Last week, in a moment of sheer madness and unprecedented lunacy, I shut down Munich airport, kidnapped the KLM ground crew and installed a team of Japanese sumo wrestlers in their place. The traveller strikes back.

Of course, it wasn't the real Munich airport, and the KLM ground crew were 3 inches tall and made of Lego (and, therefore, quite possibly, just as effective as the real thing). But it's the principal that counts, and I am sure that travellers everywhere will be applauding my stand against the travel industry's blatant exploitation of their punters. And, of course, if Lego Land want their ground crew back, and assuming that my son hasn't eaten them, I will be more than happy to post them back, in return for Lego's reassurance that no legal proceedings will be taken against me.

Quite how I had pitched up in Lego Land Denmark is a long, convoluted story which involves a game of cards, a night on a boat in Sweden and lots and lots of alcohol. I seem to remember being exceptionally drunk that night, but I couldn't have been as drunk as the person who came up with the idea of a Lego theme park. It's the work of a seriously disturbed mind.

Now, I have to be honest and say that I don't really like theme parks. I have, in my time, done quite a few: Disney Land (Tokyo and Paris), Europapark (Germany), a couple of dodgy ones in Holland, a Viking one in Norway and I have even been to Tokyo (but don't tell the Japanese it's a theme park or they will get upset). None of them really turn me on. I always feel there is something missing. Now, if I were to build a theme park things would be a little bit different:

Africa Land: it takes hours and hours to get in (after you have bribed half a dozen people to stamp a visa in your passport), when you do get in there is nothing to eat and then, at the end of the day, you are robbed and beaten senseless.

Lisbon Airport Land: You wait hours and hours and hours to get in before someone tells you that you are, in fact, in the wrong place. Once inside, after paying 10 times over the odds (as it is a weekend), there is nowhere to sit, nothing to do, everyone is rude, and then the park unexpectedly closes and you are forced to hitch home. Your bags are never seen again.

But can you imagine what the board meeting must have been like at Lego when they decided to open a theme park?

"Ok, so what we will do is make an exact miniature copy of the world but build it out of Lego."

"Yeah, that will work. I guess we will only need a zillion blocks."

And you thought your job was bad? Imagine the poor bastard who had to build all the things in the park: elephants, flamingos, railways, airports, ships; the list is endless. Can you imagine how dull that must have been? (Well, to be honest, after spending the last few years hanging around the world's airports I can almost begin to understand.)

I guess I am more than a little bit envious. Creating something as clever as an elephant out of Lego is way beyond me. In fact, after three hours experimentation with the box of Lego that I found under my Lego Land Hotel bed, all I was able to make was a Lego penis. OK, so you don't get very many nine-inch coloured cocks made from little plastic blocks, but the general form and shape was there, albeit a little square around the edges. I considered taking it home for the long-suffering GHG, or even my parents, but instead I decided to leave it in a strategic place in the park for the next BootsnAll reader to find. Happy hunting. Just for the record, my son, who is all of seven months, managed to assemble his legitimately bought (well, on company expenses anyway) farm truck in about 40 seconds flat (smart kid, just like his mum).

The Lego Land hotel itself is great. I mean, some might find that the Lego theme is a bit overdone, whilst others might feel that the absence of Lego porn on the in-house movie channel (imagine a Lego Little Bo Peep going at it hammer and tongs with her flock of Lego sheep) is a serious omission. However I loved the bright coloured corridors, the Lego signposts, the Lego dining tables, the Lego salt and pepper shakers and even the Lego ice buckets at the bar. Apart from grinding the blocks into a powder and leaving it around for people to snort, Lego Land seem to have all the Lego bases well covered.

Well, I did enjoy the hotel and its facilities for the first 10 minutes. Then I went Lego bonkers and needed a stiff drink to calm down. I asked for a scotch on the rocks and then quickly changed my mind in case even the ice was made of Lego. Sometimes you can just have too much of a good thing, and Lego Land was just too good for me.

About the Author
Philip has written close to 75 articles, guides and tales for BootsnAll. He is a regular contributor to several travel magazines. When not travelling he can be found at home in a quaint little village just west of Cambridge, UK, where he lives with his beautiful golden-haired girlfriend (GHG) and their first baby – the too-cute sprog (TCS). Philip's pet hates are KLM, Air Portugal and getting up at silly o'clock for meetings in Copenhagen. He promises to answer all correspondence except those asking the predictably dull question of, "How easy is it to get laid in Brazil?"

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