Legoland Again

Thursday Grandma and I took the girls to Legoland for the 2nd day of our two day passes, only to find that the reason we’d been so mystified at our receipt was because she’d sold us 1 day passes with the aquarium upgrade. Which we didn't want. I had to pay $15 a piece to upgrade our passes to get us in. I was so mad at them I could spit.

The day didn’t go quite so magically, the lines moved very slowly, and the girls were only interested in what they could buy, but we did have some good episodes… my favorite was a fire engine ride I practically forced the girls to go on… you manually pump the truck to the fire, squirt at the target with a hose, then pump back. I nearly killed myself pumping to the fire, the girls aimed beautifully, and then I pumped my heart out again (with Grandma pumping awfully hard herself as well) and we won! Of the four fire engines, we came in first. The girls were thrilled. We went around and did it again, only this time I suspect Thing 1, who was holding the throttle lever in the forward position the second ride, hadn’t locked it in all the way because I was pumping my heart out again, and we didn’t move. I finally grabbed the lever and pulled it forward for her, and we started moving, but it was too late, we’d already lost our chance as that time we were up against a bunch of adult guys in every car. We came in last. But we still had fun.



I had been wondering how to handle the driving ride, though. I didn’t want to encourage Thing 2’s delinquent behavior and let her lie again, but I was sure she would be disappointed to go back to the little kid circle track. So on the way in I told her if we did ride that ride, she really is five and so she needs to ride on the 5 year old track. “Okay.” She was perfectly fine with it. When we got to that ride, Grandma watched her while I watched Thing 1. She, by the way, improved 100% and drove like a champion, quickly and confidently making it around the neighborhood, turning and stopping like a pro. Grandma said Thing 2 only wanted to ride once, as did Thing 1, but was perfectly happy driving in a circle.


When we were leaving, Grandma took Thing 1 to the lego store and since Thing 2 had agreed she wasn’t such a lego buff, and took her over to the aquarium to take advantage of the extra entrance fee we’d paid. Though we didn't really want it, we might as well. ONLY to find out that the extra entrance fee we'd paid had only been good for that first day, not today. They sort of implied if I made a big fuss they might give me a discount or a waiver, but I figured I’d have to go hunt down Thing 1 and Grandma to get their tickets… and since the whole thing closed in 20 minutes anyway… it left me with a bad taste in my mouth about Legoland. We had fun, and I absolutely love the driving thing, but I'll be sticking with Disneyland next year.