Letting go at Legoland

Billund/Legoland - 1/5
We’re staying at Hotel Refborg, the oldest part of it is about 100 years but there are several additions of accommodation and function rooms and there’s a restaurant where we had an excellent breakfast (needing to stock up on energy for what ended up being more than seven hours on our feet!). The old part has a lovely stairway and a nice shop full of chocolate, jams and relishes, fruit juices (not so sure about rhubarb and apple though), and a fair bit of alcohol of various sorts, and there were a couple of tables where you could get coffee through the day. We have a double room, typical of what we’re finding in Scandinavia with a good bed base, two-inch-thick waffle sponge rubber overlay and individual duvets, very comfortable too. The Polish Gillins have bunks and a double bed, both rooms have a big bathroom, we have no complaints.

Andy had been up early and walked to Legoland first thing so he was well on the way with his 13,000 steps for the day by the time the family headed away just after 9am, took about 25 minutes but we just ambled, and the entry was pretty busy with people waiting for 10am kick-off. There are two hotels at the park, Legoland Hotel looks like it’s built of Lego, and the Castle hotel surprisingly looks like a Lego castle.

There were lots of different rides to suit all different tastes and ages, the kids went on a roller coaster and a flying thing that turned them upside down, the grown-ups weren’t into that at all. I went on a simulator ride with the kids which had a 35 minute wait in line but was very good – you know the sort, get strapped into a seat which moves up and down and sideways, but it’s mainly a huge screen in front that makes you think you’re ducking and diving into a pirate battle, flying like a Star Wars battle and so on. We all did the fairly sedate safari ride, and the boat ride through the world’s iconic buildings, and Pete and I went on the train around the very good Lego miniature world. There was everything from a space shuttle launch and a couple of oil rigs complete with countdown and clanking, to a replica of the Bergen waterfront including the bakery where we had dinner and the Mt Floyen funicular that we went on.

Ellie thought the Pirate ride would be too tame but actually it was really well done, mostly dark and modelled on Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean except of course everything from pirates and chickens to pirate ships and tavern musicians was made of Lego bricks. It wasn’t tame at all, we loved it. The haunted house was a bit of a let down, just a walk through not terribly spooky dark where you shone torches on 'scary stuff' but little kids would like it. They had a hall of mirrors and that was clever, not the easiest to find your way out when you're confronted with three or four images of yourself in bright blue or green light: which way to go? However, the house did belong to old 'Gold digger Pete' so our Pete was happy to lay claim to it.

The gardens were really well set out and full of spring flowers, plenty of toilets (essential!), food outlets that weren’t too extortionate, a few sideshows where you could win stuffed animals and a few merch outlets but it didn’t strike us as too commercial, in fact quite low key.

Oh, can't forget there was a giant spider that had me in her sights.

And then there was the Viking’s River Splash ride…….. You float around in a big ‘tyre’, go over a couple of splashy bits then it goes up in a lift and spills you down and you get splashed. Or in my case you get soaked – the others barely got touched. Talk about laugh, it was a lot of fun but just as well I had my jacket to put on while my jersey was drying in the sun when we had lunch. They had a couple of little cubicles with warm air fans that you could pay to dry out but I didn’t bother.

In all it was a really good day, a bit of waiting round for the kids but it was sunny and okay out of the wind so didn’t matter. On the way home all except me climbed up on the top of the Lego HQ building, I didn’t have the energy. Billund seems to be a nice town, a lot of new buildings and quite surprising for having only 26,000 people there are some very attractive apartment buildings and suburban streets, there’s an international school, the airport handles 3.5 million passengers per year – to contrast, Nelson airport handles approximately 1.2 million per year.

So that was it, we were all ready to put our feet up and the lads were set for a beer when we got back. Both nights we’ve just made sandwiches and had fruit in our rooms, very easy and all we needed.

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