Who Knew Getting Soaked Could Be This Fun! I Enjoyed LEGOLAND® Japan Even More Than the Kids
The castle LEGO® set with the glow-in-the-dark ghost — a lot of you probably wanted one as a kid, right? Hi, I’m Hide, tech journalist and part-time house-husband.
These days my four-year-old daughter is crazy about LEGO bricks! So this year, there was only one place to go… yep, LEGOLAND® Japan.
I’ve seen firsthand how educational LEGO bricks are, so I’d had my eye on this “theme park where kids learn while they play” for a while. In this article, I want to share what made LEGOLAND Japan — the ultimate in educational toys — so great for parenting.
Even the adults had a blast, so if you don’t have kids, maybe invite your nieces and nephews and head out together?
LEGOLAND Japan was packed over the long weekend
Lots of the attractions at LEGOLAND Japan allow filming! So this time I brought the latest Insta360 GO 3 and recorded every memory. (*If you’re not sure whether an attraction allows filming, ask a staff member!)
Fine with getting soaked, great for selfies — the Insta360 GO 3 was perfect for this tripYou can pop off just the camera and clip it to a hat or clothes to shoot from your kid’s point of view
## The only theme park where you can see your kid grow while they play
I was glad I brought a pretty good camera and properly recorded everything. That’s because unlike other theme parks, LEGOLAND Japan is a place where you can actually feel your kid growing.
LEGOLAND® Japan Resort sits at Kinjo Pier in Nagoya, Aichi, super easy to reach from the expressway. It opened in 2017 and is one of three in Asia.
The product in this photo lets you freely mix and match heads, bodies, legs, and accessories to build three figures and buy them. Having creative setups like this even in the shops is pure LEGOLAND Japan.
The shop has bowl-shaped displays at kids’ eye levelInside are parts sorted into categories like heads, bodies, and accessoriesBuild three in whatever combo you like, put them in the package, and take them to the register — that alone should be fun for kids
There are setups like this everywhere that get kids using their hands and stretching their imaginations, and as a parent I was impressed. If you record these moments, you can see your kid grow: “At four, you made this in the same spot, but this time your ideas are way richer!” I don’t think any other theme park is like that — I came away really impressed.
At the workshops, even the adults get serious!
There are also workshops like the Rebuild the World Center, where you freely build with LEGO bricks around a theme.
You probably don’t get many chances at home to use such a wide variety of LEGO bricks, but here there are more than you could ever choose from, and you get to build freely around a theme.
A globe made of LEGO bricks greets you at the entrance
At first I was just watching my daughter build, but when she said, “Make a heart!” something switched on.
You get a theme card and build whatever you likeEven just going to grab parts looks fun
You don’t often get to freely use a pool overflowing with LEGO bricks, so before long, Dad went into full-on serious mode (lol).
Leaving even the photos to my wife and building for real
Creations by past visitors are lined up on the walls. If you ask, you can apparently attach yours to the globe and take a photo. My daughter seemed totally happy with her own creation.
Just seeing everyone’s ideas was funMy daughter seems to be into building town-like things rather than objectsDad, even happier than his daughter about the heart
It’s a different experience from playing with LEGO bricks at home, and I felt this is another spot where you’ll see your kid grow every time you come back. In summer, visiting around noon — the hottest part of the day — lets you cool down, so I recommend it.
The full-on “soaking experience” is fun for adults too
Seasonal events are what theme parks are all about. At LEGOLAND Japan’s summer Brick Summer Festival, two water attractions open up — Water Maze and Splash Pad — where you can play in the water for real in your swimsuit. Apparently the event evolves every year, and this was the first time ever you could get this soaked.
Splash Pad drenches you with a ridiculous amount of waterWater Maze turns an already-fun pool into a maze, making it even more fun
Other theme parks have had events where people splash each other, but an event where you get this drenched was new to me, and I was surprised.
Look closely and the buildings and trees are made of familiar LEGO bricks. Adults can’t help being impressed by stuff like this (lol)With a phone, you’d worry about shake and water, but the Insta360 GO 3 easily recorded my kid running aroundI shot this photo from the start of the article myself too! Having records like this will spark lots of reminiscing once the kids grow up
There are changing rooms, but most visitors coming for this event seemed to arrive in swimsuits and rash guards. Besides the two attractions, the whole Pirate Shore zone is a designated soaking area, so I recommend showing up in clothes you don’t mind getting wet.
