World’s biggest LEGO store
Speed is turning 6 in 3 days. Lately he has fallen in love with lego. Although I started him on tiny lego city building projects, where the child follows instructions to build one small car, he prefers to free build. He builds vehicle after vehicle. He display his little museum and then tells me about each creation….this one is a space pod, this one is a remote access vehicle and so forth. He also expressed a desire to make a line of race cars so he can explore which one goes the fastest.
Stepping Stones, our local children’s museum used to have a race car building section and a race track change exhibit 6 months ago. Since then Speed has wanted to replicate the exhibit in our home. I called the museum to find out which pieces I needed and they said the pieces they used were a mixture of custom Duplo/Lego and K’nex. I haven’t been able to find the same pieces so I thought I’d check into this at our closest lego store. Also, Speed had some birthday money to spend.
This Lego store is billed to be the biggest Lego store in the world. Well…all I can say to that…is that the other stores must be pretty small. I thought we might be visiting a small supermarket sized venue…but it turns out is like visiting a Hallmark in a mall. The size was not impressive. The walls on the sides of the store were covered with the different theme box sets as you would expect. Star Wars sets for example, were arranged around displays of the built models arranged in a display case with the themed background. They were impressive and inviting. Speed was jumping up and down squealing with delight, over and over again. He couldn’t believe it. I thought it was nice. He was blown away by it.
Speed: I am going to have to pinch myself to believe it, Mummy! (pinch) Ouch! (pinch) Ouch!
Speed: Oh my gosh, Mummy. There are Power Miners! (Donkey Kick) (Donkey Kick) We are staying 2 hours, right??
They had all the lines except Mission to Mars (which was at the top of the list but he loved the other ones too so he wasn’t disappointed). He checked out all of the themes in great detail. Then he moved into the center of the store where there is a hands on Duplo play station for the under 6 crowd. There was a little stand where you could design and build custom people (3 for $10)…expensive but very enjoyable. He bought that with the $10 gift card we were given at check out.
I loved the back wall display which consisted of little cubbies full of different pieces, just like in a candy store. There must have been about 50 different cubbies, full of colorful blocks. I heard child after child remark how beautiful the Lego was. You pick a container to fill up. I chose the small container ($7.99) and filled it with plates, wheels, axles, tires, steering wheels and lights so Speed could make a series of race cars. I could probably have fitted 15 small cars (in pieces) in the small container which was about the size of a pint of ice cream. I grabbed the Lego brick grab bag of miscellaneous Lego ($7.99) which contained about 4x the amount as the small container with all kinds of pieces. I thought that was a good deal. I think that combo of the car making pieces and the grab bag is a great starter free build kit for a 5-6 year old.
Let’s face it…most of the time a child that age doesn’t want to deal with the instructions in a complicated kit. He does once in a while though. It requires supervision and discipline not to mix sets.
In the end we managed to spend all of the birthday money quite easily. We didn’t stay 2 hours. It was an enjoyable experience and definitely Speed’s favorite store.
For local people wanting to visit, the store is in West Nyack, New York. It’s about 50 minutes away for us, but an easy drive. It is in the midst of a mall, with big box names such as Home Depot and Target, so there is something for everyone. We parked undercover behind Barnes & Noble, on parking level 3. There was a short walk into the mall on level 3 and 100 yards into the mall was the store.
There were other places there your children might find attractive such as a large Fun City Arcade which luckily Speed didn’t notice, movie theatres and all the usual trappings of the mall.
You might find better prices also online or at Walmart for the boxed sets. I am glad that I went, found the car pieces and I enjoyed watching my son in complete bliss!
July 9th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Hugamuga loved that wall at DisneyWorld too. He loved selecting just the bits he wanted for his cup of Lego.
