Can You Do Legoland California on a Budget?
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Want to visit Legoland in San Diego? Not wanting to spend a lot of money? I get you! Traveling to California can cost a pretty penny, so one would assume that Legoland would also be pricey. Can you do it on a budget?
Thankfully, there are ways that you can save. Check out these tried and true tips for enjoying Legoland on a budget, from tickets to food to accommodations. Legoland California is one of those fun places to go with kids; let’s make the most of it!
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I once asked my kids which they liked better: Disneyland or Legoland? I was stunned when most of them — except the child who wanted to get on his Mama’s good side — said Legoland. They said that it is more relaxed and, therefore, more fun to go to it.
I have a couple theories as to why this is, but mainly I think it’s because their mama is a Disneymaniac and it’s go-go-go from the time we arrive to the minute we leave because I love it so much.
The irony is not lost on me that my Disneymania may be one of the reasons why they prefer Legoland!
Admittedly, I am more relaxed at Legoland for many reasons, one of them being that Legoland California is easier to do on a budget than Disneyland. Yes, really. Though the regular ticket prices at both parks are sky high, it’s easier for me to make the day great without spending a ton of money at Legoland.
Please remember that your mileage may vary. Promotions change from season to season, as do park practices. Verify all links and deals for Legoland cheap tickets before you go.
There are ways to enjoy Legoland and still live within your means.
Save on Legoland tickets.
There are a number of ways to save on Legoland tickets. It’s generally cheaper to buy your tickets online, however this varies with the day and the season. Legoland offers a variety of packages for their different parks (Legoland, SeaLife, and the Water Park) as well as “come back again” pricing from time to time.
Currently advance reservations/dated tickets are required.
Online pricing starts at $89 for one-day tickets. This is subject to change without notice and varies from day to day. You can upgrade to $129 to get your pass extended for use all summer long.
Currently, there are a number of promotions, including discounts for first responders as well as a buy-3-get-1-free for season passes.
Keep in mind that parking is $35, so if you can walk or shuttle from a local hotel, that will save you some coin!
In order to keep your adventure at Legoland on a budget, it’s in your best interests to find tickets at a discount.
Here are some of the discounts available:
San Diego CityPass
A CityPass is like buying a multipack of attraction tickets. While Legoland is located in North San Diego County, about an hour’s drive from the city, you may want to visit other San Diego attractions which will make a San Diego CityPass worth it.
The passes come in different combinations, allowing you a range of choices, including Sea World, San Diego Zoo/Safari Park, USS Midway Museum, City Cruises, Old Town Trolley Tours, Birch Aquarium at Scripps, and Maritime Museum of San Diego.
Costco Passes
In previous years, you could buy a Legoland pass inside San Diego area Costco stores.
Hotel packages
A number of hotels offer accommodation + park ticket packages. Since Legoland now maintains its own hotel properties, the Legoland website no longer lists local options, but does provide booking for vacation packages at its own hotel properties.
Educational Visits and Homeschool Days
For the 2025 season, Legoland California is booking school field trips for TK-8 with a minimum of 15 students. Deeper discounts are available for Title 1 schools. Find more information and submit an online request on the Legoland website.
Military Discounts
Discounted pricing is available to US Military, Veterans, and their families.
Membership
Legoland annual passes range over three levels from $239-349, this is up $60 from three years ago. The upper level passes (platinum and elite) get you into all three areas of the park (regular park, water park, and aquarium) with free parking as well as discounts on accommodations, food, gift shop purchases and special events. Blockout dates apply for both platinum and gold annual passes.
If you live nearby and want to go often, then it’s worth your while. Note: membership is for the California location only.
Save on snacks and meals at Legoland.
Okay, so you got in. I bet you someone will be hungry within 20 minutes. Food is not cheap in the park! Oh my!
Apple fries and the churro with chocolate sauce are primo at Legoland. I 10/10 recommend.
While our family does not typically buy meals inside the park, there have been occasions when we have. Kids meals (either a burger or sandwich plus chips, treat and soda) are around $10. Adult meals start a few bucks higher.
Be sure to check out the online meal deal.
That said, years ago we had gift cards for the Aquarium cafe. The food was quite good, especially for theme park dining! FishBoy13 loved his Castle Burger, and I must say the ice cream shop was primo.
