My Trip to LEGOLAND New York: The Hotel - A REVIEW

This past week, my wife and I took our three-year-old son to the newly opened LEGOLAND New York Resort.  We ended up spending two days at the park with an overnight at the LEGOLAND Hotel (which had only opened the weekend before our stay).  

In part one of my two part review, I'll discuss the pros and cons of the LEGOLAND Hotel in New York.

Like almost everything at the amusement park, the LEGOLAND Hotel is a full of LEGO-inspired designs (and plenty of actual LEGO bricks, minifigures, and models)!  The lobby of the hotel is one of the neatest lobbies that I've ever seen, especially for young children.  The lobby is home to a giant wall of minifigures but even more impressive than that is a large LEGO-esque castle in the back of the lobby which doubles as a play area for children.

The castle had multiple huge bins full of LEGO bricks that children could build with to their heart's content (and my son had fun building and playing here a lot)!  There's also a bar with plenty of seating nearby for the adults watching their children (don't worry, we didn't stop at the bar).

In addition to the awesome lobby, there's a small LEGO store attached as well as a full restaurant.  Breakfast was a buffet (with great food) and breakfast was included in the cost of our vacation package.  Unfortunately, dinner at the hotel restaurant was not included...and it's a "family style" restaurant so you had no choice but to spend at least $30 for two adults (plus extra for a kids meal).  The food was good but spending over $30 for chicken parmesan felt a little steep to me.

The LEGOLAND Hotel will eventually have themed rooms in four different popular LEGO lines (Castle, Pirate, Ninjago, and Friends).  However, when we were there the third floor of the hotel was still closed (the Ninjago floor).  My son isn't into Ninjago so that wasn't a problem for us except the only ice machine was on the third floor (which, as I mentioned a moment ago, was closed to visitors).  Luckily, we were able to get our cooler filled with ice before we left thanks to the workers at the front desk of the hotel.

The hallway in the Castle themed portion of the hotel.

We ended up staying in a Castle themed room which my son loved!  We paid a little extra for a room that was fully decked out in the Castle theme - probably not necessary to do that but I think my son found the room to be extra awesome!

The room was split into two main sections - a good-sized "adult" area with bed and a small kid's section complete with bunk beds, a TV, more bins of LEGO bricks, and a safe that could be opened by doing a short scavenger hunt in the room.

As a dad, I was looking forward to the scavenger hunt because from what I read online once it was "solved" you got to open the safe in the room and get a LEGO set as a prize.  Unfortunately, that didn't exactly happen for us.  My son had fun solving the scavenger hunt (it was pretty easy, even for a three-year-old) but once we opened the safe he was kind of disappointed to see that he got four copies of the same little polybag (plus four copies of the exact same magazine).

That was definitely not what I was expecting or hoping for - and honestly, getting four copies of each kind of felt even worse than if we had simply gotten one copy of the polybag and magazine.  It kind of felt like our safe was meant for a room of four kids or something...  For the price of the vacation package, this little prize felt disappointing...but then again, what other hotel gives kids free LEGO?  

Other than the price (and maybe the prize), the rest of the hotel was a lot of fun for all of us.  I got a kick out of some of the decor in the room - especially this print in our bathroom:

My wife loved some of the smaller touches such as the LEGO-centric shampoo, conditioner, etc.

And finally, my son loved the shower curtain and I'm fairly certain he wishes he had the same one for home!

Overall, all three of us had an enjoyable stay at the hotel.  My son LOVED it there - he repeatedly said how cool certain things were and now nearly a full week later he's still talking/reminiscing about certain aspects of the hotel (and trip overall).  I think the hotel is a great choice for a memorable vacation for young children, probably ages 10 and under if I had to put a specific number to it.  There isn't a lot for older kids there (there was a small arcade attached to the lobby but we didn't go in there so I can't speak to the options included).  

Next time, I'll give my review and impressions of the LEGOLAND amusement park.  Was the trip worth it overall?  Is the cost of the hotel/park worth it?  Is the park "Disney but for LEGO" as some have described it?  You'll get my thoughts on those questions and plenty more in the near future!