To celebrate Tim’s Big Birthday we went to Billund in Denmark for a weekend full of LEGO and had an amazing time! It’s a really lovely place to visit, very easy to get to and around, and truly does appeal to all ages.
We were in Billund in July 2023, so all my notes are based around my experiences at that time. Please do check any dates/opening times/locations etc. if you’re planning your own trip – things change! Links are to websites if I can find useful ones, or Google Maps locations if not, so you can see where they are. Please also note this post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!
Contents
Pictures, please
If you’d prefer just to look through my photos for now I’ve made a gallery of the photographs in this post here, but if you’d like to read my notes you can find them all below.
Top recommendations in Billund
You can read my notes on what we got up to below, but if you are short on time here are my top recommendations on what to do in Billund:
Top recommendations on a map
You can expand the section above to read about all these places, or keep reading below for my more detailed notes.
Full notes on my time in Billund: how we spent 2 days in the land of the bricks
Travelling to Billund
This trip was confined to a weekend so we flew to Billund from Stansted airport in the UK on the 07:05 Saturday morning flight, staying at the Hampton by Hilton* on the Friday night so we could just grab the included breakfast and walk to departures at 5am. Nice and easy.
The flight was delayed due to something vital that controls the air conditioning and engine(!) being missing, but other than a hot and slow start it was all very smooth and we were in Billund by 10:30ish.
At this point things went slightly awry as for some reason we hadn’t properly looked into how to get into the town. It’s actually easy, we just got a bit panicked because we’d booked to go to the LEGO House at 11am and were worried we wouldn’t make it. We missed the free shuttle bus, the paid local buses weren’t going to Billund for some reason at that time so we ended up getting a taxi, which wasn’t cheap. Plus we didn’t really need to worry about our time slot, though it might be different on busier days.
Your options are:
Free shuttle bus: this appeared to be fairly frequent, though I can’t find times online. It’s clearly labeled so you can easily find it outside arrivals/departures and I believe it stops at all the main places.
Paid local bus: pay by cash onboard or buy tickets from the machine just inside the airport (accepts cards). Check with the driver that it goes where you want it to – despite Google Maps telling us a particular bus was going to the town centre, when the bus arrived the driver announced to the waiting queue that it was NOT going to Billund or LEGOLAND.
Taxi: there were plenty of taxis waiting when we were there so we grabbed one. It cost about 170DKK to get to the LEGO House.
Walk: it’s a 50 minute walk to the town centre or 30 minutes to LEGOLAND along a main (but with a pavement and not massively busy) road between fields.
Day 1: LEGO House
The LEGO House was the main reason for our trip to Billund and it more than lived up to our expectations.
An amazing building designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, you can access the shop, restaurants, entrance area and most of the terraces and top roof without a ticket. In fact you have to access the top roof from the outside (I had to Google that).
To have the full experience you buy timed entry tickets to the ‘Experience Zones’. It wasn’t super busy when we went so I think any time after our chosen time (11am) would have been fine. You can scan yourself in and out throughout the day with your wristbands so you can come and go as you please.
We booked online in advance from their website so when we arrived we scanned our tickets at the machines and it printed out a wristband for each of us. The wristbands are excellent as we slowly discovered throughout our trip.
First we left our travel bags in lockers (signposted ‘wardrobe’), which are locked using the wristbands so no extra cost, which was great! I did take a daypack round with me with my cameras and things in.
Then we entered the main part of the House to explore! We scanned ourselves through the entry gates and started with the history of the LEGO Company down in the basement, which was fascinating. The displays are positioned so adults and children can have a good view of everything, too.
From there we worked our way through the different zones, marvelling at the huge tree towering through the middle of the entire building, intricate models and incredible recreations of objects in LEGO.
There are different activities to do in each area, such as stop motion setups for you to make your own short movie with the provided scenery, mini figures and vehicles; vast containers of LEGO pieces to build cars to race on tracks, make little buildings to add to a townscape or a character to be digitised and dance around with others on the wall.
The wristbands really come into their own here, too. When you do an activity you scan your wristband and take a photo of your creation or save your short film, so as you travel through the building you can access your images and then download them when you get home.
