Legoland Puzzle Hunt

Just a quick update, not a full post:

I recently did an office outing to Legoland, and wrote a Puzzle Hunt to occupy time!  I've shared it HERE for free if you're interested in using it for a company/society trip to Legoland.  Drop me a comment for the answer key =)!  I can also customize it for you, possibly for a small fee if there's a lot of changes to the puzzles.

Legoland Malaysia

UPDATE: If you're planning on going to Legoland for a corporate/society outing, check out the Puzzle Hunt you can play while there!

Legoland Malaysia is one of the most-hyped theme park openings of the year, even more so than the Marine Life Park at RWS!  I've never been to any of the other Legolands around the world, so my family took a trip across the causeway for a quick peek.  (So this isn't technically on our red dot, but it's really close ^_^.)

I had a hard time putting up this post because Legoland isn't really suitable for my target age group (twenties, no kids), and while I want to be fair to the appeal of the place, it also wasn't exactly the most exciting.  There are only about 4 rides which might appeal to the young adult category, though Mini Land - where they recreate famous world landmarks using Lego - is quite impressive.

Ironically, you cannot see this from outside the park.

The main entrance.

The Lego Christmas tree for the holiday season!

The first section of the park (walking clockwise) is Lego Technic, which has the Project X ride, and Technic Twister (aka Lego spinning tea cups).  There's also a ride called Wave Racers which is like a merry-go-round on water, and the most entertaining part of this is that there are water guns along the side for spectators to shoot riders with.

Just as you leave Lego Technic, there's the Lego Mindstorms building with a big Einstein face on the outside, where you can learn to build Lego robots.  If you've never tried this before and it's not too crowded, it's one of the coolest things about Lego these days.  You can build almost anything with Legos and automate it, even a 3D printer!  Personally I'd rather buy one and play with it at home - a set goes for slightly over $300, compared to the $600+ set my mum bought for me when I was ten - than fight with the crowds.  And it does a LOT more now!

Project X, probably the biggest roller coaster in the park, and the one with the longest queue.

Technic Twister Teacup Ride.

Lego Mindstorms.  Hmmm....

The next section is Lego Kingdom, a medieval-themed land with carnival games, dragon-themed roller coasters, castles and catapults!  Aesthetically I liked this bit of the park best, but that's probably due to my Harry Potter bias.  Lines were crazy long for the roller coasters (about 1.5 hours... I went on a Saturday), so my little bro and I didn't really think it was worth it to wait in line.  While wandering about the land, we came across a catapult thing that made creaky noises if you sat on it, then a loud springing sound as if you'd been thrown.  The park is full of random little easter eggs like that, probably for the benefit of those like us who refuse to wait in line.

Left: The view of the observation tower from Lego Kingdom.  

Right:  The little dragon ride meant for kids.  There's a larger dragon ride across from it meant for adults.

Left:  The creaky catapult!

Right:  My brother is easily convinced when it comes to hilarious poses for photos.

Carnival games with really over-the-top prizes.  A friend of mine won a giant stuffed cow early on in the day and had to carry it around for many hours afterwards.  

Moral of the story: play these last.

I kind of skipped over pictures from Imagination Land, which held the Observation Tower, Lego Studios and the Kids Power Tower.  More importantly though, it also housed the largest food court in the whole park, with typical theme park food like pasta and pizza.  Useful for taking shelter from rain.  If you have the choice of eating outside the park, please do, especially since there's the Medina mall right outside.

Once again I failed to go on any of the rides / watch the Lego Studios show because waiting times were insane, and this theme park has clearly not mastered the Disney Queuing Psychology.

Dino Island, the only truly water ride in the park until the Legoland Waterpark opens in 2013.

Next was Egyptian-themed Land of Adventure!  Again, my Indiana Jones bias automatically makes this place more interesting than it probably was.  Dino Island (the water ride) and Lost Kingdom were probably the only rides worth queuing for, though I didn't do the former in the end.  

