Adulting at Legoland
If you couldn’t already tell, my partner and I are adult children. Birmingham’s Legoland was her idea, and I was content enough to go along. During the day, it is typically a snotty, screechy, lego haven filled with mostly kindergartners to under 10s. However, once a month, they host adult-only 18+ evenings, where the big kids get to rule the roost. They have competitions and giveaways, serve food and drink, and raise money for a local charity called Merlin’s Magic Wand. Attractions included a 4D cinema, Kingdom Quest laser-shooting ride, marvelling at the Miniland lego displays, building and racing your own lego cars, and bounding through the soft play jungle gym.
She’s 26!
Being the little brat I am, I was promised a birthday weekend in London, and I was not disappointed. The day of my 26th birthday looked like presents eco-wrapped in black t-shirts, brunch out at a gorgeous little vegan nook, then out for dinner to a funky board games cafe. The cheesy, creamy, stuffed vegan croissant at brunchtime was the epitome of this GIF:
From left: sick artwork outside Draughts board game caf; my attempt at drawing “cybersex” during Telestrations After Dark
Santaland Tricked Us
We weren’t quite through with living our childhood dreams in London, so we decided to pick up the ante. Having chosen an off-peak entry, Girlfriend and I moseyed over to Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland. We had pre-paid for Santaland tickets, which promised family-friendly rides in a specific area of the pop-up theme park. We paid a fixed fee for unlimited rides on the “Santaland” attractions list, rather than paying for each individual ride as other patrons did. (Yes, it’s a rip-off. Of course, we still had an absolute whale of a time.)
I made my Rollercoaster Tycoon dreams come true by riding my first ever Helter Skelter (first on the left), traipsing through the Magic Circus Fun House and braving the Dragon’s Nest (a reportedly kid-friendly skyflyer).
The more reasonable Dragon’s Nest: right level of thrill for me + exceptional views
The Demented Winter Spinner
Upon arrival, I was a little overwhelmed by it all, but Girlfriend was rearing to go. We spied a ride that was on our Santaland list called “Winter Spinner”. I didn’t like the look of it, but GF reasoned that it must be fairly tame as there were youngsters lining up for it, and it had Santaland’s family-friendly seal of approval.
The first sign of apprehension was reading the rider’s note that stated: heaviest riders must sit on the aisle seat.
I will forever be haunted by the soundbites “SC-SCream if you want to go FASTer” and “IS everybody HAppaaay?! *loud distorted group clapping*“
Want to ride it yourself? The video doesn’t do it justice, and it felt way faster than it looks, but here goes…
bohemianhumanist.com 