Hello Billund, home of the Lego Group! But let’s back up for a second.
We knew the boys would lose it over a trip to a Lego theme park, but in all truth, we wanted to go too. A few months prior we had watched Channel 4’s excellent documentary on the Lego Group ‘The Secret World of Lego’ (it’s still viewable here - Check it out), which visited the charming company town of Billund in Denmark. We seriously love Scandinavia; in fact we got engaged in Denmark back in 2009, so we needed little more motivation to book the tickets.
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We booked with Ryanair (£55 Adult return, £32 Child Return), flying out of London Stansted and landing at Billund International. That’s right, they’ve got their own super convenient airport in the town, which Lego built out of real bricks back in 1964.
What you need to know about Billund is that it’s a very small town. We’re talking just over 6,000 people, so there’s not too much to do there when brick fatigue eventually sets in. Recognising this problem, somebody went ahead and constructed the Lalandia Holiday Village and Water Park, right across the road from Legoland.
There’s also the official Legoland Hotel, but as there was eight of us, we chose to hire one of Lalandia’s beautiful Nordic holiday homes and self cater for 5 nights (£855 shared between 8 of us). This package came with passes to their awesome water park, which the Grandparents loved as much as the kids did. We also picked ourselves up a minibus from Europcar so we could explore the region (more on that later).
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| Lalandia Nordic House Plus 8 |
Legoland was great; not amazing like the behemoths of Disney or Universal Studios, but quietly confident in its own offering. It mixes its traditional attractions (intricately built model towns and cities) with its new lifeblood (licensing every kid friendly brand from Star Wars to DC Comics) in a balanced way, throwing in a selection of cool thrill rides for kids of all ages.
Their Haunted House was a particular favourite with the boys, as was the Atlantis by Sea Life aquarium, 4D Movie Experience and the various rollercoasters spread across different themed lands.
Adults and older kids should head over to Polar Land and strap in to the crazy Ice Pilots ride (see it here), although you may want to skip this if you suffer from any conditions that being thrown around violently by a gigantic robot claw might aggravate. |
| Lego Mount Rushmore |
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| Giant Lego Spider |
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| Lego Oil Rig in Miniture Land |
Entry to the park isn’t cheap, and although you can shave a few Danish Krone from the price by buying online and at least 7 days in advance (still around £30.00 each), we did a bit of research and found that you can buy Discount Vouchers on eBay for just a few Euros which can save you up to 50%. We were unsure if the vouchers were legit, especially as they were written in German, but we took the risk and it paid off!So with Legoland all wrapped up, what else is there to do during your trip to Billund? Brick enthusiasts can take walk through the town centre and check out the Lego HQ, as well as the home of Lego inventor Ole Kirk, but that’s about it.
There are a few restaurants and cafes for you to chose from (there’s a list here), but as we were self catering, we mainly ate at the holiday home, having stocked up from the local supermarkets. We’re a pretty healthy bunch, but we do like to eat dirty every now and again (who doesn’t), so we called in to the Tulip Time Out burger joint for some awesome Danish burgers and hot dogs.
Venturing Outside of Billund
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| Ribe |
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| Ribe Architecture |
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| Isvaflen Ice Cream and The Night Watchman |
There are many walking tours of the town available, but do yourself a favour and join The Night Watchman on his free evening tour. It takes around 45 minutes to complete and he delivers it in both Danish and English, regaling you with stories of Royalty, Witches, Pirates and collapsing Cathedrals. The kids were half in awe, half terrified. You can find more details here.We also made the short journey from Billund to Givskud Zoo to take the kids on a safari, navigating our way around the park in our minibus and getting up close with the animals. Tickets cost around £20 per adult (ages 11 upwards), £10 for kids (3 – 11) and free for under 3’s. It’s also a little cheaper if you book online in advance.
Almost a third of the species at the zoo are on the endangered list, so we got to see some pretty cool creatures like Grey Wolves, Southern White Rhinos and Red Pandas. There was also an awkward scene when we came upon a pretty intense mating session between two gigantic Western Lowland Gorillas, which had the kids asking us all kinds of uncomfortable questions!
However, the highlight of the day was driving through the Lion Park, where you got very close to Northern Europe’s largest pride; close enough to smell the animal carcasses that they were feasting on! There was also a large model Dino Park on site, which the kids were totally into and gave us a chance to stretch our legs after our safari. Givskud Zoo is definitely worth a visit if you venture outside of Billund.
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| We Survived Legoland Billund! |
Legoland Billund Website
Lalandia Holiday Village & Water Park
Ryanair
Europcar Car Rental Billund
Visit Billund
Visit Ribe
Givskud Zoo
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