Lost Kingdom was a fun line to stand in because it was filled with Lego characters doing weird stuff, and Egyptian hieroglyphs abound.  It's a shooting game where your cart goes through a few enclosures and you and your friends compete for the highest score.  Naturally as the only person in the family who plays Time Crisis, I won by shooting with my left hand while taking pictures with my right =D.

Weird Lego people in the Lost Kingdom line.  One could almost imagine a whole plot about a nutty archaeologist and a cunning trader fighting over ancient Lego Egyptian artifacts.

Tsk.  And this is the boy going for NS next year.  Clearly a trip to the rifle range is in order.

I largely skipped over Lego City because it started to rain on us, but the Rescue Academy looked highly entertaining - your family is supposed to pump a fire engine handcar style down a track, then aim a water gun at a 'burning building'.  This is also where the Lego train that goes around the park starts from!

The restaurants are very amusingly decorated.

"Driving School" for the little tots!

Finally, the highlight of Legoland for the non-ride-inclined:  Mini Land!  The landmarks featured here were primarily from Southeast Asia, plus China.  I'll leave you to figure out where these are, some are more obvious than others, but they make for good travel advertisements!  Next holiday:  Bali.  For sure.

There's also a little quirk in our Merlion, where if you press a button outside the enclosure, the fountain of water out of its mouth starts squirting sideways towards you ;-).  Also notice how Maybank is the only building prominently featured... out of the whole skyline of buildings they could possibly have picked from...

All in all not the most exciting day out, but good to know that we have yet another choice of theme park close to home.  That said, I recommend going to Universal Studios @ RWS instead, if you don't have kids, or if they're over 7 years of age.  Perhaps the place will deserve a re-look in 2013 when the water park is up, and 2014 when the full resort (i.e. hotel) is built.

Next:  Arcade-hopping!  (Inspired by Wreck-it Ralph)

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Budget!

Transport + Ticket via WTS Travel (leaves from Singapore Flyer):
Adult - $68/pax (weekends), $63/pax (weekdays)
Child/Senior - $58/pax (weekends), $53/pax (weekdays)

*rates are even higher during super peak season, like weekends of school holidays

*Note that the first bus back to Singapore is at 5.15pm, so if you foresee getting bored, don't go there too early or you'll be stuck.

Halloween Horror Nights 2 @ Universal Singapore

Hello everyone, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

In my 4 years in US, I went to some of the best campus Halloween parties around, because in US, everyone throws a party; there must therefore be a party out there somewhere for you!  As a science/engineering major, my personal favorite was the Techhouse party, practically a mini Comic Con, with everyone dressed in their best sci-fi/anime attire, lots of cookies and baked goods to go around, and strictly NO ALCOHOL.  Alcohol is seriously overrated.  I like remembering my outings with perfect lucidity thank you very much.

Anyway, this is about the Universal Studios Singapore's Halloween Horror Nights 2!  I missed all the previous Horror Nights because I was never in the country, but my mum dragged me along to this year's to partake in the festivities :).  This was the first year I'd really celebrated Halloween in the presence of real scarily-decked zombies / evil dolls / mummies etc. instead of the cheesy stuff you find at party shops, so the professionalism was refreshing.

The entrance to Universal was filled with blinky light accessories being sold at pushcarts around every corner, and a creepy bell-like tune blasted over the PA system to half of Resort World Sentosa.   There was even a face-painting booth under this arch, but because I got there pretty late, they weren't taking anymore customers :(.  

For safety reasons USS doesn't allow guests to attend in costume, so it was really weird for me going to a Halloween function not dressed up.  It took away some of the fun, but the awesome actors and decoration in the park more than made up for it.

The entrance to USS is turned into a House of Dolls! (x_x)"

 The whole street leading into the park was turned into a "House of Dolls" alley.  For anyone who had watched "Chucky (Child's Play)" as a kid, you'll know that this is creepy as hell.  Even though this was a 1980s movie, a sequel called the "Curse of Chucky" is slated to be released next year (2013).  BEWARE.

