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Focus: Legoland, Carlsbad, Calif.
Every Thursday morning, moms, grandparents, nannies, and other care-givers converge at Legoland California, along with kids ranging from infants through four years old, for a unique mothers’ morning-out program.
It’s called the “Model Moms Club,” but it offers more than just time for moms to build Legos, as the name might suggest. It’s a care-givers club that meets weekly for various activities.
“Every Thursday is a different activity. For example, one Thursday each month is the Stroller Striders fitness walk,” says Stacy Slingerland, a media relations representative at Legoland. “Stroller Striders is a fitness club in San Diego. The women who run the organization come to the park one Thursday a month, and everyone brings their babies in strollers. They do laps around the park and stop from time to time to do stretching and weight resistance training.”
Two Thursdays a month, kids and moms attend play groups. This is when everyone gets introduced to the latest Lego Explore products (Explore uses the oversized bricks that used to be marketed under the name Duplo), then take some time to play with them. “It’s a chance for care-givers to come together and allow their kids to play with the new Lego products,” Slingerland says.
On the fourth Thursday of every month, a specialist comes in to discuss a topic that is of interest to the care-givers. A recent chat focused on infant aquatics. In support of that topic, a visitor from the YMCA joined the group and discussed pools and swimming lessons.“We’ve also had chats about baby yoga and sibling rivalry, for example,” she says.
Legoland started the Model Moms Club in September 2002, with quite a turnout. “The day of the first Stroller Striders walk we anticipated maybe 30 or 50 people, and there were more than 200 who showed up,” Slingerland says.
Legoland also publishes a monthly electronic newsletter for club members. The newsletter keeps members informed about upcoming activities, and it includes a summary of the previous month’s specialist chat for those who missed it.
To join, care-givers must buy a membership for $41.95. It’s the same price the park charges for a one-day admission, and it gets the member into the park for a full year every Thursday. Kids age two and under are free, and kids age three and four can participate with the child’s annual pass, which costs $65.
“When you compare that to the price of some other child play groups, it’s quite a bit less,” Slingerland says. To sign up, care-givers must simply show a copy of the child’s birth certificate.
Initially, Legoland promoted the club through ads and news stories. It also started working with a nearby hospital, donating free one-day park passes to new mothers.
Now, with about 1,400 care-givers signed up, the park relies mostly on word of mouth, but it continues to work with the hospital, Slingerland says. “They provide a lot of the speakers we use for our specialist chats, whether it is someone on staff who lectures or someone they have used in the past that they think would be good.
“We started this as a way to offer an additional bonus to mothers whose children are maybe too young to enjoy the rides in the park . . . to give them a place where they could come and get together with other moms and enjoy the park and build a better child, as we say.
“It also allows the little ones a chance to experience the park and to let kids fall in love with it at a young age and hopefully come back and enjoy the rides when they get old enough.”
—Frank Elliott
© Copyright 2003 International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. All rights reserved under copyright. Use of any content contained herein prohibited without the expressed consent of the publisher.