Annual Pop Badge Hunt...I mean…LEGOLAND Trip
This year the GertLUG group of family and friends on the trip to LEGOLAND amassed a huge 45 people! We had decided to change the day to Sunday to make it accessible for people that can’t typically do Saturdays. The day may have changed but the weather certainly didn’t. It was one of the hottest days of the year so the water rides were a big hit like the Viking River Splash, Pirate Falls and Hydra’s Challenge at the new MYTHICA Land.
After our obligatory group photo we headed off to try and beat the queues on our favourite rides or to the shop to spend our well earned cash on much loved LEGO merch. Luckily even the shop is quite the attraction. It has the Minifigure Factory, Mosaic Maker, Pick a Brick wall, Build a Minifigure and lots of sets and gear that is only available at LEGOLAND or Discovery centres. The newest addition to which is the recently released MYTHICA set 40556 to which Adam White, Brickfanz Author, states ‘I’d say it’s one of the best of the LEGOLAND exclusives sets’. LEGO MYTHICA is a world that exists in a parallel universe with Maximus the Sky Lion made in bricks with posable features like the wings, head, and legs. There’s also the portal and entrance to the world of LEGO MYTHICA, a Venus flytrap, Bobs the colourful baby Alicorn and two Minifigures. The main shop also had some unique prints for LEGO CON 2022 and 90 Years of Play at the Minifigure Factory.
Elsewhere in the park, we bumped into GertLUGgers in every land possible whilst they enjoyed the sunshine and the rides. One that was mentioned by several people as being unexpectedly ‘spicy’ was Mia’s Riding Adventure in Heartlake City. It looks fairly innocent from the outside but throws you in all sorts of directions when you’re in it! Another firm favourite was the MYTHICA 4D experience and it was great to see that they had opened up another attraction within MYTHICA called The Magical Forest which is a walkthrough with lots of large scale LEGO builds of the hybrid animals that live within the world, like the crystal claw crabs and lava dragon.
As with any trip to LEGOLAND it wasn’t complete without collecting pop badges and trading them with staff and friends. Luckily, for the 90 Years of Play celebrations, you could get 5 by building small MOCs in the Imagination Centre which kicked us all off to a great start. From there we scattered far and wide finding the rarest of badges and the elusive Golden Wu. The new MYTHICA badges even have AR capabilities to bring the badges to life.
We better start planning for even more people to come next year!
