative as you want on top of that.

Anyhoo, my sister in law and I were totally underwhelmed and the next time I'm back in KC, we will not be returning. The kids had an ok time, but would have had just as much fun at a park for free. Honestly, the surly staff probably had a HUGE impact on our experience.

[KrystalS]

We have been to the one in Grapevine, TX. Not impressed at all. It's small and always crowded no matter when you go. The toddler area with the really big legos is always over run with adults building things instead of kids, never have understood this! The lines for the rides are 1 hour + and very weird height restrictions, for the forest ranger car ride the kids had to be over 36" but less than 54", and they were very strict about that.
If you have a really lego obsessed kid they might still have fun but it's always too crowded for my kids to enjoy it. It would never happen but they should really reduce the amount of people allowed inside, I would rather be limited to 1 hour inside with way less people.