On August 15, H. and I left Copenhagen bound for the final town on our trip:
Billund, Denmark, the birthplace of LEGO.
Getting to Billund seemed like it'd be tricky, since it's not on the train routes, but it was actually very easy. You can take a train from Copenhagen (or anywhere) to the nearby town of Vejle. When you get off the train, exit the station from the doors on your left. You will immediately come to a parking lot where you'll see a sign for the 43 Bus (or even the bus itself, like we did!) Various websites said the ride from Vejle to Billund costs "between 24-39 Kroner" (which is $3-5 USD) per person. That's quite a range, but to be safe, just have enough Kroner on you and ask the bus driver how much the fare is when you board. Drivers will give change.
From what I understand, buses come about every half hour.
The views along the route were lovely!
The ride to Billund took about half an hour. We were dropped off in the airport parking lot. We were then able to walk to our hotel a few hundred meters away, the Zleep Hotel. The Zleep hadn't been our first choice for a hotel, but after the airline switched our 10am flight to 6am (the nerve), we decided we'd better get a hotel near the airport. (There is zero public transport in Billund before 6am.)
The hotel was simple and neat, and while the shower was one of those "curtain only" affairs, at least the bathroom was larger than that one in Copenhagen. So we got half-room floods instead of whole-room ones. That's nice
That afternoon, we lounged around the hotel, thinking about the next day. We had already made solid plans to visit the LEGO House in the afternoon, but had opted to wait to buy tickets for a morning LEGOLand visit until we knew for sure if we were up for it.
Yes, we decided that afternoon, let's buy tickets.
I had done some calculations and decided it was most cost-effective to use my LEGO VIP points to buy 2 vouchers for our tickets on Lego.com.
*The ticket vouchers were 4,000 points each -- and we figured 4,000 points was equal to about $35.
*The cost for a regular ticket is between 329 and 429 DKK ($43-57 USD.)
So I cashed in 8,000 VIP points for our two tickets, and they sent me an email with this:
Below that were our two codes.
But when I went on the LEGOLand Denmark website (using my phone, since that's all I had) I had a heck of a time finding where to put the code. Even when I finally did find the place, I just kept getting a "page not found" message whenever I'd put in one of the codes.
H. suggested we walk over to LEGOLand and talk to someone at the ticket booths about our issue (rather than wait and do it in the morning, when it would be crowded there.)
So off we went. The walk from our hotel to LEGOLand took about half an hour. (2.4km/1.5 miles.)
There was a very nice multi-use path alongside the main road, and we pretty much had it to ourselves that afternoon.
We arrived at LEGOLand and got some photos of the signs.
Then we approached a ticket booth to see if we could get our voucher/ticket situation sorted out. One of the people there knew exactly what to do -- instead of entering our VIP codes in the promo code box, you're apparently supposed to enter either "LEGOVIP" or "VIPLEGO" (I can't remember which, but one of them) in the box. THEN you can enter your code. (Why didn't the email say that?)
Anyway, it took about 15 minutes, but at last we were able to redeem our tickets for the next day.
Once that was settled, we walked around the LEGOLand Hotel and the LEGOLand Castle Hotel.
We popped into the lobbies, too...
Since my phone was starting to run out of space at this point, I'd periodically upload a group of photos to my Google drive and then delete them off my phone. Sadly, a bunch of photos from this day never made it to the drive and are gone forever. At least they're replaceable -- I guess I'll just have to go back to Billund!
^I hope those are DUPLO, cuz that baby's looking rather interested.
Not far from LEGOLand there's a small resort-type place called Lalandia. There's a hotel, a water park, an adventure tower, a small grocery store, and a food court.
Also this terrifying thing...
H. and I both picked up some food/dinner (the pizza place had a really good pre-made salad) and then found the nearest bus stop. Buses 43, 143, and 144 all serve both the LEGOLand area and the airport. We took the bus back to the airport, walked to our hotel, and prepared to get some good rest, because we had a busy day to look forward to...
LEGOLand and the LEGO House, all in one day? Would we be able to handle the excitement? Find out in the next post!
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