For lunch we had booked a table at Mini Chef, one of the restaurants on the ground floor of LEGO House. You definitely do need to book, as although it didn’t look that busy we did see people who hadn’t booked being told they’d have to wait 2.5 hours.
I’m so glad we did, it was brilliant! You’re given a little pack of LEGO bricks, each one representing different food choices that are described on the menu. You choose the ones you’d like to eat and make a little construction, put that into a drawer where it’s scanned and turned into your order, which is sent through to the kitchen. You can order drinks through the screen on the table too. It’s all very clearly explained on the menu and there are plenty of helpful staff to assist if you need it, too.
We had the most gorgeous bread and butter while we waited and before long an animation played on the screen and we went to collect them, delivered in giant LEGO brick-shaped boxes coming down a spiral track and being pushed towards us by robots – fun! You even get to keep the little pack of bricks.
The food was super tasty and the portions very generous, too! I had a tomato and mozzarella salad, naan bread with a lovely dip, baked salmon with cheese and nuts and roasted new potatoes with pesto. Absolutely delicious!
Full of food we set off to carry on with the fun. We’ve both built sets following instructions but neither of us thought we’d be any good at building things from our own imaginations. We started with things like the bees and cars as there were loose parameters to work within, but when challenged to make ‘anything’ we both surprised ourselves by managing to come up with something. It is admittedly much easier when you have access to unlimited pieces but it was great to have the opportunity to think differently and be challenged creatively.
As you leave the experience zones there’s a display telling you that if you have 6 standard (2×4) LEGO bricks there are 915,104,765 combinations of build you can make with them. Behind you a machine is making red 2×4 bricks and you can pick up a 6 pack as a souvenir. Scan your wristband in the computers opposite and a card is printed with your own unique combination.
We ended our trip by scaling the outdoor steps to explore the terraces and the roof of this incredible building (you have to access the roof from outside, something that I had to Google). Some terraces are accessible only from inside the ‘experience zones’ but lots are open to all and most have places to sit or play with playground equipment for children.
Of course we had to visit the gift shop before we left and as well as an incredible array of all the LEGO you can possibly dream of there are some exclusive items you can only buy in that shop, including a LEGO Architecture model of the LEGO House itself, which we bought because it is very cool. Tim also got a giant pirate figure from his youth.
What a brilliant day! Having a day to be challenged creatively and just simply play did us both the world of good!
We headed to our room for the night, right in the town centre, which was definitely a good decision.
It was a lovely evening and we were still quite full from our Mini Chef lunch, so we went to Coop SuperBrugsen to buy picnic food: fancy open sandwiches, a small tapas pack and a punnet of cherries. We enjoyed them at a picnic bench in Skulpturpark Billund, the sculpture park, in the evening light.
Afterwards we headed back to town and spent the rest of the evening at Billund Gastropub, a relaxed bar right by the LEGO House with a good selection of drinks, where we sat outside surrounded by plants and enjoyed tasty beers.
On the walk back we were absolutely delighted to stumble upon a footbridge with a slide on it! I’d read that this self-proclaimed Capital of Children featured quirky street design such as this and it did not disappoint.
Day 2: LEGOLAND
First on the agenda for Sunday was breakfast and of course we had to have Danish pastries so we headed to the Billund Bakery and Café. It’s a really lovely bakery/deli/café filled with tasty looking things. We ordered kanelstang, a pillowy, sticky cinnamon delight and nearly ended up with 2 gigantic ones as opposed to 2 slices. Thankfully they realised that probably wasn’t what we meant and we took just half a massive kanelstang, which was still large but manageable! We picked up some juice from the ABC Lavpris and went to sit by the river near the LEGO House to enjoy our breakfast – absolutely delicious!
We had another look at the footbridge slide and a bounce on the trampolines in the floor across it, then collected our bags and checked out of our room. Our plan for today was LEGOLAND! We walked there from the town via the sculpture trail along the river. A really lovely walk with interesting sculptures and gorgeous scenery.