The BBQ place has a good variety of veggies available which I particularly like.
While food in the park is pricey, it’s better quality than typical canteen food. They have a very extensive allergen guide which I’ve found helpful.
However, I recommend that you pack a picnic lunch or send a parent to the nearby Costco for pizzas. Costco is literally a short walk from the park with an outdoor food court. I’m not sure if they require you to have a membership to buy food outdoors these days. It often varies by location.
Usually I pack sandwiches, chips, and drinks and keep those in a cooler in the car. There are several shaded, grassy lawns outside the entrance to the park where we sit and picnic. This is what we did last week. It’s a nice, quiet break from the sunny walkways inside Legoland.
Inside the park my kids wear fanny packs (yes, really!) equipped with all the snacks they want. I stock up on treats like gummies, applesauce pouches, and bunny crackers. The kids fill their packs, and they can have what they want when they want it.
Without bugging me for food. (And yes, small snacks are permitted inside the park. Learn more about their bag check policy here.)
This idea is thanks to the wonderful Unofficial Guide to Disneyland that I bought years ago based on reader suggestions. Trust me, that book will pay for itself.
I bought these fanny packs for the smaller kids and some like these fanny packs for the bigger kids years ago. They’ve been super useful for years and have more than paid for themselves.
We actually have a range of quirky, but effective practices for making amusement parks safe, cheap, and more fun for our kids. Check out my Amusement Park Survival Guide if you haven’t already.
I do think that it’s part of the memory-making to splurge on some fun food at amusement parks. If I were at Magic Mountain (where I worked as a teen), it would be the waffle cone or the big soft pretzels. At Disneyland: the beignets or the frozen lemonade.
At Legoland the apple fries are a must-do. Their churros with chocolate are amazingly good as well!
Save on photos at Legoland.
Personally, I steer clear of the peeps with the cameras at amusement parks. I’ll just take my own pictures, thank you.
But, my friend Sharon, a professional photographer, buys the photo pass every year. She gets unlimited digital images of the kids on rides, at the entrance, with the Lego people, etc. It’s a GREAT value, she says.
Save on accommodations near Legoland.
We live about a 20-minute drive from Legoland, so it’s not necessary for our family to have accommodations, though I would really like to stay at one of the Legoland Hotels sometime.
On one occasion our family had the chance to stay at the Grand Pacific Palisades across the street from Legoland. It’s a time-share type resort, but non-owners can still find accommodations there. My brother and his family often stay at Las Brisas on the other side of the park.
Both resorts have plenty to do without even going to the theme park. They have a number of special packages to offer reduced rates depending on the length of your stay or what you want to do in the area.
Since all rooms have kitchens, you can save money on food costs. This is why we usually rent a condo on vacation; we save so much on feeding this crew!
There are a number of local hotels that have partnered with Legoland who offer reduced rates. My friend Christie stayed at the Carlsbad by the Sea Hotel and had this to say:
Carlsbad by the Sea hotel was good!! Much cheaper than the ones on the hill, free hot breakfast, free parking, free shuttle to the gate and directly across the street from the Outlets. It was only 15 minutes to walk there, which we did, but it wasn’t the easiest of walks with two little ones.
It’s also a good idea to keep an eye on Groupon deals. I’ve seen package deals that include hotel and park ticket packages as well as hotel only discounts.
Make the most of your day at the park.
Part of getting a good deal on something is getting out of it all that you hope and imagine. So, even if you don’t get cheap tickets, you can “get your money’s worth” by enjoying Legoland California to the fullest.
Here’s how:
Go early.
At Legoland California Resort, the hours are staggered for the three parks. Current summer hours are as follows:
- Legoland – open 10 to 5, 6, 7, or 8 depending on day
- Water Park – open 10:30 to 5
- Sea Life – open 10:30 to half hour after Legoland closing, depending on day.
Once school starts, the resort operates on reduced hours.
Legoland California is not very big but the wait times can be long, even when it’s not crowded. Do not expect the high tech speed of a Disney park. We rarely go on many rides in one day, but again, Legoland is very relaxed, especially if you go in the off-season during the week.
For better or for worse, this is not Disneyland.
