We Let Our 7-Year-Old Plan Her Birthday Trip to Legoland California. Here’s the Hotel Trick We Discovered

Booking.com provided our family with Booking.com Wallet Credits to help pay for this trip. As always, all opinions are my own.

A couple of months ago, I received an interesting offer from Booking.com: They would give our family Booking.com Wallet Credits toward a getaway, but there was a catch. We needed to let our kids help plan the adventure.

I thought it was a great idea, especially since my daughter’s seventh birthday was rapidly approaching. So, I asked her where she wanted to go to celebrate. It took her about a nanosecond to answer: Legoland!

What I also learned in the process is that Booking.com isn’t just for booking hotels. You can also book other parts of your trip, including attractions and experiences, so for a getaway like this, you can book your hotel and buy Legoland California tickets in the same place. That made this particular challenge especially easy since my daughter could choose what she wanted to do and where she wanted to stay.

Fortunately for us, Legoland California is in Carlsbad, an easy drive from our home in Los Angeles, so it makes for a great, quick family getaway.

For those flying in, McClellan-Palomar Airport (CLD) is just a few miles from Legoland, although San Diego International Airport (SAN), about 35 miles away, offers far more flight options.

Legoland California says the theme park is designed primarily for families with children ages 2 to 12, which, based on our visits over the years, feels about right.

Where would a 7-year-old choose to stay?

My daughter’s first choice was one of the two Legoland hotels.

We’ve stayed at the Legoland Castle Hotel twice before, and if your kids love Lego, it’s hard to beat. The hotel carries the theme everywhere, with Knights & Dragons, Magic Wizard and Royal Princess rooms.

We’ve never stayed at the original Legoland Hotel, though, and to my delight, that was my daughter’s first choice. It offers several different Lego-themed rooms, including Pirate, Adventure, Lego Friends and NINJAGO.

One of the biggest advantages of both hotels, besides all of the Lego theming, is their location. They’re right at the entrance to the park (within 100 yards), which is huge when you’re traveling with young kids. When they’re tired at the end of the day, you don’t have far to go to take them home.

A full hot breakfast buffet is also included. Just keep in mind that breakfast can get busy, so give yourself some extra time.

Another valuable perk is early park access. Depending on Legoland’s operating hours that day, hotel guests can enter before the general public and ride a selection of attractions. The times and participating rides can change, so check Legoland’s website before your visit.

There was just one problem

When I went to make our reservation, both Legoland hotels were sold out, not just on Booking.com but on Legoland’s own website, too. Lesson learned: If you want to stay at one of the Legoland hotels on a summer weekend, don’t wait until the last minute.

My wife wasn’t exactly devastated. She loves Legoland and the themed hotels are an absolute must, at least once. But she also didn’t mind leaving the Lego world behind at the end of the day. When you stay at one of the resort’s themed hotels, the Lego experience doesn’t stop when you leave the park. It’s in the lobby, the hallways, your room and even the bathroom.

Fortunately, we had another option and it turned out to be a great one.

The best Legoland hotel secret may be outside the park

We ended up booking The Westin Carlsbad Resort & Spa, where we’d stayed once before, and we really enjoyed it. The Westin is just outside Legoland, but here’s the part some families may not realize: Hotel guests have access to a private entrance to Legoland and it’s very walkable (about 500 yards).

Instead of driving around to the main entrance, paying to park and joining everyone coming through the front gates, you can walk from the hotel and enter the park from the other side. On all of our visits, there was never a line when we entered.

The benefit became even more obvious when we checked out around 11 a.m. on Saturday and started to drive home. There was a crazy-long line of cars trying to get into the Legoland parking lot. Meanwhile there was no line for parking at the hotels on the backside. For a family visiting Legoland, that’s a pretty compelling reason to stay here.

A grown-up resort that our kids liked, too

The Westin feels much more like a traditional Southern California resort than an extension of a theme park, which my wife and I appreciated.

But our kids enjoyed it, too, even though we were there for only one night.

