Thursday, November 13, 2014

11/13/14: LEGOLAND Discovery Center Boston Fun With Ian Coffey

We were invited to the LEGOLAND Discovery Center Boston at Assembly Square, Somerville to spend some time with Ian Coffey their Master Builder.  We had a blast and the kids loved the personal time with Ian helping them build.  Plus we got to enjoy the Discovery Center and loved it.
Can you tell the kids are really excited to go in?  This giraffe is amazing outside.
When you arrive there are some cool wall creation areas with LEGOs for kids to play with.  The kids made their names in the wall. 
Ian Coffey greeted us showing one of his latest creations of the Celtics Logo. 
You first go up an elevator and you are at the LEGO Factory Tour.
This is an interactive experience where you get to interact with LEGO people.
At the end of this 10 minute or so interactive experience kids are given a Factory LEGOLAND Discovery Center LEGO.
The kids were able to take a class with Ian who is the Master Builder.
Here he is helping Lauren with her dragon.
I got to spend some time talking to Ian.  A friend knew of his love of LEGOs and put his name in when the Master Builder competition came up.  To obtain his job he went through three rounds of building.  An example was Round 1 he had a half hour to build something from a favorite movie.  He chose Buzz Lightyear and Woody.
 Here is Evan with his creation.  He loves to build.
 Ian is all about creativity and then challenged Evan to build something different with the blogs.  He decided to build a dinosaur that was pretty cool.
Here is Lauren with her creation.

 Here is a picture the kids took with Ian on our last visit.
Evan and I love Miniland.  It was absolutely amazing!  Here you can see the Zakim Bridge behind them and the TD Garden.
It is so hard to represent it, you really need to see all the detail in person.
There is so much of Boston built with LEGOs.  I love Fenway Park as it is interactive.  You can play with it like a pinball machine and hit the ball.
Evan was having fun with it.
We learned from Ian that there are hidden characters in many of the Boston stadiums.  Fenway Park has Sponge Bob, Squidward, Mrs. Crabs, and Patrick.  Can you spot them?
New this visit was Gillette Stadium.
 So much detail it is unbelievable.
In Gillette Stadium there are some special guests including Spider Man, Super Man and Harry Potter.  Can you see Spider Man?
I love that it cycles from day to night.  Ian also shared that during each of the holidays they add special touches.  For Halloween they added some Ghostbusters pieces, a graveyard and some ghosts and more.  I can't wait to see what they have for the holiday season.
I loved all the little touches and interactive pieces.  Make sure to look everywhere.  Evan noticed a button and pressed it and it was Cheers down below and the button lit it up and played the Cheers theme song.
Here is some video of Miniland:
This is the main Discovery area where there is so much to do.
Here is Lauren doing some Karaoke in the LEGO Friends area.
 Lauren posing with a LEGO Cheerleader.
 Evan with a LEGO Racer.
 The kids also love this play area.  Make sure your kids wear socks as you need them for this area.
The kids could really spend an hour in here.  They loved it!
Plus there are two rides.  We went on Kingdom Quest which allows you to shoot at villains as you play through the game.  I won!
Here is another ride called Merlin's Apprentice Ride.  You pedal to go up in the air. 
There is also a movie theatre with 4 different LEGO movies that run every half hour continuously.  It is a 4D movie meaning there are 3D glasses plus other interactive effects.  The movie runs 14 minutes long.  There are also facilities for parties.
 Here is the inside of one of the rooms.  They have two rooms.
 Here is the Master Builder Academy where we took our class.
There is also a Duplo Farm area for little kids.
Here is their food area.  For $15 you can get a kids meal deal which includes a LEGO lunch box, chips, juice box and kids sandwich.
There is a really cool LEGO Store there too so you can get some sets to continue the fun at home.
I highly suggest going there for some fun!
Twitter: @LDCBoston #LDCBoston
Disclosure:  I was invited to a media event to explore LEGOLAND Discovery Center with my kids.  No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.

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