Legoland nailed Halloween for kids. It was the budget-friendly trip my family needed.

I had visited Legoland New York with my family a year prior. We decided to go on a Friday when the kids had no school, and drove from Maine straight to New York to hit the park early. Turned out that New York state also had that day off, and the park was packed.

This time around, we decided to go on a Saturday to avoid school time off and hoped the crowds would be more manageable. It turned out to be true.

We arrived at around 10:30 a.m. (the park opens at 10) and walked straight in. Once inside, we opted to start from the bottom of the park and make our way up toward the exit, which allowed us to avoid crowds and ride every single ride the kids wanted to.

Since we had visited all three Legolands in the US, we chose to return to the New York park during their Halloween festivities for a new experience.

The park was fully decorated with Halloween-themed Lego items. There were giant pumpkin heads for a photo opportunity, the Miniland had been rearranged to include Lego figurines in costumes, and a game of finding how many ghosts were hiding in the Miniland (which my kids loved) was also available. Spooky music played wherever you went.

Throughout the park, you can also get Halloween-themed food items. We purchased a “Frightful Mini Figure Feast,” which cost $58 and came with eight chicken tenders, a generous serving of fries, and a zombie mini figure head for us to keep.

While Legoland caters to younger kids than other amusement parks, my kids still needed breaks from rides and the constant sensory stimulation that comes with being at the park.

For the Brick-or-Treat event, Legoland had building stations spread out for kids to take creative breaks and build with Lego bricks. We stopped at the pumpkin patch where kids (and adults!) built creative versions of pumpkins. We also stopped at the magical potion station, where my kids dropped their creations into a cauldron with those of others.

In addition to the Halloween decorations, the Legoland Brick-or-Treat event featured several trick-or-treating stations throughout the park. They are only open during the afternoon, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., so managing our kids’ expectations from early on required a lot of patience.

Once the stations opened, there were lines of people at each of them, but they moved fairly quickly. Each of my kids received a bag with allergy-friendly treats, and they were able to visit a couple more stations to collect extra candy. All the stations are located in the lower portion of the park, so we didn’t visit all of them since we were moving in the opposite direction to avoid the crowds.

If I were to visit the park again during Brick-or-Treat, I might plan our visit differently to maximize the amount of trick-or-treating we could do.

Being accustomed to other parks like Disney World or Universal Studios, I was surprised at how quickly the lines at Legoland moved during our visit. We were able to get on so many without having to stand in line at all.

The two rides that had the longest lines during our visit were the Lego Factory Adventure Ride (which can only be found in New York) and The Dragon (their biggest ride), both of which had wait times of 45 minutes.

You can purchase Reserve & Ride tickets in addition to your entrance ticket, which allows you to reserve a time to ride any attraction of interest without waiting in line. However, those cost $99 per person when purchased on the day, and I couldn’t justify the price for a family of five for just two rides. That said, Legoland tickets are pretty affordable — if you buy them in advance, they are $49, and at the door, they are $94.

As we entered the park, I grabbed a map so I could see where everything was. In the Brick-or-Treat weeks, the map also shows times when characters will be available for meet-and-greets. Once again, this happened in the afternoon and mostly at the bottom of the park, so we didn’t get to meet any of the thematic characters.

While I was bummed about it, more for the photo op than anything, my kids were more interested in the permanent figurines that are built with actual Lego bricks.

They also got to meet Lego master builders who were already building decorations for the park’s Christmas celebration, and that felt more special to them because they said they felt like they were in on a secret.

This visit was the first time we felt like we could all do the same things and enjoy them together. In the past, my twins would either be too short or too scared to ride certain rides, or my oldest would be bored sitting in the Duplo Express train.

That said, Legoland is geared toward younger kids than other parks, and I worry that my kids (at least my oldest) might have reached their quota of the park already.

I’m glad we made the drive from Maine to New York for one more trip of family fun.