Legoland and Sea Life Aquarium during holidays

Here we go again, Legoland California. You just never get enough of the Legos when your household is dominated by boys. It was our second time this year and you can find our first experience here.

I would like to share with you our experiences the second time during the holiday seasons and why NOT to go during holidays if at all possible. We knew not to go during the holidays, but we got some special privileges and times allowed so we gave it a try anyway. Also, I would like to share all the ins and outs of the admission tickets that we have learned.

First off, as expected, the wait time to almost all the rides are horrendous. You literally wait an hour or more in line for a 10 minutes or less ride. Not fun at all. Be mindful that young children have little to no patience when it comes to play. When children acting up while you're in a 75 minutes wait line, that pretty much wipes out the fun. By the time it gets to you, the kids have already lost interest in something that they've been looking forward to.

We got to the theme park in the morning and planned to start from the back of the theme park and work our way to the front. It didn't work out well. Half way through, gege saw the mummies ride (one of the popular attractions) and wanted to go to that first. The queue was LONG! We waited an hour, more or less. Luckily, there is a Lego building area in the middle of the line to keep the kids occupied. As soon as daddy saw the number of people in line, he immediately knew that we have to spend extra money for the fast pass (Reserved 'n' ride).

Reserved 'N' Ride

The way the Reserved 'N' Ride work is you pay to rent a device with $100 refundable security deposit. The device shows a list of qualified rides for Reserve 'N' Ride and time slots you can reserve for. Then, you would reserve a time for one of the ride on the device, and only at that allocated time you could proceed to wait at the "Reserved 'N' Ride" lane. The catch is only one ride can be reserved at any given time. Once the ride conductor has scanned your device for your reserved ride or simply press the cancel button, then you can continue to reserve for the next attraction. There are 3 tiers Reserve 'N' Ride: the Express, Deluxe and Ultimate.

We got the Express tier and our reservation time for the rides average to around 50 minutes. Meaning, we have to wait about 50 minutes before we show up in line for the reserved ride. In the mean time, we went for lunch and other attractions instead of idling for 50 or more minutes in line.

For more information on Reserve 'N' Ride, read all about it here.

This little expensive gadget saves us time and allows us to go on rides that would otherwise be an hour or longer wait. For example, the Ninjago ride, which was 75 minutes long wait; with the fast pass, we ate our lunch and went straight to the reserved lane once the gadget beeps on the allotted time we reserved for. That cuts the wait time a whole lot!

Finally got in the Ninjago attraction, continue to wait for our ride.

Ever since our last visit to Legoland, Gege has been talking about Ninjago. Yup. It was his favorite ride! Taking more pictures with some of his favorite Ninjagos.

One of the shortest wait time, the Beetle Bound ride.

Legoland has minimum height requirements on certain rides. Didi got to enjoy few rides where he could ride by himself. It was definitely more fun for him this time around.

Ticket options

Legoland had a promotion on their website where you buy one full price adult ticket and get a free child ticket (it expired on 12/25/2016). That's almost like buy 1 get 1 free as the child price is not much difference than the adult fare. Be sure to check out their promotional offers.

Costco had a special offer on the Legoland annual pass for less than $100 during the Christmas shopping seasons. Such an awesome deal when a regular ticket is $95.

Costco sells Los Angeles and San Diego Go Card. Definitely check it out as we bought 2 days San Diego Go Card for $99 back in May last year. The Go Card has so many attractions that you could take advantage of on your second day. To name a few: San Diego zoo and San Diego safari.

Chase ultimate rewards have Go Cards that you could get discounted price purchase with points and amount of discount depending on the type of credit cards you have with Chase. Chase Reserve credit card has the ultimate reward points at 1.5 times the value.

Christmas season in Legoland

Since this is our second time visiting the park, the only difference I spotted between regular season vs. Christmas season is the big Lego Christmas tree near the front entrance and the Lego Santa. Other than that, Christmas decorations were minimal to none. So, you definitely are not missing out if you go during off-peak season. They do have a little Christmas dances on the stage towards the end, which to me is nothing to be excited for.

Sea Life Aquarium

Next to Legoland is the Sea Life Aquarium. We didn't get a chance to visit last time we came so we made an effort to visit this time around. The crowd was acceptable and not as bad as I thought it would be.

A colorful small aquarium with Legos throughout the floor and tanks.