LEGOLAND Florida is a Bad Value
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2024
- In the late 90s, I went to one of Florida's oldest tourist attractions, Cypress Gardens, which at the time was just the botanical gardens. However, it was briefly converted into an amusement park in the mid-2000s and was bought by Merlin Entertainments, transforming the park into LEGOLAND Florida and re-opening in 2011. Since that point, I've been curious to go and experience the park but haven't had the chance. Well, finally that time has come and the park is... not great. For entertainment that caters to really young kids, the value just isn't there for them and the park suffers from severe capacity and operational issues, yet has the audacity to charge Orlando theme park prices. So today, we take a look at the park, discussing what I like and pointing out the flaws, which may just outweigh the positives, especially for the price.
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I always wanted to go to Legoland growing up. The more I learn about it now, I have no desire to visit, despite still enjoying legos from time to time.
I actually went with some friends for my birthday as a preteen and I enjoyed it. I hear that other LEGOLAND locations could have more attractions though
It’s way better if you have little kids.
Legoland California is way better
Lego is still an awesome product. I have way more sets than I have space for and still tons that I want to buy.
I used to go to the CA one pretty often as a kid since I lived nearby. It's awesome if you like miniature dioramas and stuff. But it's VERY child focused for the rest of the park. Then again last time I went was when the first wave of bionacles came out. That or the 2nd wave (they had a scavenger hunt around the park to get a neon green translucent mask for the toys)
They used to have a Star Wars section in the miniland area. It had scaled versions of Star Wars movie scenes, as well as lifesized lego builds of Darth Vader and R2-D2. They also used to have a Lego Star Wars themed store with Rey and Chewbacca. The agreement to use the IP ended when Galaxy's Edge opened, and Star Wars was removed from Legoland.
They also removed it at Legoland California. I used to go to that park a lot as a child, and I was very disappointed when it was removed on my visit back in 2021. I was no longer a child anymore, so I wasn't THAT disappointed since I would never visit the park ever again. But it used to be my favorite part of the miniland area.
And it sucked even more since the big death star model only lasted 4 years there, since I saw an article that said they removed them in early 2020. The death star model was installed in 2016, so I wonder if they destroyed it or moved it into some random warehouse. if it still exists, Disney should have kept it at their lego store in Downtown Disney
I had seen video of the old models, but yeah, it's disappointing that it's all gone. The Rey and Chewie builds are still in the park though, right outside of the main store.
@@PoseidonEntertainment The Chewbacca and Rey builds should’ve been moved to the Disney Springs LEGO store!
@@carminecdinoproductions They already have exact copies there though.
I remember these from Legoland Windsor in the UK in the late 2000s
Kind of amusing to see the Lego Chima section re-themed into the Lego Movie. Lego thought Chima would be the next big thing and would replace Ninjago, so they were a little over-ambitious in making it a whole section of the park. Too bad that theme fell apart. Glad to see it while it was there back in 2013
I remember seeing that giant, floating mountain in a splash zone back when I went as a kid. It was a great concept, truly too bad it never took off
It's like Galidor😂
and ninjago is STILL going to this day. overcome adversity i suppose
The other reply kinda beat me to it - you'd really think they'd have learned from Galidor. Replacing the recognizable "iconic" lego looks with awkward mix-and-match generic looking characters didn't work the first time, it's actually kind of mind boggling that they'd give it another shot AFTER seeing so much success from all the classic-themed IPs
There's one thing I noticed. The Lego people sometimes look like the Lego figures and sometimes look like stylized sculptures. I guess that's ok as long as it's consistent in each area. If I were designing everything I'd go for a "what if u shrank to Lego size whooaaa" kind of vibe and keep it consistent throughout the park. Or maybe in the last section of the park pull a "what of Legos were our size whooaaa" and actually have the stylized human sculptures there.
That’s a huge nitpick I have with the theming of this park. I honestly don’t like the stylized human sculptures, they look incredibly dated.
Yeah, they seem to mix in both with seemingly no reason behind the discrepancies. I guess I don't like the park enough to really care, but it's a bit strange.
I've noticed this at Legoland California, too. It seems similar to the problem with Disney using a preexisting IP instead of creating something new. It appears to have started with the Land of Adventure. Since then, they have increasingly been creating “life-size legos” instead of original sculptures (which are impressive). Since then, they have added the Lego movie, Ninjago, and Chima… All with this same life-size Lego problem. Even more recently, they have replaced the Lego sculptures at the driving school with fiberglass lego figures. The charm or the lego hotdogs and signals are now replaced with cheap statues. It's incredibly unfortunate as this was the park I grew up in and to see the quality go down is just sad. I do believe there are redeeming qualitys but I'm not sure how long they will last.
I like the giant minifigures.
"I'm not paying that much for Legoland 4!"
I couldn't stop thinking of RCT with the title lol
@@PoseidonEntertainmentJunior Coaster 2 looks too intense for me
"I already have a Lego set from Lego Stall 375"
"Why visit such a basic amusement park when you can go to Disney, Universal or Sea World?"
