Legoland Discovery Center PTR

So a couple of weekends ago I went to check out the Legoland Discovery Center here in the Chicagoland area. The attraction is essentially a small indoor legoland. While definetely intended for children, I enjoyed the mini-park. The admission is $20 and I was there for about an hour and a half. The level of theme and detail throughout the attraction was surprisingly good.

Some of the features included:

- Mini-land
- Jungle Expedition
- Dragon Ride
- Lego Factory Tour
- Lego Hall Of Fame
- Spellbreaker 4-D Movie

The first section of the Legoland Discovery Center is Mini-Land. It was a giant cityscape of Chicago done completely in Lego form. The detail in this section was really spectacular. The trains actually ran on the tracks and the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel rotated. The model also has two mode, day mode and night mode with all the building lit up. Some of the great little details included during the night scene one of the office buildings had certain rooms lit up so it would spell "GO CUBS" and another cool feature was a little Lego Batman on top of the Sears Tower.


The next section of the attraction was the Jungle Expedition which was a highly themed jungle section with all sorts of Lego safari animals. Here are some of the cooler displays from this part:



The next section was the Lego Hall Of Fame, which was pretty much pop culture icons in Lego form. This was a very popular spot for people to take pictures with the figures. I think Darth Vader was my favorite.



The next part of the tour was my favorite in Legoland and that was of course the Dragon Ride. This is a dark ride that was better then I expected. All of the animatronics (anything from monks, to wizards, to dragons, to gaurds like in the second picture) that had limited motion and of course were made of Legos. Not to fear all you inquiring readers, I got a full on ride video of the short dark ride for the podcast.



Next up was the Spellbreaker 4-D Movie. This was quick 15 minute film which none of the characters had speaking parts and the animation was surpisingly well done. The 4-D effects (by the way have I ever mentioned on this blog about how I hate the term "4-D Movie", the fourth dimension is time and no movie with glasses takes you through time) were decent and included projections on the wall and a neat snow effect. The movie wasn't Disney/Universal quality, but was generally entertaining.



The Lego Factory Tour was one part of the attraction that really had no appeal to me whatsoever. It was pretty much kids pressing buttons in a stylized Lego factory.



The last part was a small scale SpongeBob exhibit. I thought the SpongeBob sculpture was great, but the Squidward & Mr.Crabs looked awful.



So thats the Legoland Discovery Center, a neat little place. If anyone has any questions about it or my afternoon their, post them in the comments section!!