Sadly I'm not quite the right stature to pose as a doll.  And sitting doesn't have the same effect.

Creepy guy covered in blood strapped to a chair.  He was great fun to pose with, and kind of cute when he decided to go out of character and grin during shift-change.  Yes, they all change shift pretty often because I imagine being an actor for this event will leave you with heat stroke, even at night.

The next section was called "Total Lockdown", simulating something of a cross between a holocaust and a zombie apocalypse.  ZOMBIES.  BRAAAAAIIIIIINSSSSS.  I would offer up photos of aforementioned awesome zombies and holocaust soldiers, but I have serious issues with taking photos in low light conditions because I insist on a point-and-shoot.  No chunky DSLRs for me.  If anyone has great low-light point-and-shoot cameras to recommend, please let me know!  I use a Panasonic Lumix, which is superior in every way in daylight but doesn't do well at night.

A city in smoke, aptly set in the "New York" section of Universal.  Because we all know that the aliens and zombies only ever strike in Manhattan.

Death, destruction and smoke.  Sometimes I was a bit wary that the apparent dummies would come to life and jump at me, but thankfully that didn't happen all night.

Eerie fog emerges from a NYC subway station.  Nothing compared to what hurricane Sandy is doing to the real subway stations right now though.

Hey kids, who wants to get a picture of being hanged by a creepy clown?  You get to wait in a half-hour line for it!

Moving on to Egypt-land (I have no clue what the actual name of this section of the theme park is, but it's my second favorite after Dino-land), we have the Bizarre Bazaar!  Mummies, snakes, the Undead, and crows on stilts galore!  The street running through Egypt-land was lined with what look like gypsy stalls, which included fortune tellers, leopard people, sarcophagi, snakes etc.  

Sorry for the paucity of pictures, it was one of the most crowded bits of the park so it was hard to get any good non-blur ones.

Sarcophagi!

This stall was later occupied by leopard-people, but when I first passed by it, it was empty.  One should never pass up an opportunity to sit as though one is on a throne.  Just sayin'.  Even more so when one is surrounded by skulls.  

Crow guy on stilts!  Despite being so large, he was incredibly fast.  Every time I tried to take a picture with him he'd stalk away :(.

These were the only 3 areas of walk-through decoration - the rest of the scares were confined to 3 haunted houses: Dungeon of Damnation, Insanitarium and Death Alley.  I didn't go for any of them because the lines were 75 minutes long each, and because it's a temporarily thrill, the queues were not designed with any sort of queuing psychology in mind (read: hot, humid, tiring).  My younger brother and cousin were game enough to stand in line for more than a total of 2 hours though, and they enjoyed the haunted houses well enough, but I think Universal needs to rethink their crowd control.

VERDICT:  The decorations and atmosphere of USS Halloween Horror Nights are certainly superior, and the walk-through areas are entertaining enough without having to go into any of the haunted houses.  I'm not sure if you think it's worth the $68, but I didn't really think so.  If you do go, and want to see the haunted houses, you should definitely pay for the Express ticket at $40.  Not because I think it's particularly worth it, but because you don't want your night to be spoiled by waiting in infuriating and stuffy lines for hours on end.  It can really detract from your enjoyment of the rest of the park by making you tired and irritable.  If you were already going to pay $68 to go for the thing, you might as well just top it up to guarantee a fuss-free evening.

I'm sure this will continue running for more years to come, so I'm willing to give it another shot next year.  I will, however, be more prepared for the heat and lines by purchasing an Express ticket, and bringing a large water bottle and electric fan.

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Budget!

Early Bird Admission - $60

Basic Admission - $68
Express Ticket - $40 (on top of admission price)

Extras
Face-paint (because it really helps to get in the mood!) - $10 (1/4 face), $20 (1/2 face)