If you're headed to LEGOLAND, it's entirely possible you've already heard of the LEGOLAND answer to Disney's pin trading: Minifig trading. The way it works is simple.
Every employee (Model Citizen in LEGOLAND-speak) wears a nametag with a LEGO minifig on it… and every model citizen will trade with you. See an awesome minifig you just HAVE TO HAVE on a ride attendant's nametag? Simply ask them to trade and boom! It's yours.
We brought 10 minifigs specifically for trading; here are some of the best swaps of the day: We turned random Chuck Norris0ish dude into Millhouse from The Simpsons: 
Office-worker slash pirate looking minifig turned into Batgirl! Freaking BATGIRL!
I then turned around and exchanged Batgirl for the DJ from The Lego Movie, and I especially love him because I have that same t-shirt.
Minifig trading is a really fun way to engage with the folks at LEGOLAND, and you can end up with some really great collection additions this way.
Here's a tip for minifig trading: Buy a lot of minifigs ahead of time, on eBay or Craigslist. And by a “lot” I don't mean “a lot,” I mean a grouping of them that are sold together… I paid about $11.00 for 10 mix and match minifig pieces, which we used for trading. We ended up with a few pretty crazy ones, like the world's friendliest Darth Vader:
But in exchange, we ended up with this awesome Master & Commander guy:
Max absolutely loved minifig trading, and we ended up with several really cool minifigs that we might not have gotten otherwise. Like I said, we brought 10 to trade, I wish we'd brought 20. We ran out of trade-able minifigs around 2pm, because we'd gotten so many we loved, so we had to stop trading earlier than we wanted to, which was a bummer, so if/when we go back, we'll bring MORE minifigs to trade.
I’m still convinced Minifig trading was one of the highlights of our trip to LEGOLAND. My son got some pretty sweet characters out of it, and he even gave up pretending to be shy before asking to trade. He would walk up to random model citizens and ask to see their minifigures. It was so much fun!
How did you carry around your minifigures? Since they aren’t pins to connect to a lanyard, I was wondering how other people did this? My only idea is a ziplock baggie for each kiddo.
Yeah, we just kept them in a pocket in my backpack, or Max carried them in a velcro-closeable pocket in his shorts.
You could probably make a lanyard type thing with a flat 6×8 plate though… similar to the name tags the Model Citizens (employees) wear.