Fun Spot seems to be doing well. But the reason for that is because they have a unique draw - in particular, their hours. Universal closes very early, Fun Spot stays open late, so some people end up jumping over to Fun Spot after Universal closes. It's also in really close proximity to universal so it's convenient to do so.
It also helps that the Orlando location is just right across the street from Universal instead of an hour away. I can see Fun Spot making a nice profit if they put in some good coasters, especially an RMC.
@@PoseidonEntertainment
Well, it's right across the street if I-4 counts as "the street". But it's still within walking distance if you don't mind having to walk alongside some major arterials.
As for some good coasters, Fun Spot is unfortunately landlocked. They recently turned their overflow lot into more park space but they're very limited overall. Also, RMC White Lightning might sound good but it would also result in the removal of one of the last three wooden coasters in Florida, and the one that's managed to actually hold up the best in Central Florida's hostile weather at that.
However the one in Georgia has one of the most elite coasters in country almost as good as fury 325
@@PoseidonEntertainmentRMC's are trash...
Fun Spot's always just been a solid place to stop on I-Drive (or in Kissimmee) if you're just roaming around or a local. Free parking, free admission, pay by ride, arcade, whatever. Their business model definitely works for their location and offerings. I actually thought legoland was much cheaper than this, maybe I'm remembering introductory prices from years ago. $32 for parking is absolutely egregious, even if they were in a prime location - which they aren't
I haven't been there in over five years as my kids have grown out of it. The annual pass used to be a great value because it included Sea Life, Madame Tussauds, and the Orlando Eye. And they would run BOGO specials on passes throughout the year. I'm disappointed to see how much the prices have increased and how much they took away.
That aside, my kids loved going there. The staff was very accommodating and helpful. They would ride with kids if they didn't have a parent to go on with them. I hope at least that didn't change.
Ah maybe things got worse after the pandemic? It seems that most parks declined pretty drastically since that point.
Kids were just allowed to roam the park unsupervised?
@@liamdude5722 No. There were times when both kids wanted to ride a ride that required an adult to ride with them, but only one adult was available. So a team member would ride with one child.
@@craigcavaliere6744this warmed my cold heart that sounds so helpful and kind of them. Also they get to ride a ride so thats cool
The main problem with Legoland is that there’s nothing really for adults. Even the legoland discovery centers in malls suffer from this (heck they won’t even let you in if you don’t have a kid). There should be more attractions geared towards older people.
I've been to Legoland three times on vacation and we have never paid admission price to get in. The secret is buying the Orlando City pass. Always get to 3 day unlimited one for like 230 bucks. This past also includes the aquarium, wax museum, giant wheel, gatorland, WonderWorks and even a magic dinner show. We pack as much as we can in in the first two days and we have always made the last day our Legoland day and then we come back for the dinner show. If you look at it that way it's basically free to get in. We did the math last year. We spent a combined $500 on the passes with tax. The total value of the attractions that we did was over $1200. It's an incredible value if you use it right. Kind of like the unlimited dining at SeaWorld
I never thought to look into that, but it does seem like a good deal. I've been wanting to go on the wheel again and I haven't been to Wonderworks, so it might make a lot of sense.
@@PoseidonEntertainment yes it is a really good deal. I was wrong it is called the go City pass. There is a good magic show in the basement of WonderWorks that has unlimited beer and wine Plus really good unlimited pizza. It is included with the pass and we usually do it twice per trip. You can also get a free burger at the a&w in Old Town next to fun spot. It's actually a really good burger and I look forward to it every year lol. There is a lot included so you just have to read the fine print
Just got back from the park, and I agree with everything you said. The problem is the park is good, not great, and it COULD and SHOULD be great, because Legos are awesome! The layout of the park is bizarre with too many dead ends, and while we went on weekdays so the crowds were low, I could not have waited more than 15 minutes for any of the rides, much less with my toddler in tow. The water park was low on rides and the layout was also wonky. Why put a family restroom in the middle of the park and not at the entrance? We had to walk all the way there in our street clothes, change our toddler in the family bathroom, then walk all the way to the front again to put the bags in lockers. And they don’t rent towels…? Really. But there were positives as well. I love the theming, especially in our pirate hotel room. The employees were all super nice and helpful. And the food was generally good - I was pleasantly surprised. I guess all that matters is my almost 2 year old had the greatest time of her life, so it was worth it.
Fingers crossed that one day you’ll visit Dollywood in Tennessee someday. I personally think it’s one of the coziest theme parks despite its many thrill rides, thanks to the theming.
However, I’d love to hear your ideas on how it could be improved, especially when it comes to dark rides
"However, I’d love to hear your ideas on how it could be improved, especially when it comes to dark rides"
What dark rides?
No, seriously. Aside from Blazing Fury which is a hybrid dark ride/coaster, I'm pretty sure Dollywood doesn't _have_ dark rides. And honestly, it'd be kinda hard to put any in considering the park is situated in the middle of an Appalachian valley, between two very steep ridges and with a third splitting the park down the middle (The one that Wild Eagle is built on top of), and the ride would most likely have to literally be dug INTO bedrock.
