Getting a leg up on Lego Ninjago Days
COMMENTARY
There’s more than a pinch of ninja at Lego Ninjago Days, the new event at Legoland Florida theme park.
Ninjago Days, which runs on Saturdays and Sundays through Feb. 4, is tied to the Lego line with a presence on multiple platforms, including buildingblock sets, a TV show, film, video games and graphic novels. Ninjago: The Ride debuted at the Winter Haven attraction last January.
Now, Ninjago — say it with me, grownups: “ninJAAAAH-go,” not “ninjago” — is featured in temporary park activities. The physical nature of it all makes for karate-chophappy kids, but there’s also a nice Zen vibe working there.
It’s a good idea to scope out the timing for the Ninjago Days activities. Some last all day and are done at your own pace. Others, including the new 4-D movie and unique character meet-ups, have specific start times.
In the “Master of the 4th Dimension” film, I learned the word “ninjawesome.” The visual effects were sharp, the kind that make you swerve when a pointy object appears primed to jab you. They were wellcoordinated with the wet and windy effects, but some of the soapy ones were clumpy.
After the movie was over, many parkgoers dutifully waited outside for photo opportunities with the Master Wu character appearing as part of the event. (Lining up during the film showings may be an effective technique.)
Wu is also star of the Ninjago Days scavenger hunt. He’s hidden among the scenes of Miniland USA, the area devoted to re-creating American landmarks.
Miniland is very detailed, but Wu isn’t crazyhard to spot because his figure is flat and much larger than the others. It’s better to look high rather than low, but you can take it slow. There’s no time limit. You and yours also can work at your own pace during the group model build just outside the Imagination Zone. It represents good versus evil. Expect a bunch of ominously black bricks here.
Legoland dabbles in non-blocky, flesh-andblood martial arts with one show. It involves a troupe of six, including two drummers and four people demonstrating maneuvers to a beat. It’s a crowd-pleaser, one that mesmerizes kids. I wish I had a solution for the space crunch where it was held, just outside Ninjago World. There’s onground seating, but it backs up to a foot-traffic lane on one side and a dead-end smoking area on another.
Parents who arrive right as the show starts and expect for others to accommodate their sight lines get the stink eye from me, even at Legoland. But there was one Winter Haven miracle: Only one man put a kid on his shoulders while I was there. (Must be a firstborn.)
Nearby there’s a kidsonly “ninjoga” session, led, surprisingly, by the martialarts group. The younger set took this seriously, too, even when it got silly during the don’t-laugh-ever segment. It brought my heart rate down just by watching. Now that’s what I call ninjawesome.