Legoland Discovery Center: Chicago (located in Schaumburg, IL)

While this is not technically located in Chicago, it is pretty darn close.

First, I would suggest buying your tickets in advance online. They are cheaper this way. You could easily save $10 or more for a family of 4.

As soon as you arrive, you will want to get your picture taken in front of the green screen. There are 4 different choices for backgrounds that they can change out at the counter if you decide to buy the picture (Lego Movie, Lego Friends, Falling Legos, and something else that I just can't remember). We had a large group with us (9 people) so this made for a great souvenir!

After you gain admission, you walk through Miniland Chicago. It's interesting if you've never seen any of the minilands before, but we had a very excited 5-year-old on our hands that wasn't very interested in this so we pretty much bipassed it. Then, you go through the dark, Jungle Expedition. It's a great place for some pictures.

Then, you will come to a room where kids can build things and there are some large Lego things to take pictures with.

Next is Kingdom Quest Laser Ride. It's very fun! And I had a blast completely kicking my family's butts! Each cart holds 4 people and each person is armed with a shooter. You then shoot at different objects like bats and other random things trying to up your score. A picture is taken toward the end.

The only other things downstairs are the picture desk and the Lego shop after you exit. So your next thing to do is take the stairs or elevator up to the second floor. The first thing we did was go to the Lego 4D Cinema. They show the same 3 'movies' that are shown in all the other Legoland places. There is a countdown clock by the theater telling you how long until the next show. The best part about waiting in line is that they have a large Lego board on the wall to build on.

Then we headed over to the Factory Tour. It was horrible. The guy that did the tour was horribly annoying. My belief is that this tour would not be so terrible if the group that was allowed in at one time was much smaller. There were about 20 children and just as many (if not more) adults all crammed into this one little room. The children crowded everything and my son didn't get to press any of the buttons or really see anything. My suggestion is to only take the tour if you go on a day where there aren't many people there.

We had signed up for the Lego Master Builder Academy, but never ended up attending. From everything I had read, you build something (a spaceship this time) and that's it. You don't get to bring it home. However, you can buy it. We saw it for sale at the snack counter so we bought it and built it at home. I think it was only $5.

While we were there, there was a flying attraction called Merlin's Apprentice Ride. Guests must be 36 inches to ride with an adult and 48 inches to ride alone. However, I have recently learned that a new attraction is coming! It is called Pirate Adventure Island. It is coming June 27th, 2015. It is a distinct possibility that Pirate Adventure Island will be replacing Merlin's Apprentice Ride.

Then we got a snack (a large cookie and a drink). There were also a couple Lego things to take pictures with.

We also did the Lego Racers: Build & Test. It was pretty cool. You just look for some wheels in the crash bin and then walk over to the Lego building area. Once you've made your car, you can race it on the track. However, I noticed that a lot of kids cars crashed instead of raced. Oh well, it was still fun.

There are a couple more places that we didn't visit: Lego City Construction Site and Duplo Village. However, my sister did walk over to the Duplo section with my 1 ½-year-old nephew and she said that there were some large kids in the section that nearly knocked over their son so they left. A couple minutes later, a worker asked how their day was going and they mentioned the incident and the employee apologized and said they would take care of it right away. The Duplo section is for children 5 & under. This is for the safety of the younger children so please don't take your older kids there!

They also have Birthday rooms. There were at least 2 birthdays going on while we were there. This would be fun.

I bought 2 pictures (the group picture and the one from the ride). I believe it was $18 for both of them. You receive both in print form and a digital copy (a code for download later).