A few years ago I decided that less is more for Christmas. Instead of buying a bunch of toys this year, we gave the kids a trip to San Diego! They got to open 6 boxes with clues inside (toy airplanes, hotel key cards, zoo animal puzzles, a US map with California colored in, Legoland spelled out in legos, and a 24 days chocolate countdown (I had bought them to count down to Christmas but when I realized our trip was exactly 24 days after Christmas, fate told me to give it as part of the gift).
The kids were thrilled and started counting down the 24 days til the trip and doing jobs to make money for souvenirs, etc. We watched the San Diego zoo cam and read the lego magazine. We were ready for this trip.
Thanks to my friend Julie Hyatt for teaching me about maximizing credit card rewards for travel, we were able to get 5 free RT flights, 4 free nights in a suite at Holiday Inn Bayside, as well as a free rental car for 5 days. Travel tip: If you take your own carseat, you avoid a $15/day charge. Then our gracious friend Anna hooked us up with some free tickets to Sea World because her husband, Dusty, is active Military and Sea World rocks at supporting the military. Thank you for your service Dustin and for your generosity Anna!
This was Brynn and Brody's first flight and Brylee and Brysen's 2nd so it was super fun to fly.
We lucked out because it wasn't a full flight so we were able to move around seats a bit to keep crazy happy Brody entertained. Brynn absolutely loved her first take off and Brody loved the in flight drinks.
There was a crazy amount of turbulence because of the major rainstorms. The clouds were so thick you couldn't see anything. It was way cool. No clue how a pilot flies in that. The kids were nervous about it but I thought it was super fun! The most turbulence I've ever felt by far.
When we landed, Brody fell asleep (of course).
It had been pouring rain in SD for 4 days straight and the clouds were still crazy thick. Everywhere was soaking wet but we didn't care. We walked around Balboa park and looked at the most amazing architecture. That place was fascinating to me!
Once we were sufficiently soaked, we checked in to the hotel and used our IHG card to score a free upgrade to a suite. Ended the night at Smashburger and enjoyed swimming in the outdoor pool. Not winter here!
Friday, we headed to Legoland!
The kids have been begging to go here for years so this was a dream come true for them.
The things built out of legos there were astounding!
One of the highlights was "mini-fig trading." All the employees in the park have the little lego people stuck to their name tags. Bring some little lego dudes you have from home or buy some there and you can trade any employee anytime for cooler ones if they have them. The kids really liked doing that all over the park.
These guys know how to do long lines! There's places all over for kids to play while adults wait in line... genius. Lucky for us, it was still a little rainy in the morning so we didn't have many lines. Some of the rides that have tall height requirements have playgrounds right by the line too so you can split up and everyone can have fun instead of just waiting around. You can also do rider swap so big kids and adults don't miss out because of littles.
The themes in the park are awesome and so fun.
I love Brynn's face in this vid!
In the afternoon, the lines started to get long and Brody started to get tired since he didn't really get a nap. So we split up and Braden took the big 2 on some rides while I took the littles to play legos and play on the fun playgrounds.
Legoland gets mixed reviews, so here's my detailed review. Overall, Legoland was fun for a day. If you've never been here's my advice, make sure you have 1 adult for each child under 48''. They have very strict and very inconsistent height requirements so the fact that we had 3 kids under 48'' made it so we had to rider swap EVERY RIDE. Brylee liked it because she got to ride everything twice. Braden or I had to ride everything with Brysen while Brynn waited and the again with Brynn while Brysen waited because the other adult was waiting outside the ride with Brody. They make it very easy to rider swap there, but it was still such a pain. Legoland is all about safety and and having a fun day of play and lego love. If you're going for thrill and excitement, you'll be disappointed. There's lots of AMAZING miniature lego towns to walk through, lots of places to build with legos and lots of playgrounds. They aim to make the lego themed day a blast, so if that's what you want, it's perfect. The employees are so fun and friendly but are NOT in a hurry to get people through the lines. My kids loved it, but I was rather bored myself. We went on a day that the lines were very short and it was tolerable. I think I would've gone nuts if it was a busy day. The park is PERFECT for 48'' tall 6 or 7 years olds, immature 9 years olds who still like kiddie rides, and littles who just want to play on park toys. Lucky for us, we have all of those! If we could do it again, we'd wait til Brysen was 48'' tall and Brody was 36'' tall. Then we could've ridden everything together all day. Brody and Brysen were both 2'' short for that so it was a bit of a challenge. Also, they say no food allowed all over the place, but then when you get there, they let you bring in anything as long as it's not in a big cooler! That was rough for us cuz we decided to be rule abiders and didn't bring food. Kids were always hungry and I'm too cheap to buy 15 meals at those park prices. We'd do that differently too if I could do it over.
Will I go back to Legoland? Probably not unless Brody has a particularly major Lego obsession when he's 48'' tall. It was fun once, but once was enough for me.
Legoland was a 50 minute drive from our hotel, but the kids made the most of it.
And we saw the BEAUTIFUL San Diego temple on the drive. That place is unbelievably gorgeous.
More swimming at the hotel to end a great day.
