Legoland Discovery Centre Chadstone - Our Review

It probably wasn’t the wisest move deciding to visit Legoland Discovery Centre at Chadstone when we did:

A Saturday
School Holidays
43 degree day

But Ross, Ned and Olive are all massive Lego fans and were beside themselves with excitement.

What you can find in this post

Where is Legoland

The Legoland Discovery Centre is within the Chadstone Shopping Centre. The address is:

Level 2, Chadstone Shopping Centre, 1341 Dandenong Road, Chadstone

There are signs when you arrive at Chadstone pointing you in the right direction to the closest carpark – if you don’t see them, then head towards and park at Hoyts as they are in the same area.

We booked our tickets the night before and we did make the comment it probably wasn’t the best idea. Just finding a carpark within Chadstone was a nightmare. We are not shopping lovers so don’t spend much time at the shops unless we have to (and hopefully what we experienced was not normal – otherwise – why would you do that to yourselves ha ha?!).

Arriving at Legoland, we encounted lots and lots of people milling around out the front. We asked a staff member which queue we should be in given we had a confirmation email and she went off and printed our tickets for us so we were able to join the shortest queue.

Legoland Opening Hours

As with any attraction it’s always a good idea to check the website for opening hours before leaving home. But, as a general rule the opening hours for Legoland Discovery Centre are –

Opens

9.30am

Last Entry

4.00pm Sunday – Wednesday

5.00pm Thursday-Saturday

Closes

5.30pm Sunday – Wednesday

7.00pm Thursday – Saturday

Legoland Entry Prices

Definitely book your Legoland tickets online before arriving. You’ll need to select an actual time to enter but once inside you can stay as long as you like; although, once you are inside you are not allowed to leave and re-enter.

Tickets start at $32.50 for each family member aged 3+. Adults must be accompanied by a child to enter.

Annual passes are available.

So, what is actually inside?

Ross from Hill Tribe Travels entering into Melbourne in the Miniland section of Legoland Discovery Centre

Entering into MiniLand at Legoland

The Legoland Discovery Centre Melbourne features many different activities and attractions including the great 4D cinema, 2 rides called the Kingdom Quest Laser Ride and the Merlin’s Apprentice Ride, a Lego soft play area, play centre and building areas.

Factory Tour

The first thing you come across once you enter is the ‘Factory Tour’ – a room set up with large screens and controls. I have no idea if we somehow walked in part way through but we had absolutely no idea what was going in on in this room! We quickly walked through into the next section.

Kingdom Quest Laser Ride

Next up was the Kingdom Quest Laser ride. The kids were pretty excited to jump on board. There was no queue at all here which was a bonus. You ride in a carriage with 2 in the front and 2 in the back with seatbelts on and aim laser guns at the baddies. This was an interesting one – this was our kids first experience with ‘gun’ type toys – and they had no idea what was happening ha ha! There are skeletons, spiders, bats and trolls to aim at – Olive was freaked out a little and was hiding by curling up into me – there was a troll that was really big!

Miniland

We then headed in to Miniland. A mini Melbourne! So cool – made from over 1.5 million bricks. All the landmarks around Melbourne are there from St Kilda, Flemington Racetrack, the Arts Centre and the MCG.

Interactive Display – press the button and watch the workmen drill into the ground

There is a day/night cycle so the lights go on and off – there are even Fireworks when the lights are off. When the lights are off and the buildings are lit up, it transforms the whole overall look of Miniland.

Ned and Olive from Hill Tribe Travels racing their horses along the Flemington Racecourse track in Miniland, Legoland Discovery Centre

Ned and Olive racing their horses along the Flemington Racecourse track in Miniland

There is a great little pop up tube so the kids can get amongst the action.

Ned and Olive from Hill Tribe Travels popping up in the clear globe to see the Lego mini exhibition closer

Pop up clear globe to get into the action

During our visit the Star Wars exhibition was on. I thought it was quite cool seeing lots of Star Wars characters and craft around Melbourne but Ross thought this was a bit rubbish – he didn’t want to see Melbourne with a big spaceships in amongst the Lego!

Main ‘Hub’

Next you enter what I would call the ‘main’ area of the Legoland Discovery Centre. Here you’ll find all the other activities on offer.

Entering into the very busy ‘main hub’

Olive and I spent some time in the Lego Friends area building which she really enjoyed. Next to this is the Lego Farm area – a nice little area for younger kids 2-5 with soft blocks and a small slide (I reckon it’s for the younger end of the age scale).

Olive from Hill Tribe Travels enjoying playing with the lego at the Legoland Discovery Centre

Olive enjoying lots of building

Merlin Apprentice Ride

There was a decent queue for the Merlin Apprentice ride but we waited it out. The idea of this ride is to pedal – the faster and harder you pedal the higher you will ‘fly’ – by stopping pedalling you will gently float back down. It was a bit off fun but neither Ned or Olive could reach the pedals. There is a height limit for this ride – children must be a minimum of 90cm to ride.

Play Areas

There are a number of Lego play areas where you can build to your hearts content. Try building your own racing car and then race it down the track or build a tower as high as you can and then test how strong it is against an earthquake on the earthquake table.

The earthquake table was pretty cool but unfortunately, the race car track was just too busy while we were there. We managed to have a turn – in between a million other kids and little kids jumping all over the track.

There are workshops available at certain times to learn how to build individual Lego items but this is suited to slightly older kids.

There is also a great little play area – think a mini indoor play centre. Socks are required for this area and given it was 40 + degrees outside almost everyone was required to buy socks from the café to enter as we were not wearing any!

Indoor play area

We didn’t eat at the café but there was your standard food items such as hot dogs, nachos, sandwiches, hot and cold drinks, etc. It is noted that you are not allowed to bring in your own food but I am not sure how they police this when it was as busy as it was.

4D Cinema

This was my favourite part of the Legoland Discovery Centre. There were huge queues when we arrived with people lining up for over half an hour. We watched to see how many people went into each session and knew that we didn’t have to line up until they opened the doors! The movie is shown multiple times a day. You are handed your glasses when you walk in and there is a box to leave them in at the end. The movie itself is only 12-15 minutes long but being 4D that means that it is a 3D movie (which all the kids thought was amazing with most of them jumping out of their seats trying to touch everything) but you also had smoke and rain drops! A cool experience.

Ross, Ned and Olive from Hill Tribe Travels sitting in the cinema with their 3D glasses on waiting for the 4D movie to start

All ready for the 3D movie experience

The Legoland official website

https://melbourne.legolanddiscoverycentre.com.au/

Other things to note

Absolutely loved the bathrooms. Kids sized toilets, a lowered sink and step together with the characters on the walls and the music was a great touch!

How long do you need?

I think between 2-3 hours would be enough to try everything there is on offer.

I would like to visit again but this time not on a weekend and not over the school holidays. I think it would be a really different experience without the crowds.