Zach Gibbs gets his trip to LEGOLAND with lots of community support

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Eight-year-old entrepreneur and self-proclaimed big idea guy Zach Gibbs visited the BenitoLink office on Feb. 25 to tell the staff about his recent pilgrimage to LEGOLAND, a dream that he worked to make a reality by raising over $1,300 for his trip.

“I had like a 1% chance of going,” Gibbs said. “LEGOLAND was very cool and it was the best day of my life.”

The story begins with Gibbs asking his mother, Larissa Gibbs, how much it would cost him to finance a family trip to the Carlsbad, CA, amusement park. As recounted in a previous BenitoLink article, Zach did not find her calculation of the amount—around $2,240—daunting in the least. 

(Zach did not know that his family had already planned and paid for the trip as his birthday present.)

Zach started creating small craft pieces to sell for $1 apiece and earned more than $150 selling them at pop-ups that Larissa attended as a vendor. It was difficult for him: He has social anxiety, and even small crowds could send him hiding under the table.

BenitoLink interviewed Zach and Larissa for a feature article and following its publication—with friends of the Gibbs family blasting it out on social media—Larissa was swamped with inquiries as to when and where Zach would be selling again. The next event he attended, she said, was a smashing success. 

“Calavera Coffee reached out,” she said, “and they told me, ‘Hey, we want to help. Have him come do a pop-up and we’re going to waive our fee for him.’ We scheduled it for December 23, which is an awful time to do a craft event.” 

It did not seem to make a difference to the crowds of people who showed up just to buy Zach’s crafts.

“Before his pop-up started at 10 a.m.,” Larissa said, “he had people walking in the door already. At one point he had a line from his table to the door of people waiting to look at his stuff, telling us they saw the story.”

And the generosity was infectious. Within 15 minutes, Larissa said, two people bought a handful of Zach’s $1 crafts and paid with $100 bills, telling the young salesman to keep the change. Over the course of two hours, Zach earned more than $1,000.

“When he got the second $100 bill,” she said, “he told me, ‘Mom, you have to take a picture.’ You could see the change in his face when he realized, ‘Oh, this is big.’”

Finally: LEGOLAND!

Zach knew he was in good hands from the moment he walked into the LEGOLAND Castle Hotel, where they stayed in the Wizard Room, and saw a giant tub of LEGO pieces in the lobby. From there, it was just a short walk to the entrance of the park, which Zach and his family explored for two days.

The NEXT stop was a trip to Dino Valley, which features the Explorer River Quest and the Little Dino Trail. 

“There were a bunch of giant dinosaur heads,” Zach said.  They were animatronics and they moved side to side with, like, a motor in their necks.  They were super good together and there was lots of noise but I wasn’t scared.”

Another high point was a boat ride through MINILAND USA, which features LEGO versions of famous US cities.

“We saw New York and a miniature version of San Diego,” Zach said. “There was a lot of comedy on the boat. There was a bridge where underneath it looked like a waffle. The guide said, ‘What’s a waffle you drop in the sand? Sandy Eggo.’”

(I’ll give you a minute with that one…)

Zach’s favorite ride was Emmet’s Flying Adventure Ride, a “Triple Decker Flying Couch” that transports riders through scenes from The LEGO Movie. 

“You really fly,” Zach said. “It is the couch that Emmet builds in the movie.  He’s a construction worker, and he builds things. It’s flyable, and you have to wear seat belts and keep loose objects in the storage containers. You move fast, and it made me burp. I rode it three times.

The Pirate Reef offered the only real low point of the trip. Zach dislikes getting wet, which was unavoidable in a ride that offers dueling water cannons that kids can use to spray pretty much everything in sight.

“Everyone had a special water gun,” he said. “I asked them not to blast me but I really got soaked. It was not fun. I hated it. Zero stars for that one. When I got off, I just wanted to go home.”

Larissa said that after doing breathing exercises for a few minutes, Zach decided he would stay and went off to the submarine ride. 

“He was able to use techniques that he has learned had to deescalate himself,” she said. “Then his brother Mark started telling him about the submarine ride, saying, ‘Zach, you’re going to love this one. You can’t get wet in a submarine and you’re going to see the fish. It’s easy’”

With Mark successfully reigniting Zach’s enthusiasm, the trip proceeded as planned, with him “walking from park open to park closing” both days, according to Larissa.  Asked if LEGOLAND lived up to his dreams, Zach responded with a huge smile and an enthusiastic nod of the head.

Zach asked to come to the BenitoLink offices to do his post-trip interview. Accompanied by his mother, Larissa Gibbs, and older brother, Mark, he said there was another reason for him stopping by: he wanted BenitoLink to help him express his appreciation to the community that helped him fulfill his dream trip.

“I really need to say thank you to my customers,” he said. “I want to thank the community for their support.”

Zach has already decided on his next three destinations: another trip to LEGOLAND, the San Diego Zoo, Disneyland and a Disney Cruise. And he let BenitoLink in on a “secret plan” he had not shared with anyone yet: a trip to the San Diego Zoo.  Wherever he goes next, rest assured you will find a full report here.

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