Travel tip: the "San Diego Go Card" is the BEST way to do San Diego. It's a great deal (we got even deeper discounts buying the cards through Costco) especially when traveling with kids. Our kids have short attention spans so I always have a hard time paying a lot of money for something and then they're over it in 2 hours. Ugh. The San Diego Go card prevents that from happening! We had a blast at Legoland so we stayed all day. The zoo however, we only stayed til 3 pm. Then we went on a Harbor Cruise and went to Belmont theme park too! It would've cost 3x what we paid for the card to do all those things separately. The card is a serious game changer. I highly recommend. I am not a very chill vacationer and love to go and see and do everything so this card is MADE for people like me.
Anyway, Saturday we went to the San Diego Zoo.
Brylee is obsessed with Pandas and could hardly contain her excitement.
I loved the skyfari tram ride to the back of the park. So cool. (included in the SD Go Card)
Braden's favorite was the open top bus tour (also included on the SD Go Card)
Since it had been raining for days and days, the animals were all out really loving the sunshine. These condor birds were just sitting there with their wings spread like this! The tour guide said they were drying out their feathers! This picture just can't do the coolness justice. These birds were HUGE and so so cool.
That zoo is so much cooler than I had even anticipated. It drops down into a huge valley inside the park and has huge high rise bridge walkways and is just a way cool structure itself. Then the animals... so so cool. It was so fun to see things you just don't see otherwise. Loved it. Everyone should go to this zoo in their lifetime. It's so awesome.
FYI - parking here is free and you can take food in! Also Balboa park in right next door with LOTS of cool museums that are included on the SD Go Card.
When we were all "zoo-ed out," we decided to see where the Go Card could take us. Belmont park is an old school carnival type place right on beautiful Mission Beach. The waves were crashing hard and the undertow was crazy so we just ran away from the waves for a bit. It was way fun and beautiful.
The SD Go Card said you could only get in to Belmont til 5:30, so we went there at 4 and got wristbands that were good for the whole day - Beatin' the system baby. Then we headed to Bayside pier to see if we could get onto the last Harbor Cruise at 4:15. The USS Midway battleship and the Hornblower harbor cruise are both on the same pier and are both included on the Go Card so we planned to get onto the cruise but if we didn't make it, we would do the Midway ship tour as a backup plan which also stopped letting people in at 4. We rolled up at 3:50 and made it onto the cruise!
It was this cool old school Ferry type ship that took us around the Harbor and told about all the navy ships in the Harbor, showed the Mexico border, and went under this huge bridge. It was as sunset and was a stunning way to wind down for a bit. It was a 1 hour cruise. The kids were bored after about 30 minutes, but Braden and I loved every second. I LOVE the ocean and being on the water really fills my soul with a special kind of joy.
Ok, got my fill, now back to the kids. Back to Belmont for some serious carny fun! Gotta use those wristbands Braden so geniously got us.
The Roller coaster was seriously awesome.
The kiddie rides were fun...
Like REALLY Fun...
There was this awesome ropes course too that the kids and Braden all ROCKED.
It even had a zip line!
There was lazer tag, go karts, and lots of other fun rides and things.
And of course the carny food was great. Brody drank his body weight in Powerade and was happy and hyper ALL NIGHT.
We all CRASHED HARD that night. It was awesome.
Sunday - the day of rest. I had lofty goals of driving up to the seal beach and going to the temple or church or seaside bike ride... but Braden brought me back down to earth because well, we were all in need of a break.
So we just chilled at the hotel all day. Naps, swimming, mini golf, shuffleboard, bean bag toss, giant connect four... this was a very fun hotel. All outside in the beautiful sunshine. Shorts and flip flops, I've missed you!
That night we walked along the bay and checked out all the millions of boats in the harbor. I love the ocean and couldn't get enough of it. Sunday fun day.
Monday we were back at it and ready to party! SEA WORLD! Braden has fond memories of Sea World as a kid and I remember coming here as a kid but don't remember much. You can bring "snack" type food here so we came with a bag of goodies so we didn't have to waste time or money at the food stands. My love of the ocean had me VERY excited for this day and it did NOT disappoint.
The exhibits were VERY cool.
The rides were fun but we only rode 3 because we were there for the animals and shows, not so much amusement rides. FYI - The Eel coaster is AWESOME.
The shows were AMAZING. I could watch those animals perform ALL.DAY.
Dolphins are so CUTE! And get jump so high in the air, it's insane!
Brody liked the shark exhibit and kept saying "shark." New word! So cute.
The sea lion show was so cute and funny. I love how they just slide all around. Sooo cute.
Orcas are even cooler than I expected! I CANNOT wrap my head around how an animal that huge can jump out of the water like that! The Orca show blew my mind.
The "soak zone" was hilarious to watch.
I only caught the end of this amazing animal doing a BACK FLIP! Wow!
The show all 6 of us loved the most was the "Pets Rule" show. I was so into it that I didn't take a single pic or video. I was really living in the moment in that amazing, adorable and hilarious show. Those animals and their trainers are amazing! I have no idea how you get animals to behave like that.
Sea World was my favorite thing we did on this whole trip. To all you Sea World haters out there, I encourage you to go and see what they're actually about there... it's a remarkable place that's doing amazing things.
The flight home was great. Brody fell asleep like 2 seconds before take off and slept the whole way. It was awesome.
Thanks Joe Barrett for being our airport Chauffeur.
This trip was So so fun. I'm so glad we did Legoland once, but I would absolutely do any and all of those other things again, especially Sea World. San Diego, I love you more every time I come to visit you.
BEST.CHRISTMAS.EVER.
Awesome place! I loved this place.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
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