As part of their Christmas present, we took two grandsons to Legoland Florida in Winter Haven last Saturday. It was a fun day, a long day, and a Lego-filled day.
The park was a little further away than I expected. We live about two hours northeast of Disney World, and Winter Haven is another half-hour south of those attractions. Traffic was heavy for a Saturday morning. I can’t imagine navigating these roads on a week day. We passed through all the slow-down stretches I hear on radio “stress-saver” traffic reports.
I had prepaid for my parking. I saved $3 off the $35 standard parking fee. That’s more than Disney. I could have upgraded to a closer, covered spot for another $20, but I passed on that.
I saved $5 per ticket by purchasing my tickets online in advance. There were some days I could have gotten tickets for as little as $74, but not for the day we could go. Ours cost $114 each, after the $5 discount.
I also paid $15 each for the two grandsons to get a package of three minifigures. It cost the same in the store. They could trade those mini-figures for others that any park employee was wearing on their name badge, or at a 200 figure trading board in the coffee shop. The boys made a few trades during the day. That was cool.
As expected, the park is filled with giant Lego structures. Some are made from standard bricks, while others were built with huge Lego pieces. The park offers many places where you can just sit and build with Legos of all kinds.
A phone app shows you a map of the property as well as wait times for all the rides. There are three what they call “pink-knuckle” roller coaster rides, two shooting type rides, and one virtual reality movie ride. We only did The Dragon roller coaster. The one hour wait time for the others was too long for this family.
Masters of Flight was a cool movie with moving seats which made it feel like a flying trip through all sorts of worlds. There was so much to see I could have ridden it two or three more times. The Grand Carousel is a double-decker carousel ride on Lego horses. The Wave Racers, Royal Joust, Beetle Bounce, and a small train ride were fun but geared towards younger children.
The Lost Kingdom Adventure is a light shooting ride. The Ninjago ride as similar, except you fire with arm motions rather than a handgun. Both were lots of fun.
We brought our lunch, drinks, and snacks with us. The food prices were steep. We passed on the $7 green swirl soft ice cream cone and $15 snow ice cream sundae. We did splurge on a $11 bucket of popcorn and $9 soft pretzel late in the day.
The park is cashless. My wife was behind someone in line at the popcorn stand who didn’t understand that. Rather than extending the wait, my wife simply paid for the woman’s popcorn, gaining the admiration of a gentleman behind her.
I enjoyed Miniland USA the best. Miniland is a collection of U.S. cities built entirely with Legos. Cities included Orlando, Tallahassee, New York City, Las Vegas, Tampa, Daytona Beach, and the Kennedy Space Center. Lots of Christmas decorations and figures had been added to all the locations. So creative!
The stores are filled with every Lego set imaginable, along with the usual shirts, hats, mugs, and other Lego-themed merchandise. The most expensive set I saw was the Titanic, over 9,000 pieces for about $650.
Overall it was a fun day, although my wife and I agreed that if you’re going to spend this kind of money, you might as well spend a little more and do a Disney attraction. Other attractions are just wannabes in comparison. The atmosphere of Legoland seemed more relaxed than Disney. Since there are fewer things to do, you’re not trying to pack too much into a single day at the park. That being said, you probably need two days to do everything in Legoland.
We had a great day, but I’m not sure we’d go again. In addition to the theme park, there is a water park open in the warmer weather and a Peppa Pig park for the under six crowd. Legoland is adding an aquarium attraction, too, which should be fun.
We also looked up lodging on property at the resort. Over $600 per night. A little pricey for Winter Haven, but they wouldn’t charge that if someone wasn’t willing to pay.
So there you have my impression of Legoland Florida. Check it out if you want something a little less busy than Disney and lots of chances to see, play with, and buy as much Lego as you want.
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