Legoland Florida and Lego Crayons

I wrote about the our trip to the Epcot Food and Wine Festival in November and December. After taking a break for holiday posts, I’m now going to share our days in Legoland Florida, Downtown Disney, and Magic Kingdom over the next few weeks.

Chad was especially excited about visiting Legoland. It is a fairly recent addition to the Orlando area (about a 45 minute drive south). We missed the grand opening by only a couple of weeks during our last visit to Orlando in October 2011. Legoland has a few different sections: The Beginning, Fun Town, Miniland USA, Duplo Village, Lego Kingdoms, Land of Adventure, Lego City, Imagination Zone, Lego Technic, Pirates’ Cove, Cyprus Gardens, and World of Chima. Evan was right under 34 inches and couldn’t ride most of the attractions, so we mostly just walked around and spent most of the day in the water park. Unfortunately the toddler section, Duplo Village, was closed for renovations during our visit. Of course, a month later he had a growth spurt and is now 35 inches.

My favorite area was Miniland USA. Sections include Daytona Int’l Speedway, Florida, Kennedy Space Center, Pirate’s Shores, California, New York, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, and Lego Star Wars. The detailing put into each structure is absolutely amazing. Chad especially loved the Star Wars section. He rarely takes photos, but actually asked to borrow my camera for a bit while walking through.

Evan’s favorite was the water park, especially the toddler Duplo Splash Safari and the wave pool. It was so hot that day, we were tempted to spend all of our time there. The Build-a-Raft Lazy River had water legos floating around that you could add to your tube. Look at the guy in the second photo below on the left hoarding quite a bit of the legos to build a large fort.

 Unfortunately, there wasn’t really anything special to say about the food.

We had lunch at the Market Restaurant. It was cafeteria style and I did enjoy the variety. Offerings included salads, soups, rotisserie chicken, grilled salmon, Asian fusion, chicken fingers, grilled cheese, peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, cupcakes, pastries, and a milkshake station. Plenty of options for those with picky eaters. The staff was also incredibly friendly and helpful. The food just seemed like it had been sitting under the burners a little long. Maybe it is better during a busier time so the food is more fresh. Evan especially loved the play area.  A large table was filled with lego containers in the dining area. I enjoyed the food themed sculptures in the center of the table and scattered throughout the area.

For dinner, we ate at the Fun Town Pizza and Pasta Buffet. It had the same issue as the Market Restaurant, food sitting out for too long. The pizza was on par with many other pizza buffets, but the pasta was overcooked to the point of falling apart. Evan loves pizza, so he was happy. Again, plenty of options for those with picky eaters. If you sit on the back deck, there is a great view of Miniland USA while you eat.

Since none of the food jumped out at me, I decided to make Lego Crayons for Evan. I bought these silicone lego brick and minifigure molds on Amazon: Building Bricks and Minifigure Ice Cube Tray or Candy Mold –for Lego lovers. I had the intention of making chocolate legos to place on top of cupcakes, but wasn’t really feeling cupcakes again since I just made these Snickerdoodle Cupcakes recently. Instead, I found the idea to melt crayons and pour them into the molds on Farmish Momma.

I preheated the oven to 250 degrees F and lined  muffin tins with foil wrappers. I took the wrappers off of each crayon and broke them up into a few pieces. I placed about 3 crayons into each foil wrapper. Bake the crayons until the are melted and smooth, about 10 minutes. While still hot, gently pour the hot wax into each mold. It is ok if they spill a little. The excess easily breaks off. Let cool completely before removing from molds.

This is a great way to use up any broken crayons. It would also work as party favors for Lego themed parties. It took Evan a while to figure out they were crayons. He had more fun stacking them than coloring.