Hooray, we all slept until 6:30am this morning!  What a breakthrough...but we stilled enjoyed a lazy morning together in the hotel room.  I really wanted to see the HC Andersen museum while we were here and it didn't open until 10am.  Dave hunted us down some coffees from downstairs and discovered that the farmer's market was being held right outside the hotel doors.  We slowly got ready and packed up (I did some emails for work) and headed to the market. 

The market was great, we bought lots of fresh fruit for our next few days of travel.  They had fresh peas...my favourite...I didn't share them!

We wandered over to the museum and spent some time going through it. It was very unfortunate that the Tinderbox Museum for kids was closed, as this museum was really not geared for the kids.  I did find it very interesting to follow Hans Christian Andersen's life from start to finish.  I learned a lot about the various works that he had done beyond the few children's tales that we are all aware of.

After the museum we had to take out some cash, and I only bring this up because the rate that we got from this bank machine was way better than the rate I got from the airport. Something to remember for future.  I thought at the time that the rate at the airport seemed off, but now I know it was, as I can't imagine that the rate would have fluctuated that much over the last 5 days.

All packed up, we headed out of town and off to Billund.  The drive was painless and we only took 1 wrong turn. As you cross from the county of Funen (where we were in Odense) to the county of Jutland, you go over the most spectacular bridgen - The Great Belt Bridge.   It opened in 1998 and is around 22,000 feet long, with its longest span being 1.6km long.  What once was an hour long ferry ride, is now replaced with a 10 mins car ride and an amazing view.

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We arrived at Legoland at around 2pm.  The girls had had a nap and were ready to go, we couldn't yet check into our hotel room, but they gave us our passes to the park and we got started.

Legoland is neat...its no Disneyland...let's be clear...but it is spectacular when you look at all of the amazing structures that have been made by someone, completely out of lego.  The rides were great for the kids, we had a ton of fun, they are at the perfect age for this type of amusement park.  Cadence suprised us both by being totally gung-ho for the rides.  She was so brave and went on a number of rides that I would have guessed would bring on tears.  Even little Avery had fun until we went on a friendly mining train ride that went through a tunnel and terrifed her.  From there on, every ride she would ask...gonna go through a tunnel...don't want to go through a tunnel. Oh...and maybe the canoe over the waterfall ride might have scared her a bit too!

We really had a great afternoon.  The park closes at 6pm at this time of year, so we got a pretty solid 4 hours in, and then went back to check in and get tidied up before dinner.  The front desk staff had advised us the first time we went in that we should pre-reserve for dinner...which we did do for 7pm.

When we got to our room...my goodness...it was awesome.  Not only did the kids LOVE IT, but Dave and I thought it was pretty awesome too.  It made you feel like a kid again. I had made our reservations online, so I wasn't really sure what I had signed us up for, to be honest, I thought we were getting a standard room. I'll be honest, this place was definitely a splurge, but we thought, what the heck, this will likely be the only time we take them here, so let's go for it!  We knew the bill would hurt in the morning...and it did!

Anyways...it turns out that the horrendous price I booked under online gave us a theme room.  I think they have suites too, that have a seperate room for the kids, but this was great for us.  There was a king sized bed, with lego his and hers crowns above it, and then bunk beds for the girls that came out of the wall.  The whole room was a sort of Dragon and Knights in Shining Armour theme.  There was a huge dragon who was half in the bedroom and half in the bathroom.  He was brushing his teeth on the bathroom side and his tail end was over our bed.  The bed side tables were turrets, and there were a number of other really cute touches.  Very cool overall.

After settling in, we headed for dinner.  The kids were wiped out completely by this point, so this was a failed endeavour almost from the moment we walked out the door.  The food at the very expensive buffet was pretty mediocre and meltdown mode was pretty much upon us as we sat down at our table.  We ate what we could and got the girls to get something down, then it was back to the room as fast as we could to get them to bed.

It had been a great day, so I can't blame them for being so tired by the whole experience.  It was a lot for them to both take in.  Overall, we'd give this place a thumbs up...but I think after a kid has been to Disneyland, that this place might lose its appeal.  The lego reproductions of cities is absolutely amazing...again, I'll post photos when I can...I didn't bring the cord to connect my camera...at least I can't find it at the moment.