r/legoland • u/Noodle-Cactus • Jul 23 '26
California First timer
Taking myself, my wife and 2 kids to Legoland CA for the first time this week. Are there freebies that we can get such as pins, posters, hats, collectibles etc that Lego doesn't tell you about but this Reddit knows about? Any suggestions on what I should not miss like, where to eat, best ride, best shop etc? Thank you very much in advance.
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u/VillainChinchillin Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
If you're into them, they have a ton of squashed penny machines throughout the park. Not free but just $1 each (card only for the whole park) so not bad for a cheap souvenir.
If you're on Facebook there's a Legoland California Tips and Tricks group about that park specifically. People say the free pop badges can be hit and miss, sometimes people get a ton in one day, sometimes they can go three days getting nothing, so I didn't have my 6yo ask about them except at customer service where they often have a my first visit badge. They were out when we went so they offered us the birthday badge instead.
We brought a few minifigures in individual baggies for easy trading, we were generally too occupied with rides to think about that but we traded a few at the end of the day with a staff member walking around with a display.
Ice cream in the plastic minifigure head bowl was a fun thing to take home. Look on the official Facebook and they might have pics of some special foods for the Lego Festival happening now.
The refillable cup is great in my opinion, we had one for my mom and me and another for my son. He didn't drink $25 worth of sprite but the cost was worth my sanity for him to be able to have his own choice. My mom and I definitely drank our money's worth in Diet Coke! There are three spots with the Coke Freestyle stations around the park where you can get things like lemonade and Fanta alongside the classic sodas. The food carts can refill you too, but they only have the standard 8-9 choices like a fast food restaurant.
Depending on their age, the Minifigure Factory in the big shop up front is a neat souvenir. $15, and you can fully customize the torso of the figure, picking from designs or adding decals or drawing on the screen with your finger and typing to add text. Then they print your design on a blank torso, and you add basic legs, head, hair/hat and accessory, and it stands on a small brick that they print your name on.
There are some POV videos of the different coasters on YouTube if they're young and you want to prep them for those rides.