Legoland 2 (And really cool water ski show pictures)

The second day that we went to Legoland, we did some of the rides that we hadn't done yet and we watched the water ski show.  It was pretty amazing to see life-size Lego men on water skis.  If you're bored with the Legoland pictures, you should at least scroll down to see the ones from the water ski show.

This was kind of interesting.  We were standing outside the Coastersaurus (an old wooden roller coaster) and we saw two workers walk up with a new "toe" for this lego dinosaur.  When we realized what they were doing we went over to watch.  It was very fascinating.  We got to ask them some questions about how they make the various lego things, what they use to stick the pieces together, how often parts have to be replaced etc.

Lego shark in front of the Lego boats.

The lego boats.  You actually drive these around yourself.  Cool/fun concept for a ride.

The sailor near the shark "talked" and said funny phrases when you walked by him.

This was one of the funniest/funnest rides (in the pictures above and below).  (That is one thing that we have noticed about Legoland - there are some really different rides/activities that other parks don't have.)  For this particular "ride", you climbed into one of four police or fire trucks.  If you look at the picture above, you can see the lady and boy in the foreground ready to "pump" their vehicle.  You "propelled" your car forward by pumping the handles up and down as fast as you could.  When you got down to the pretend building.  You jumped out, then someone had to pump the water from the hydrant while the other person aimed the hose at the "fires" in the windows.  When the bell went off, you jumped back in your vehicle and pumped as fast as you could to try to be the first car back.  I actually just copied and pasted a picture from Legoland's website of the ride so you could kind of get the idea better.  It was so funny to watch people pumping as fast as they could to try to get their firetruck or police car to move the fastest.  And it was hard not to get so tickled that you couldn't "pump" when you were supposed to be racing.

I grabbed this picture off of the website to show a little better what the ride was.

This was the Ford driving school.  The kids went through a little training video of how to stop and go etc.  Then they got to drive.  Rather than just being a simple round track, the driving area had stop lights and signs, intersections, and different directions you could turn.  It was a little bit complicated for Kaelyn but I think she still enjoyed it and she sure looked cute.

A thumbs up as she heads out.

Ford is one of the sponsors at Legoland and right outside of the driving school there is a full size Ford Explorer made entirely of legos!  It was pretty crazy to see it up close.

And now the Pirate Water Ski show:

The first skiiers to come out were three lego men who were the guards of the "princess" in the show.

I've heard people talk about how hard it is to get up and then stay up when trying to water ski so it blows my mind to see people in full costume skiing and even doing the jumps.

The Lego pirate ship

The princess, the heroine of the show.

One of the Lego guards does a jump.

The pirates come out and do some jumps/flips.

All three of the skiiers doing flips off of the ski jump.

And THIS was amazing to see too - the Lego pirate zooming up on a jet ski!

How does he see?   And then there's his lego hands.  Apparently they are more flexible than they look for him to be able to do the controls on the jet ski.

There was a "friendly shark" that they kept talking about during the show.  It was friendly I guess to everyone but the evil pirate.  At the end of the show, the [large, inflatable] shark came out (on  his own water ski I might add) chasing the pirate.  It was quite funny to see.

After the show was over, we were able to get pictures with some of the characters.

Kaelyn with the heroine of the show.

A sign and lego pirate above a hamburger stand next to the pirate show.

The pirate's treaures.  :-)

I know you're not going to believe this but I have even more pictures from Legoland to post.  :-)

LEGOLAND

This posting is mostly for about three of my blog readers... okay maybe only two... or one - I know at least Mama will probably wanna' see these pictures.   :-)

Kaelyn had been desperately wanting to go to Legoland.  There is a Legoland in California but the one here in Florida just opened last October.  Several of Kaelyn's friends from school had gone and talked about it so much that she really, really wanted to see what it was like.  We were able to get fairly decently discounted FL resident tickets from one of our local grocery stores.  We went on the Thursday before her birthday.  We ended up enjoying it so much and only saw/did about half of the things there so we upgraded to year passes and went back the following day.  It is actually in Winter Haven, Florida so it is a bit of a drive even once you're in Orlando.  We were quite impressed with it all in general. 

So here's what Legoland is like Mama.  The next time ya'll come down, I think you'll want to try it.

  :-)

The entertainment company that owns Legoland actually bought the park/property that was formerly Cypress Gardens.  We never went to Cypress Gardens before it closed down.  I guess it was beautiful with many, many types of gardens and a few rides.  When they built Legoland, they left ALL the trees and worked around it so there are still a few of the gardens, a waterfall, and some some beautiful big trees.  The walkway up to the main entrance is lined with trees on either side and looks quite cool.  These various lego signs line the walkway now.

I don't know how much of the "lego effect" will show up in these pictures but you just have to keep in mind that most things you see in these pictures are actually made out of legos (except for the rides and buildings of course).  The "WELCOME" is made entirely of legos. (I guess I just felt the need to re-emphasize what I just said.)  :-)

I LOVE the entrance.  It's so bright and cute.

Ticket booths.  I love the lego men on top.

I thought this was an extremely cute way to label this.  :-)

One of the giant lego dinosaurs right near the entrance.  One of them spits water at certain times.

 

The lego tourists (and some real tourists).  :-)

This lego plumber, toilet, and plunger were outside one of the restrooms.  The plumber talked when you walked near him and he even told a knock knock joke.  :-)

Lego Darth Vader and R2D2 from Star Wars.

The carousel is a two-level carousel that was at the original park when it was still Cypress Gardens.  They have changed the horses to look like lego horses though.

The duplo farm is a farm themed playground.

There is a room in the farm playground that has all kinds of legos for younger kids to play with --- and adults who still love playing with legos.  For that matter, there were also some adults who went in just because the room was air conditioned and there were benches.  :-)

John built this [pretty much] life sized lego man.  It was pretty cool.  The blocks were actually made out of styrofoam.  Some of the moms in the room were saying that they have looked all over to try to find blocks that big and made out of styrofoam but apparently they are unique to the park(s).

*Little kid in an adult's body alert*

I LOVED this ride.  I have pictures from another day that show the whole concept better.  I'll be posting that batch of pictures in a few days hopefully.  You stand on this platform which is on the back of a little firetruck.  The platform raises up and down and you have a hose that shoots water.  There is a big "building", a tower like structure that has pretend windows at three different levels with red lights that are supposed to be fire and you shoot your water at the "fires" trying to put them out.  That probably sounds confusing but it IS fun.

  

The little semi trucks.  The kids loved these and there was NO ONE in line so they rode as many times as they wanted.

The castle area - more fun theming.

All the workers, or model citizens as they are called, have lego nametags.  They are apparently allowed to design their own to a  certain point.  Most of the name tags that we had seen up to this point just had one lego person on them but this girl had quite an elaborate one.  She was in management so I don't know if that had anything to do with it.

A lego castle guard sleeping on-duty.

The Land of Adventure gateway had a lego Indiana Jones climbing up the side.

  

The second day we went, Kevin and I were waiting on the rest of them to ride the carousel and this lego man came out.  His name is Buddy I believe they said.

This giant lego Pharaoh was outside of a laser shooting ride called "Lost Kingdom Adventure".

The little Arab man next to the camel also talked when you got near him.  I don't remember his exact words but I know he offered camel rides for cheap.  :-)

Hee hee hee!  I don't really have any good words to describe this.  We like this ride though/laser game though.