LEGOLAND New York

LEGOLAND New York is now open for preview days, with the official grand opening happening later this summer. A few of us got together to go this past weekend and check it out.

The park is laid out in a big winding circle. You enter past the main store and a couple of smaller shops. The Big Shop , as its name implies, is enormous. They have just about every LEGO product in production available, plus an endless parade of branded merchandise for the park.

You don’t see Miniland at first as it’s down a hill. From what I understand, the other LEGOLand parks are mostly even terrain, so having a scenic vista like this is unique.

Impatient guests kept skipping the curves and going through the grassy areas, much to the frustration of the park employees. Perhaps some strategically-placed shortcut paths would help with that. Or motion-activated sprinklers.

Other areas represent the rest of the US, including Washington DC, Chicago and the Midwest, Las Vegas, and California.

Miniland looks to be coming along nicely. Since these are previews, there are still some details and features yet to be added, like some water effects and button-activated mechanisms.

A few years ago the LUG banded together to build a couple of large-scale skyscrapers, and it was quite an undertaking. I can’t imagine doing entire cityscapes with light, sound, and movement like this that has to withstand being outdoors with kinetic elements for the whole park season.

After checking out Miniland, we turned around and went back up the hill to check out the Minifig Factory Tour ride, which is a fast-paced trackless vehicle ride that puts you in the position of a minifigure getting thrown around the factory, into a box, and then to a child’s home. It zips you through so fast it’s hard to process what’s even happening, but maybe I’m getting old and that’s just how fast kids process information now.

The gift shop for that ride is where you can find Build a Mini, Pick a Brick, and a brick engraving station.

Moving past the factory ride, you reach Ninjago land. We wanted to try out the Ninjago ride, but it was closed.

Ninjago land leads into Castle land, which is where the roller coasters are. One is a small-ish steel coaster, and the other is a smaller carnival-type ride for small children. We tried out the bigger coaster, which starts Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride) style with brick-built minifigures partying inside the castle. After that, you’re taken outside and experience the actual roller coaster. The ride is only about a minute long, but I think it’s a pretty good balance of being kid-friendly without being too tame for adults.

There are a bunch of these brick-built minifigures around the park, as well as molded minifigs made of metal or plaster or something. They reflect whatever themed area you’re in, and it’s impressive how diverse and inclusive they were able to be with them.

Castle gives way to City, which is where the 4D theater and carnival-type games and rides are.

A lot of AFOLs sing the praises of apple fries, which are sold at the various LEGOLand parks. We got some, and they’re pretty good. It’s basically just shredded apple pie.

We tried out the 4D theater, which had a 15-minute short involving a police chase. Like the factory ride, it was fast-paced and loud. Aside from the 3D glasses, you get hit with water, air, and bubble effects.

Leading up to the video, the pre-show content consisted of one behind the scenes feature from the LEGO Movie DVD on repeat. It was a little weird to think how that movie was older than most of the kids in the theater.

Being that we’re still in the waning days of COVID-19, they’re asking unvaccinated guests to wear a facemask, and then vaccinated guests to wear masks indoors and on rides. The rollercoaster and theater had distancing measures in place where every other row was left empty.

When we went (a Friday before schools are out for the summer), it was fairly light crowds in the morning with heavier crowds later in the day. They were only open 10-6, which seemed tight. If you’re a parent with your family, it would probably take two days to really see and do everything. I guess that’s what the hotel is for. A group of snarky adults like us can blow through it all in one day, as half the rides are kid-sized.

Hopefully at some point they can be open late enough to enjoy Miniland fully lit up at night.

It’s nice to finally have a LEGOLand park in our part of the country. It’s not AFOL-oriented, but if you have a family with young kids (age 7 or younger), it could be a fun day or weekend excursion. Miniland and all the sculptures are neat, and the various rides would be appealing for small children. Otherwise, there isn’t much to do for adults besides a couple of rides and shopping.

If you’re only interested in shopping, you might want to go to the Discovery Center in Westchester instead. That’s a much smaller store, but you don’t need a ticket to get in, and they have most of the same exclusive sets available. From what I could tell, the only truly-exclusive merch in the park were items branded with “LEGOLand New York” on them.

It’s still a few months away from being fully finished, so keep that in mind if you’re going for preview days. The rides may or may not be working and the decorative elements are still being installed and tweaked. I’d say the park as of this writing is about 70% ready for the public.

There’s definitely some room for improvement. For one, there need to be some shortcuts between areas of the park so you aren’t stuck either going clockwise or counter-clockwise around the circle. Disneyland is designed like a wagon wheel for a reason. Being forced to meander through winding paths through a hilly area really wastes time.

They also need more shade. Being out in the hot sun really wears you down if you’re there all day. Some of the ride queues are shaded or indoors, but the majority of the park is just open air with no awnings or tall trees to mitigate the summer sun.

Here are some quick tips based on my experience:

1. Bring junk minifigures to trade. Several of the gift shops have minifig trading, and you can trade in your extra construction worker for a fig made of Build-a-Mini-exclusive parts. Normally any employee with a minifig on their badge will trade with you, but they’re not right now due to COVID.

2. Get there right when they open. The crowds got bigger over the course of the day, and the experience is much better when you aren’t navigating through a bunch of people to see and do stuff.

3. Bring a reusable water bottle. There are refill stations around the park where you can get water for free. Especially useful on hot summer days if you don’t want to pay $18 for the collectors soda cup. You’ll be doing a lot of walking despite the fairly small size of the park.

4. If you’re going to do a lot of shopping, be aware of the pick-up option where they’ll hold your purchases for you and you can grab them on your way out. Saves the hassle of lugging stuff all over the park.

5. Keep an eye out for rare products. LEGOLand parks and Discovery Centers sometimes sell items that are otherwise only available as gift with purchase at LEGO stores. You might be able to snag a promo item you otherwise missed because it wasn’t worth spending $50, $85, whatever to get it.