We’d booked our tickets in advance so we scanned our them and headed in. Lockers were available near the entrance (this time for an extra fee) so we left our larger bags there and headed off to have fun!
Some years ago we went to LEGOLAND Windsor, in the UK, and although we had a good time it was definitely aimed mostly at children and young families. LEGOLAND Billund felt like it had much more range, with rides and attractions for all ages.
We started with a gentle Mini Boat ride looking at landmarks made from LEGO, braved the Vikings River Splash (we were so lucky not to get totally drenched like others in the raft with us!) and then Polar X-plorer with was a really excellent rollercoaster with genuinely surprising moments.
X-treme Racers was great too, LEGOTOP was lovely to see the park from above and Miniland was amazing with incredible scenes depicted in LEGO.
We had delicious ice creams – seemingly magical soft serve that didn’t seem to melt as quickly as others, plus mine had a sold chocolate LEGO brick on top!
We continued exploring and ended the day on Ice Pilots School which is a very clever ride consisting of a large mechanical arm holding 2 seats, where you use a computer to select how you’d like to be moved about by the arm, so you can go as gently or as extreme as you like. We selected quite a few whizzes and upside down moves and it was great – super smooth but great fun!
At around 17:30 we collected our bags and set off for the airport.
Leaving Billund
We walked to the airport from LEGOLAND, which takes about half an hour, along the main (but quiet) road, with fields either side. There are buses and taxis though, as I’ve mentioned at the top.
If you’re claiming tax back for purchases you need to get a stamp from customs before going through security (we did not realise this until after we’d been through and had to loop back round), then you can enjoy the pleasant airport complete with LEGO Store of course. We ate at Sunset Boulevard and I think it’s probably the best fast food burger I’ve ever had – super delicious béarnaise burger with fries and free refills on fizzy drinks.
We then spent a long time hanging around, sitting on floors and staring hopelessly at screens as our flight was delayed due to that same part being missing as before.
Questions I had that you might have too
What’s the currency and do I need cash?
Danish Krone (DKK) and if you have a credit/debit card with good conversion rates you can easily get by without cash. We used cards the whole weekend with no problem at all.
What’s the difference between LEGO House and LEGOLAND?
In the simplest terms LEGO House is more for playing with LEGO and LEGOLAND is where the rides are. Of course both are much more than that, but that’s really the key differences.
LEGOLAND is the original LEGO theme park. There are places to build with LEGO too, and of course plenty of LEGO creations and Miniland to look at.
LEGO House is an architectural wonder in the centre of town, filled with ‘creative zones’ encouraging you to get creative with limitless LEGO, with a museum and gallery areas too.
Is there somewhere to leave bags and things at the LEGO House?
Yes! There are lots of lockers near the toilets on the ground floor, signposted ‘Wardrobe’. These are locked using your entry wristband so they are included in the ticket price.
How do you access the roof of the LEGO House?
From outside – climb the yellow or blue steps and work your way up to the top. You can’t access the roof at the very top from inside.
Can you re-enter LEGO House?
Yes – you can use your wristband to scan yourself out and back in again as much as you like on the day(s) it is valid.
Is there plenty for people without children to do at the LEGO House?
Absolutely! I wasn’t sure how much adults without children would be able to get involved in but everyone’s encouraged to get involved with everything!
Can you take your own food in to LEGO House?
Yes – there’s an indoor picnic area for eating your own food and there’s loads of nice seating outside, too.
Is there somewhere to leave bags and things in LEGOLAND?
Yes – there are lockers near the entrance for an extra cost.
We had an absolutely brilliant time in Billund! We loved playing at the LEGO House, relaxing in the town and being whizzed around on rides at LEGOLAND. It was perfect for us and I imagine it would be a fantastic place for families, with Lalandia* nearby too.
If you’d like to have a look through my photos without all the notes I’ve made a gallery of the photographs in this post here.
Notes on Travel is a blog by photographer Jayne Lloyd, noting the things I found useful to know when I was visiting Billund in Denmark for a weekend of LEGO. I’ve tried to be accurate but please do check for up-to-date information before going as things are always changing! I apologise for any mistakes, please do let me know if you have more recent info.
* This post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!