Legoland was one of the first amusement parks to upsell you to extras. You can upgrade your ticket to the new Reserve ‘N’ Ride Electronic Ride Reservation System as well as a Rise and Ride Early Access.
Additionally, you can also download their mobile app to get news, deals, and updates during your visit. This allows you access to current wait time so you can better plan your day.
Be aware of ride restrictions.
Legoland is rife with ride restrictions. You can’t take belonging on some rides. You can’t take small children on others. There are height as well as age requirements on the rides.
All these things slow down the ride — they interrogate children as to their ages — and make it difficult for families with many small children to go on rides.
Many times one adult is required for each child under a certain height. Oy!
Extra reading: Legoland with a Two-Year Old. God bless you.
Ride your favorites first.
Moving from ride to ride is pretty slow going, so make sure you hit your favorites first. My kids love to be able to drive. They all love the Beetle Bounce. The boys particularly love the Project X roller coaster.
If your kids have some high-priority rides, go on those first. You don’t know what the day holds, so be sure to hit the important things.
Avoid the high ticket items you can do elsewhere.
There are many things to do at Legoland that you can do elsewhere, like carnival games, mini golf, and a climbing wall. Not only do these things cost extra, but they are attractions that you can do somewhere else, most likely for cheaper.
Unless it’s really an important part of the outing, I’d save those for when you’ve done all the free things or for another time.
Enjoy the quiet spaces.
There are lots of restful places throughout Legoland. That is one of its beauties. While it doesn’t have the energy of Disneyland, it doesn’t have much frenzied chaos, either.
Unless you go during Brick-or-Treat. God bless you.
Our kids have always loved playing in the Knight’s Kingdom Playground, a quiet, shaded spot at the north of the park.
The Miniland is another fun space to walk through, particularly for Lego Maniacs of all ages. Seriously, grown men geek out in here.
Legoland really is a quaint amusement park. In my experience it’s vastly different from its Anaheim cousin, Disneyland. However, if you plan well, you can have a great day and not go into hock.
More Amusement Park Tips
What works for you?
Leave a comment below and let us know what works for you.
This post was originally published on March 26, 2015. It has been updated for content and clarity.
We’ve only been to the Legoland in Florida, but they have homeschool days during the summer too. This year, homeschool days were $10 instead of $8 and it will be $12.50 during June-Aug. It’s still a great deal! And we like to go left in the park too. 😉
Ah, you’ve got better prices for your homeschool days. Ours are $21!
I recently bought my child a small set of Legos at the store Five Below. The set was $3.99 and it has a coupon on the back for a free one day child ticket with purchase of a full price one day ticket to LEGOLAND California, LEGOLAND FLORIDA, or LEGOLAND Discovery Center. This would be a great deal and cute way to surprise your child to let them know you are going to LEGOLAND- just make sure to save the package! 🙂
That would be a great gift/vacation announcement!
There is also a Costco deal online for a 3 day hopper ticket:
http://www.costco.com/LEGOLAND%C2%AE-California-Resort%2c-Water-Park-%2526-SEA-LIFE%C2%AE-Aquarium–3-Day-Hopper-E-Ticket.product.100168664.html
My kids loved the water play area and I think we could have spent half the day there. I think a lot of first timers don’t even realize they can bring their kids in their bathing suit and inside the park is a real water slide and decked out water play area, so with my little ones I have no need to spend extra to go into the water park. Of course, if you aren’t the type that want your kids to do this sort of play, it is best to plan ahead to bypass the whole area or you are going to have some bummed out kids. They have “family size” full body dryers, also, so you don’t have to walk around soaking wet if you don’t want to.
That’s a really good point. You can get quite refreshed at the regular park splash pad. For free. We typically save that for the end of the day so we don’t walk the park wet.
Being so close to so many theme parks is something I really miss about living in Southern California. The only big name park close enough to me now is Six Flags over Georgia. I’m not much of a roller coaster fan so not much for me to ride there.
Legoland is on the oldest auntling’s wish list and I’m hoping in the next couple of years to make a family vacation out west. Florida is closer but California is home to me.
Let me know if you come this way. Would love to meet you in real life!
We loved Legoland when my kids were younger. I think their age range (2-12) is just about right – my son was a little bored when he was 12.