Splash Battle, an attraction in Pirate Shore — you board a pirate shipHere too, the adults get pretty serious (lol)The characters, which usually don’t hit you, rain water down with abandonHuge amounts of water get blasted up and rain down all over Pirate Shore. Everyone, young and old, was getting pretty wet while cheering “Whoa!”
We joined in clothes we didn’t mind getting wet too, and it’s perfect for a hot summer. Getting soaked so often kept us pretty cool even under the blazing sun, and above all — it’s fun! While letting my daughter play, the adults’ energy went MAX from our first big soaking in ages. Man, it was the best.
Real fish in the submarine!? Quality that wows even adults
Another fun part was all the original attractions. I’d always figured theme park rides follow a set template with different concepts on top, but LEGOLAND Japan is a cut above.
For example, in the submarine attraction “Submarine Adventure,” real fish are actually swimming around.
Board this submarine and...Real fish!As you go, some pretty big fish tooA Poseidon statue made of LEGO bricks with real fish... ridiculously photogenicIn front, an amazing submarine made of real LEGO bricks
Apparently the staff at SEA LIFE Nagoya, the aquarium in the same resort, take care of them. The animals in attractions are almost always fake. Just getting to see real ones makes it so much more moving.
Like these real fish, what I felt across the whole park was that “there are none of the letdowns adults tend to notice at theme parks!”
Even in Miniland, which recreates scenery from all over Japan, the expressway in the background fits right inA shot packed with Tokyo landmarks — behind the Skytree is a real expressway. Hmm, it fits
Theme parks usually shrink a big world into a compact space, so the castle is a little smaller than the real thing, or roads show up in the background — when you go as an adult, those little immersion-breakers bug you.
But LEGOLAND Japan has none of that. Because LEGO bricks are a small-scale world to begin with. It feels like you’ve shrunk down and stepped inside the bricks you used to play with.
The adults keep getting wowed everywhere — that’s what I want to get across (lol)
So there’s zero of the cheap feeling adults tend to get at theme parks. Thinking about it afterward, it clicked: so that’s why I felt like a kid again!
With a merry-go-round where you ride LEGO bricks like this, even adults want a turn...
## Kids’ pricing all the way through high school! Easy to enjoy across generations and families
The park size and the distances between rides at LEGOLAND Japan are designed around kids’ strides, so it’s definitely compact compared to other theme parks. But it doesn’t feel lacking.
If anything, the compactness is comfortable for adults too — you can stay energized walking around all day. Of course it’s easy for kids to get around, and closing at around 5:00 p.m. on average (it varies by season, like 4:00 or 6:00 p.m.) is a plus. They’ve really thought about the limit for having fun.
Even if your family doesn’t really go to theme parks anymore, why not go together if relatives or friends have little ones? And it’s nice pricing for groups of middle schoolers or high schoolers too.
There are plenty of great photo spots for teens, and it seems there have been events in the past like “step inside Miniland and take Gulliver-style photos!” — joining one of those would be fun too.
See? Even the food is super Instagrammable
Also, if you’re going during Golden Week or other busy holidays, I recommend buying the “Skip Pass Unlimited” at the same time.
With it, you can skip the line on all 25 eligible rides as many times as you want! This time it was about the most crowded it gets all year, but we got on every ride right away with no wait at all — so comfortable.
A one-of-a-kind park designed entirely around the visitor
Until I actually went, I pictured it as a LEGO-brick-themed park, but experiencing it was completely different. It’s actually a park designed with the visitor’s perspective in mind, through and through.
Of course, adults who are after “I love thrill rides!” or “I want elaborate worlds and shows!” might find it lacking. But if you want to feel like a kid again and have fun with your kids, there’s no theme park this fun! That’s my honest take as a 40-year-old part-time house-husband.
There’s a LEGO brick pool right before the hotel front desk too, so kids don’t get bored while waiting to check inEven next to the restaurant serving course meals, there’s a space kids can get absorbed in. Thoughtful touches like this come from putting “a comfortable experience for parents and kids” first
I’m sure other theme parks think about their guests too. But LEGOLAND Japan’s approach is unique.
Typical theme parks have certain constraints, like building sizes, to recreate their worlds, so they tend to end up huge. LEGOLAND Japan, on the other hand, is packed with a just-right sense of scale and creative elements you can enjoy no matter how many times you go. That’s what sets it apart. It was ten times more comfortable than I expected, and I want to go again.
Rather than going to a theme park, “a resort that happens to come with a theme park” describes LEGOLAND Japan perfectly. Our family has bought annual passes and is starting to plan a trip to LEGOLAND® Discovery Center Tokyo.
