Chicago Trip 2014–Day 1

 

Sunday we left home to visit Chicago for a couple of days.  We left home about 9:30 and arrived at our first stop in Chicago – Lego Land – about 2:30. 

The ride over went fairly smooth, considering we were travelling with a 5 month old.  We only had to stop once, which worked out perfectly because it was lunch time.  The boys each had a DVD player on their laps so they watched movies the whole way over.  It kept them quiet and entertained, even if it was a parenting fail.

A Lego Land tip – sign up for the free Lego Magazine and cut out the coupon towards the back of every issue where a kid gets in free with a paid adult admission.  Saved us almost $40 by having one for each of the boys. 

Another Lego Land tip – go later in the day, after 2:00, because there usually aren’t any lines to get in and even though there are still quite a few kids running around in there it’s much quieter than first thing in the morning. 

When we walked in they had the city of Chicago built out of Legos on display, along with President Obama.  As we walked through there were rooms with other sets built out of Legos in different themes.  The Jungle Room had Indiana Jones along with a bunch of jungle animals, such as tigers and alligators. Then there was the Star Wars Room – “Luke, I am your faaather.”

After that the activities started.  The boys and Andy rode a short ride where you shot at ‘bad guys’.  (Promoting violence? Sure, why not.)  We watched a 4-D mini movie on ‘The Legend of Chima’, a Lego cartoon.  Halfway through, the ‘gang’ went through a waterfall and we all got misted, that was kind of neat.

The big boys and Andy went into a room that was a fake tour of a Lego Factory, they each got little Legos with ‘Lego Land’ printed on the side as souvenirs. 

There was, what I call, the restaurant play set that they ran around in and on for a bit – helped burned off some pent up energy from the car ride. 

The boys had fun but Andy and I both agreed it wasn’t as great as we were expecting and we wouldn’t be planning a trip specifically to see one anytime soon. Andy read after we left that it was rated one of the worst Lego Lands, so maybe the others are quite a bit better (and bigger), with more activities for the kids. 

After Lego Land we checked into our hotel, unloaded the car, then headed out for some Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza.  Andy had been to a Lou Malnati’s Pizza in downtown Chicago before and found there was another one in Schaumberg, where we were staying.  It was super easy to find and we got there about 5:00. The place was PACKED.  I dropped Andy at the door so he could get our name on the list.  He called me to tell it was going to be 30 minutes.  I parked and was getting the kids out of the car when he called again and said he’d just been seated.  Awesome!  He ordered some Bruschetta, our favorite appetizer, before I got in there.  5 minutes later it arrived and we devoured it.  20 minutes after that out came our pizza.  It was amazing!  Bren and I got beef on our half.  It wasn’t the typical ‘beef’ you’d expect on a pizza. It was deli shaved beef!  Wow was that amazing!

After supper we went back to the hotel to go swimming in the pool.  That was the boys’ favorite part of the whole day – yep, the hotel pool beat out Lego Land!  We swam until about 8:00 then went back to the room to shower off and get ready for bed.

Day 1 in Chicago was great, a lot of memories were made.