Great to see there are so many other fans out there. Like I said, I myself am still a huge fan and have an extremely large collection of it, probably dominated by Star Wars. I have also had a very personal, once in a lifetime experience. After I had finished treatment for my first bout of Leukaemia, I qualified for a wish, from the Make a Wish Foundation, which you may have heard of. It's a absolutely brilliant charity that offers wishes for seriously ill children. Well, mine was to go to Lego and see how it was all designed and everything. So they organised for me to go on the Lego Inside Tour...
They organised the flights and everything, so we arrived at Heathrow and flew out to Billund, Denmark. We were booked into the Legoland hotel, and had free access to the park. We spent the first day there in Legoland Denmark, which frankly is amazing by itself. If any of you have been to a Legoland park, well, this is the king. After an action packed day there we retired back to the hotel room, ready for the Inside Tour the next day...
The Lego Inside Tour is basically the most behind the scenes you get there short of actually working there. It's extremely hard to get on, with only 130 people a year getting to go on it. I don't know if anyone saw the Secret World of Lego documentary, but you get to see all round the places there. There's the Lego Ideas House, full of the story of Lego, inspiration and The Vault, which I will elaborate on later. You meet designers, take part in building challenges, have factory tours and go behind the scenes at the park. And at the end, you get an exclusive Lego set. Like, properly exclusive. 130 ever made.
So we woke up amd headed down to the meeting area. The tour is done in groups of about 20 or 30, so we all introduced ourselves and made badges with personalised minifigures of ourselves. Then we went into a quiz on Lego knowledge. Bearing in mind that other than us, the Tour is made up of the biggest Lego fan and aficionados from across the world. So I was quite surprised and pleased when I won! I received another Lego set and we had a presentation from a senior Lego employee. We then headed out to our first stop, the Lego Ideas House. It was super interesting to hear the origins and how Lego evolved, and we had a Lego through the years section, which was also interesting to see. Then we reached The Vault. The Vault is an underground vault which contains one of every Lego set ever made. Every single one. We were allowed time to explore and look at it all, and me, my dad and my sister were all sure to get photos of our very first Lego sets. That was definitely a highlight. Next up, we headed back upstairs and we're each given a personalised bag full of sets based on what we liked, and were ushered into a meeting room. There we were treated to presentations by designers on various different parts of design. If you have seen the Secret World of Lego, you would recognise Justin, who over the course of the program you follow him as he works to become a designer. That was our first meeting with the Designers, but it wouldn't be our last. We headed back and had a few hours of rest.
Then, we went back down to the meeting area ready for the evening part of day one. Down there were the designers that had given the presentations, plus lots of other designers. They all introduced themselves and some of the sets they had worked on. The guy behind the UCS Millennium Falcon was among them, which was pretty cool. Then, it was time for the building challenge. We had access to almost all non theme specific pieces, and the designers at our disposal, and we each had to design a Lego set. We worked hard into the night before leaving our models ready to be judged by the professionals.
Day two had the factory tour. It was really interesting to see what actually makes a Lego brick. It's amazing how much they can actually churn out as well! We walked away with a pot of ABS plastic each, what makes Lego bricks. Another little souvenir that I will definitely cherish. We got on a coach and started on our way back, when we stopped, and someone got on. We carried on, but this time we had the CEO of Lego giving us commentary! We got off for another special stop and we're each given his business card, which just happens to be a minifigure. Next, the Lego Employee Shop. Everything half price! There was a lot of spending and we mailed back our haul, given it was far too much to take on the plane. Back we went for another few hours, then went back before dinner. We had a couple of tasks before heading out into the park for dinner with the designers! It was very interesting to speak to them all, definitely. We went back and it was results time for the Building Challenge. I didn't win anything but everyone that all the entries were all very close. It was time for bed after that.
Day three came. We went out into the park before it opened, and were told how Legoland all, works and how the many models there are made. We also got some exclusive screenings of the 4D experience. After that, we went back to the meeting area for the last part of the tour. The exclusive model. We had a presentation on how it was made and then it was unveiled. This year, it was the Lego Truck Show. About ten years ago there was a Coca-Cola truck style truck that would tour around and promote the latest sets. It was an awesome set and we each got one. It is definitely amazing to have a set so rare and precious; I still haven't actually built mine yet. That more or less concluded the amazing tour. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I'll never forget it.
Sorry for boring you with my extremely long post. I try to keep them smaller then they have been in the past, but this time there was so much to say about it. I hope you found it interesting. Unfortunately I have since relapsed in Leukaemia. Like before, treatment has been unbelievably tough, however, I have had my stem cell transplant and it seems to be working. I'm still having problems, for example I'm still recovering from shingles which I had last week. Shingles basically means constant agony, so if you know anyone who has had it, make sure to give them lots of respect for it. Things are looking up though, and we're hoping things will be more or less back to normal by the end of this year. Once more, sorry for boring you with the exceedingly long post. I hope you found that interesting and you never know, it is perfectly possible for any of you to go on the tour. It is an experience you'll never forget, I can assure you.
PS: Extra special thanks to Make a Wish. They are a truly fantastic charity and if you're ever looking for one to raise money for, you can't go wrong picking them