One of the nicest moments happened at check-in. When the front desk associate, Taryn, learned that it was my daughter’s birthday, she went out of her way to make her feel special and let her choose a local gourmet lollipop from the lobby shop. It was a small gesture but those are the things kids remember.

Other hotels near Legoland worth considering

There are several other hotels in this area worth knowing about. Hotel Solea, Autograph Collection is next to the Westin and is just a few minutes’ walk away. Another nearby option is The Cassara Carlsbad, Tapestry Collection by Hilton, which is also close to Legoland and is geared toward families.

If Legoland access isn’t your only priority and you’re looking for a higher-end resort experience, we’ve also stayed at both Park Hyatt Aviara Resort, Golf Club & Spa and Omni La Costa Resort & Spa and loved them. They’re much farther from the park (about a 10 minute drive), but they’re great choices if you’re turning your Legoland visit into a longer Carlsbad vacation.

Don’t overlook dinner next door

One of the other highlights of our overnight trip was dinner at Verise, the new Italian restaurant at Hotel Solea, just a few minutes’ walk from the Westin. The restaurant serves Italian food and has a beautiful setting. We visited on a hot summer evening and most people were dressed casually in shorts.

The restaurant sits between the hotel’s lobby and pool and opens onto a gorgeous olive garden that made us feel like we’d been transported back to Europe.

One of the highlights was the tableside focaccia ($12), which arrived warm with olive oil and balsamic, along with butter flavored with tomato and Calabrian chilis. It was delicious.

Our waiter, Josh, couldn’t have been friendlier, and there’s a kids menu, which obviously matters when you’re dining with a 7-year-old birthday girl and her soon-to-be 10-year-old big brother. Josh was very attentive to my son’s food allergies, sometimes double-, even triple-checking that menu items were safe for him to eat. That, of course, meant the world to me and my wife.

We also noticed they were doing a solid amount of takeout, which is worth remembering if you’ve spent the entire day at Legoland and your kids are too exhausted for a sit-down dinner.

Planning to visit the Legoland Water Park?

If you’re visiting during warmer weather, don’t forget about the Legoland Water Park. The important thing to know is that the Water Park is located inside the main Legoland theme park and requires a ticket that includes Water Park admission. It’s not included with a standard theme-park ticket, so check your ticket type beforehand.

If you’re buying your Legoland tickets through Booking.com, pay close attention to which ticket you’re purchasing, especially if you want to visit the Water Park.

A one-day hopper allows you to visit both parks on the same day, while eligible two-day tickets can give you more flexibility. Be sure to check the operating calendar, too, since Water Park dates and hours vary seasonally.

My best Water Park advice is to think about what everyone is wearing before you leave the hotel. My wife packs a backpack with swimsuits or a change of clothes, dry clothes for afterward and a wet bag for soaked bathing suits. She also has our kids wear water shoes so we’re not carrying multiple pairs of shoes around all day.

Just know that water shoes have to be removed for certain slides. Legoland also has restrictions on some swimwear with exposed zippers or buttons, so check the rules before you go.

Why letting the kids plan our trip worked

Booking.com’s idea for this trip came from its 2026 travel research. Among travelers who took a trip with immediate or extended family in 2025, 42% said their children’s preferences and interests significantly or completely influence where they go and what they do. I can attest to that from personal experiene!

Booking.com’s research also found that 82% of U.S. travelers rated “spending time together as a family” between 7 and 10 on a 10-point scale when asked what motivates their travel decisions.

For us, letting my daughter choose where we went made this getaway even more fun because she wasn’t just along for the ride. It was her trip, for her birthday and she knew it. Would my wife and I have independently decided to spend a summer weekend at Legoland? Nope. But when the birthday girl says that’s what she wants? You couldn’t keep us away.

Booking.com commissioned the research referenced above, which was independently conducted among 32,800 adults across 34 countries who had taken an overnight leisure trip in the previous 12 months and planned to travel in 2026. The survey was conducted in January 2026 and included 2,000 respondents in the United States.