Ice Pilots School is a quintet of Kuka robot arms at Legoland Billund in Denmark.
From a ride perspective, this attraction is a brilliant fit since it allows you to make
the experience as mild or extreme as you’d like.
But beware this ride’s capacity!
Find out everything you need to know about this attraction in this review.
This attraction originally opened as Power Builder, but it was closed for 2020 and 2021
due to covid-19 restrictions since it was an indoor attraction.
It reopened for the 2022 season as Ice Pilots School.
The ride experience hasn’t changed, but the exterior of the building received some
ice effects to fit in with the adjacent polar area.
While the exterior of the building looks like a drab warehouse, the interior looks exciting.
You have 5 arms around a center stage.
And it’s downright mesmerizing watching the Kuka robot arms fling about.
This is accompanied by some multi-colored spotlights that make the whole ride very theatric.
The biggest downside with this attraction is its putrid throughput.
This ride has just 5 arms, each seating 2 riders.
Since each ride takes roughly 1 minute and it takes about a minute to load this attraction,
you’re looking at an hourly capacity of 300 riders maximum, which is awful for a park
as popular as Legoland Billund.
And in my recent visit, one of the arms was closed, further reducing the ride’s capacity.
It's also worth noting this ride is not part of the park’s paid skip-the-line system
either.
So the only way to avoid a long wait for this attraction is to head there first thing.
Fortunately, it is in the very back of the park, so if you go there first, you can get
a few rides with almost no wait.
Once you reach the end of the first part of the queue, you are given a card and sent to
a computer.
There, you program your ride experience.
You can select level 1 through 5.
With 1 being the tamest and 5 being the wildest.
Of course I picked 5.
Then you can select 3-4 maneuvers for your robot arm to perform.
This is different than the old Knights Tournament that used to exist at Legoland California
where you just selected the thrill level.
Ice Pilots School lets you customize the experience further with specific flips and stalls.
After designing your ride, you wait in a second part of the queue line leading to the ride
platform.
Once it’s your turn to ride, a staff member taps your card to your robot arm and you’re
secured by a snug over-the-shoulder harness.
Once the ride starts, it’s absolute mayhem if you picked level 5.
I swear I spent more time inverted than right-side up.
I got so much hangtime as the robot arm held me upside-down for seconds at a time.
My favorite maneuvers were when the arm would rapidly fling you forwards towards the ground
or head-over-heels.
You just had to watch out for a headbang or two from the abruptness.
The ride is roughly 1 minute in duration, but it’s an active and involved ride start-to-finish
on level 5.
Don’t expect much in terms of positive Gs or laterals, this ride is all about the hangtime
and disorienting motion.
While I didn’t try the other levels, I saw a few people on level 1 that didn’t flip
once.
It seems the low setting offers motion similar to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.
So what would I rate Ice Pilots School?
I would give this fun flat ride an 8 out of 10.
This is a unique ride that can offer a tame experience for young kids or a wild thrill
for adults.
I lost track how many times this ride inverted me on the highest setting.
It’s neat how you can customize your experience so no two rides are the same.
Just know this ride can get a miserably long line due to its throughput.
This is my favorite ride at Legoland Billund and I wouldn’t mind seeing this ride come
to more parks…hopefully smaller ones that can handle the capacity though.
So those are my thoughts on Ice Pilots School at Legoland Billund.
What are your thoughts on this ride?
Have you ridden this attraction or one of these robot arms elsewhere?
Let me know down in the comments.
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