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Last year there were 3 tours of 25 people. This year there are 4 tours of 30-35 (and they all sold out in 4 minutes!)
Ours has 34.
I think I'm going to empty the boxes and have loose inner bags in my luggage!
Do they still do the free shipping of a couple of boxes for you? I thought I read about it, probably on Dr Dave's blog.
I wonder how many groups of 2 missed out on the tour in the 4th minute? Was someone booked in the 35th place but unable to go?
On a separate note I wonder if gear such as T shirts are sold in the staff shop in adult sizes?
Luckily I found that my second bag (the gift Lego one) was so very large it had space in. Felt like I needed to pop back into the park to buy a couple of boxes of minifigs and a couple of mini land family sets. (So I did :-)
I am now at the airport and a bit sad that it's over, but I can say that the whole experience was brilliant, fascinating and worth every penny. There's plenty to it apart from the exclusive set.
As to numbers, I think the other tours will be 30, but there was a family on ours who'd won the VIP competition. It didn't feel cramped - they had extra helpers, more designers and split us into 2 groups for some of the tours.
And the organiser gave us some more details: it sold out in 4mins 37 secs. Not enough time for them to open the champagne to celebrate the start of the process!
Good work to birthday 'boy' @GoldJono on getting the Lego House set signed by everybody for FairyBricks.
Lee
1) Pay for excess baggage. (You will need it!)
2) If you can, Try to arrive early on the Tuesday, so you have time to get settled into to the Legoland Hotel, walk around the park at your leisure and try all the rides.
3) In the staff store, if you see something you like that you aren't 100% certain wether you have it or not, don't think about it just buy it! (Why oh why didn't I buy that polybag 30187-1: Fast Car)
4) When given pieces of paper, read the information very very carefully. ( I mean, how could I make exactly same mistake twice in 2 years?)
5) Take a rain coat.
6) The post office in Billund has limited opening hours 1300-1700 Monday to Friday, international postage is very expensive, they only take Danish krone or Danish cards (I had to run to the cash machine (autoteller) at 16:40), the pot office is located in SuperBrugsen in Billund (which is the supermarket next to the site of the lego house) and research the prices as there are some large increases in price at certain thresholds.
7) Don't reveal the set details online until all tours are complete. Same applies to the Lego group, it was an improvement over last year, here's hoping they will get it completely right next year.
8) Pack lightly for the tour, but remember to take a rain coat.
9) The Lego House set is not sold in the Legoland park.
10) The Lego House is sold in the Legoland Hotel although they sell out quite quickly, although it is restocked daily.
10) If you can, take up the option to stay the Friday night, last time I left on the Friday evening and being able to relax after the tour is so much better and well worth the extra cost which is small compared to the total cost of the tour.
10) Most importantly enjoy yourself.
11) Take full wet weather gear, I got caught in the rain at the middle of the park and my pants (for those in the UK read trousers) were soaked through.
General tips for those flying home from Billund airport. The Lego store there has 20% off Danish prices on all things and they stock some large lego exclusive sets. There are almost always have feature offers with 50% off Danish prices of select lego sets, when I was in Billund March, one of the feature sets was the current technic crane. The lego store at Billund airport does not stock the Lego House Set.
@leemcg did miss anything?
Assuming it was today, Happy Birthday!
Benny's spaceship was at legoland, not in staff store for instance.
Seems this thread has a very accurate description of what the tour is about. But even with this description, there are a lot of blanks that we won't be filling out, so other people that are on the other tours this year (or new tours next year), can be as surprised as I was, 3 days long.
If you've seen the movie "Charlie and the Choclate Factory", well, that's exactly what the tour is (from my point of view). Except for the fact that kids don't end up squeezed in some tube or turning purple :)
Unfortunately the 2014 Inside Tour set already leaked, somewhere on the Internet. I'm not going to tell you where you can find it. It only contains a description of what it is. No foto's.
I find this very unfortunate for the people that still need to visit the tour and that's what I also wrote in a comment.
"the only thing it demonstrates is the person who posted such information on another site is not trust worthy. I for one would not believe anything this individual says, I certainly wouldn't buy anything from them or trade with them"
I think that's a little harsh. You must remember, the only information about this set is the information released from Lego themselves. All this "untrustworthy" person has done is post it on their site. Its hardly fair to accuse them of not being believable when their source is Lego.
If Lego really wanted to keep this set secret, they wouldn't have made such information available. Its no one elses fault.
Besides what's been posted here, Huw provided great insight from last year's tour:
brickset.com/article/6692/review-lego-inside-tour-part-1
brickset.com/article/6699/review-lego-inside-tour-part-2
brickset.com/article/6710/review-lego-inside-tour-part-3
One other benefit that I just noticed with the tour was that I lost almost 2 kilos in weight over past week, there's a lot of walking on the tour, this is is in-spite of being fed like kings. Although I did go to the hotel gym, I also did a lot of additional walking, into Billund a few times and from the airport to the Legoland Hotel (20-25 minutes maybe). I got some great photos of a plane coming into land over my head. Perhaps this could be the thing that swings it when trying to convince your wife or partner of the value of the tour.
This tour was on my "bucket list" and for most people (including me I guess), this is a one time opportunity, so it's worth every penny.
@GoldJono , given the fact that you attended the tour twice now, would you consider attending it again next year? (or trying to attend :) )
Better yet, I would rather buy $1,500 in Lego sets and build all week sitting at home sipping beer.
But I still desperately want to go... :o)
I considered all the lovely tour activities, behind the scenes info and giveaways associated as a rather special bonus to a visit to the home of Lego.
One thing I would like to add to the information already provided is that there is a free of charge luggage weighing scale at Billund airport located near the check in desks. Very useful for seeing if all the extra stuff you will no doubt have bought/been given has tipped you over your baggage weight limit!
This is way out of my league either way but I am curious.
I was also on the first tour. As the others said, a wonderful experience!
I plan to post photos from the trip on Flickr, and that would necessarily contain spoilers, and I would certainly include a notice to that effect. Any objections to me doing that before the final tour?
On the other hand... they made a lot of money when we went to the employee store. =) The group of 35 participants collectively spent about $18,000 in an hour. Of course, that is with a major discount, but still impressive.
A note on the employee store discount: for US folks, it turns out to be a good deal for the larger sets and some of the series like Creator, but smaller items and series like Friends they were roughly the same price as the US retail price, if not more. Of course, for anyone from outside the US, it is a no-brainer... fill that box!
The cost is a big hurdle though, I'm looking at close $15K for a decent (3+ weeks) trip to Europe from Australia and then would need to add another $7500 for the tour & by the sounds of it a fair chunk of (Lego) spending money.
The only worrying thing is if the tour is currently selling out in 4.5 minutes, I could imagine that changes may occur. Hopefully just adding more tours & not a reduction in what you get to do on the tour.
Good thing that there is no tour in July. It sounds like July is very busy at the hotel and park, and would take away from the fun.
I can't quite match the Brickset names with the tour participants... can you PM the names to me if you know them? Thanks.