Apple fries are delicious – that was always our end of day snack. And we’d eat lunch at the Aquarium, too, or leave a lunch cooler in the car to enjoy in the little picnic area.
The kids loved the rides and particularly the activities we all could do together (fire brigade, building cars and racing them, that Egyptian ride where you use laser guns to hit targets).
A couple things we did to save money and/or time.
— We travel to the area once a year, but we would always plan to come back a little earlier in the year so we could take advantage of a membership (which makes sense if you go more than once a year)
— We go left instead of right when we enter the park. You’d be surprised how many people just automatically go to the right in this country! We’d do the hill first (pedal cars) because it was their favorite and the line there is annoying, then backtrack a little to the safari and roller coaster
— We bought an endless drink and an endless popcorn one year and refilled it for a couple years
— We’d go get a locker in the waterpark first so we could stash all the stuff and not have to carry it all day
It took us two days the first time we went, but once we knew what our must-dos were we were able to do it in a (long) day.
GREAT tip about going LEFT. It’s so true. We ALWAYS go right at Legoland. 🙂
this is so helpful!!
We are planning a trip this summer, and are going to camp at Campland — which sounds totally National Lampoony—:-)
the price is good for a large family and we have a pop up travel tent trailer that we sleep in. I’ll bring the crockpots!
I can’t wait to see you!
When traveling I always research where the good camping spots are. Most even have showers. Our tents are tiny and we can throw them up in a minute or two. Some comfy lawn chairs. Better than $100 a night for a motel room. It is important to have a good mattress, and as long as the weather is mild it is sooo….. nice.
Great tip! I wanted to add camping, but I don’t have any personal recommendations for the area since we haven’t camped locally. Thanks for adding that to the conversation!
San Elijo State Beach is Amazing. We camp there every year!
I bought season tickets to Magic Springs Amusement and Waterpark. I plan on camping at nearby Degray Lake. Fortunately, we love tent camping which is very cheap and even free in some spots on the lake (with nearby bathrooms and showers). I plan on making a couple of weekends of it and even take a week vacation over there at the lake. So we can hit Magic Springs a bunch. My boys are 15 and 13, so I don’t have much longer to spoil them. I lived in Hot Springs while I was going to college at nearby HSU and love it. We have lots of friends between there and home, so we won’t have enough time to loaf around and enjoy.
I am wondering if anyone has also visited one of the Lego Discovery Centers? One just opened in Boston and it looks like there are several around the country. It seems much more scaled down like a children’s museum but the price is too (About $20/person).
We visited the Lego Discovery Center in Grapevine, Tx July 2014. It was a great first Legoland like experience. My boys were 7 and 4 when we went. We sent about 2.5 hours and did everything a few times. It was a fun but expensive outing. We probably will only go back once a year.
We have visited Lego Discovery in Atlanta. Great experience for our family (ages 2-8) – they have a small scale Lego town, two small rides, a 4D theatre, a “large” Duplo area, climbing area, lego car race track and, my older boys’ favorite, the learning area, where a master builder teaches kids different skills (like creating a sphere, building a sword and sheath, etc). The master builders we have had during the classes, which are included in your ticket price, have all been super patient, very informed and encouraging to both my boys. Two warnings: certain days and times have been so busy that my kids felt a little “trampled” and once you leave for the day you cannot return, so if you are there during lunch, you will have to eat in their café (the food was terrible). My wrap up definitely worth the cost – hope you have a great experience too!
We visited the Discovery Center in Boston this past March. My kids are 5 and 7 and they loved it. We used the free child’s ticket w/ adult ticket from the Lego Magazine for both kids tickets, but it still was about $60 for my husband and my tickets. You can’t purchase tickets ahead of time if you want to use the coupons, so it is a good idea to get there about 15 minutes before they open to get tickets. Be prepared to get a time to come back later in the day as they often sell out on weekends. We were there when they opened at 10 and our tickets were for 1 pm. We ended up going back to the Science Museum for a little while before heading back to the Lego Discovery Center. We spent maybe 2 hours, the one in Boston is pretty small, but it has 2 rides and a 4D movie theater, a climbing/playground area, Ninjago training area, and lots of Legos to play with. We bought the Passport lanyard, but I wouldn’t recommend it because none of the stamps worked, so it ended up being a waste of money. All in all though, it was a fun afternoon!