Lego Land Discovery Center, Grapevine Texas

How we met...

My kids really really enjoy Legos. We were gearing up to visit the Lego Land in San Diego and found Legoland Discovery Center. It's actually inside the Grapevine Mills Mall, amazingly enough, in Grapevine Texas

So what is LegoLand Discovery Center?

You walk in, there's a Disney style presentation about Lego making, kids jump up and down to make the lego machine run, and they walk out that door with a souvenir Duplo type Lego brick.

Then you go on a Disney style ride, Kingdom Quest, where you shoot bad guys and spiders with lasers guns as you pass through trying to save the queen. All that is the entrance.

Once inside you have choices.

4D movie theater playing three 15 minute lego-movies back to back continuously.
Two rides (other than the one at the start)

Merlin's Apprentice: is a round and round that goes up as you peddle faster on bikes.
Forest Ranger Pursuit. is a mini car track. The kids actually drive the cars too, it's not stuck on a rail, they can crash into each other, not recommended by Lego Land, and drive with steering wheels and all. My kids really enjoy that one.
There is a playground in the center, very cool playground, large, my kids spend a lot of time running circles in here, and there are rubber Lego bricks that are the size of shoe boxes and they build small houses out of them inside the playground. It's pretty cool.
Two lego building stations.
There is another building station for young kids (1-3) with over sized bricks.
A girly area where you can be a princess and sing Karaoke.
Miniland: entire cities built out of lego, and a whole other section with Star Wars, including a replica of Tatooine.
Lego Racers: This is my kids favorite part, and what they spend a good third of their time on. They build lego cars are race them against other kids down a timed racetrack. That's cool!
There are several other things, check out their website for full details.

My Review

I like:

The place is fun for kids. It's primarily built for kids older than 3 but under 10. My kids beg to go over and over. Lego movies are fun to watch in 4D. If you have a child that really enjoys Lego, or a Lego Fanatic like mine, they will have a great time! I'm all for making this a part of my annual pass portfolio.

My kids want me to make sure to tell you to give your kid time to build racers, drive the cars, and play in the playground where they can build life sized houses out of shoe box sized rubber Lego bricks.

I don't like:

The whole thing is NOT very big in fact I can't see spending more than 2-3 hours there tops, and that's having done everything more than once. However, I could easily spend a few hours there every other Monday or so, it's better than McDonald's or the Park. I don't know how they justify charging that much for adult admission as there is nothing for adults to do but stand around (or sit around) and watch kids do things.

I don't like the price for a one trip. The Karaoke machine is way too loud, in fact bring ear plugs for adults the whole place is loud. The food is theme park quality at best and over priced. If they'd lower the price I'd eat there but I don't spend money there because it's not worth it, I can wait and go eat better food for less just a hundred yards away in the mall.

My Tips:

Annual Pass is a better deal than one time pass if you plan to go thrice or more this year.

It cost two adults and two kids (4 tickets) $50-72. But the family of four annual pass is only $150. That's three trips. If you are likely to go three times or more get the annual pass. We probably go about 12-15 times a year.

Buy Tickets/Annual Passes online. before you go, much better deal.
TAKE SOCKS for the kids feet. They need socks to go into the playground, which they WILL want to do, and the ones you buy there are too small but for the smallest feet.
Adults BYOD (Bring Your Own Distraction): Take a book, laptop, tablet, or a friend to talk to, something to do, Legoland Discovery Center was NOT built for adults in any way. The best you can hope for is to distract yourself while your kids have fun. You may get into it the first time you go, but from the second time forward you need something to do while your kids play.
Fun Distraction: It's a good place to take the kids when it's too hot or too cold outside, which it almost always is in Texas.

Photos:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Texas Living Info by Darrell G. Wolfe

Blog:

http://texaslivinginfo.blogspot.com/

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Whiskey Cake Kitchen & Bar

As we walk past the covered patios and see the fire from the kitchen within behind glass behind the bar; Whiskey Cake is already promising to be a unique dining experience. We then walk in the double set of double doors into the restaurant and are greeted by warm and friendly hosts. The first thing I noticed was the firewood which doubled as fuel for the kitchen and decoration as well.

As we are walking through to our table we pass rocking chairs and other unique seating arrangements. We are seated at a booth with industrial lightening made from pipes and wires. Everything about this restaurant is first class yet home-grown. It's a true farm to garden experience. They even recycle as much as possible. The napkin rolls are held together by large plumbing fittings. The coasters are cut up squares from cardboard boxes and stamped with the logo. There is this feeling that current (fresh, organic, all natural, clean, west coast style) meets farm fresh (down home, comfortable, easy-going, raw, rustic, old west).

As we are seated we are handed menus. Not just any menus either. They are one page. No flipping for pages and pages to find 100's of items. All the drinks, apps, food, salad, burgers... one page. It is located on an equally sized cardboard cut out for to add firmness and clipped together with office clips.

They create their food from scratch made from all fresh/never frozen ingredients. All the vegetables are from right here in texas and even the herbs used for seasoning are grown right on property in their greenhouse. They fly in fresh meats from around the world as well. I had an amazing piece of Scottish Salmon!

We started our meal with a special treat of Friend Egg Plant and dipping sauce. I then turned to my Live Wood Grilled Salmon. It was served over wilted spinach, shiitake mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes. This was all mixed with a shallot vinaigrette. My friend had the Mesquite Grilled Redfish. Both were fresh and perfectly prepared. Topping that meal off was our Whiskey Cake; served warm. It was crispy on the outside and soft in the middle served over a creamy sugary sauce.

It was a an organic farm fresh food and home-style experience. But it was also high quality food and thoughtfully created. One can tell from the presentations and preparations that there is a first class chef behind it all.

Well done Whiskey Cake! DW