@@VestedUTuber Couldn't they just...put it in a building?
@@VestedUTuber I agree that Blazing Fury is the only true dark ride in the park, but Mystery Mine has some dark ride elements.
I think Tennessee Tornado is ripe for being replaced, especially with so many other, better coasters in the park. And the county fair area could also be rethemed with a dark ride. This is all hypothetical anyway XD
Still, I’d just want an excuse to hear Poseidon talk about his impressions of the park
@@quietchap I'm trying to go this summer, but I'm trying to find the time
@@VestedUTuber USH built Forbidden Journey right off the side off of a mountain, so it's definitely possible. I'm not sure if Dollywood would feel the need to spend that kind of money though.
The battle of Bricksburg use to be so much cooler. It used to be Chima themed before it was redesigned. I really don’t know anything about Chima but what I do know is that the ride felt way cooler before the redesign
Why did thery make a whole ride based on a Lego Line that only lasted 3 years onpurose and one that even lego fans did not like much not much in foward thinking there.
@@Acidonia150reborn chima ride? mid...
mixels ride? now they would actually be cooking.
in all seriousness those would both not be good 😂 but lego's many attempts to one up their own titan ninjago through the years are funny.
Im guess the fact the Chima line wasn't all that successful for LEGO had to do with the ride's reband.
Cant blame them, the higher ups at LEGO really thought this would be as big as of hit as Ninjago was, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20
I was actually confused because I forgot about Chima and thought that the land had been rethemed from Ninjago, so I didn't understand why a separate Ninjago land was still there.
@@Acidonia150reborn They thought Chima was going to be the next Ninjago. They dropped the ball pretty hard on that, though. They introduced a massive world in a short timeframe, built the plot around a betrayal that isn't really earned or built up, the main villain is the victim of mind control (good old mind control - for whenever you need to contrive interpersonal drama and don't want to actually write your villain).
They introduced this giant world that they really couldn't explore fully within a reasonable timeframe and a gigantic main and side cast.
It also released at a pretty notable time - 2013. This was the year that Ninjago concluded its main storyline with the (apparent) demise of the Overlord. This gave off the impression that Chima was supposed to be a full replacement of Ninjago - which was likely the intention, but it was far too soon.
Quoting some guy named mrfang2 I found on a forum post while researching opinions on the topic,
"Add together too many characters to actually care about starting out, botched morals, pissing off multiple potential fan groups by releasing at a bad time, repetitive builds with garish gimmick-overdosed “fire and ice” add ons later, and you get legends of chima. A series whose good ideas were constantly buried under strange missteps and a combination of all the major problems LEGO themes face at once."
Plus, they built an entire world around what's basically a drug. There's an entire episode in the show where the main cast goes on a legit drug trip.
The series died when Nexo Knights essentially took its spot, before itself being cancelled 2 years later.
Not the worst bout of overconfidence I've seen in a product, but it's definitely up there.
You would think that once Disney did it, every major IP theme park with an international draw would design their rides to accommodate adults and kids. I was surprised to learn that the new Mario Kart ride at Universal Hollywood can’t handle larger-sized guests. My brother is 6’4”, big boned, and a huge, huge Nintendo fan. I asked him if he was interested in joining us to visit Nintendo land and he said he didn’t think he could ride the ride. That seems to be a bizarre oversight to still be making.
A majority of rides a Legoland accommodate adults, although they are kid oriented rides. Still fun if you're a Lego fan.
As an Ex Legoland California ride op, it disappoints me to see how poor the operations are at our sister park. Even during the busiest times in the summer, we always strived to get the line moving as fast as possible. Our goal being get the wait time to nothing. Wish the other park had the same enthusiasm
The comments are full of people sharing stories about how poorly they were treated there, so it's not surprising that the ops leave a lot to be desired.
Took my daughter to Calfironia Legoland last year and we almost never waited in a line for more then 5 minutes, it was incredible after going to Disneyland the year prior and barely getting to do anything but wait in lines all day every day. My daughter loved it so much she basically only ever wants to go to Legoland now for any future vacation. I suspect at some point she'll grow out of it as its definitely aimed more at younger kids (she's 6 now) but I agree that its disapointing to hear other legolands aren't given the same experience, cause for her age range it was perfect and sooo much more enjoyable for all of us then disney for a fraction of the price.
Don't worry, not everyone has a bad experience. Remember, in customer service, complaints are ten times louder than compliments.
I was just there last summer with my wife and kids plus my wife's sister and her family. We all had a great time. Even with my kids about aging out of the target demographic they still had a lot of fun showing everything to their younger cousins.
Every staff interaction we had was positive. I even got to chat with the older lady at the front gate and found out that some of the staff from the original park were still around.
In the Fun Town Pizza & Pasta Buffet the selection was a little slim but the staff was happy to take requests. I asked for a black olive and mushroom pizza and they actually brought it out to our table. (Seating is a little light in there, could use a bigger place like in California). I ended up eating the whole thing as everyone else didn't like either the olives or mushrooms.
The Ferrari Build & Race is the only thing we stopped at both days we were there. The kids spent a solid hour in there each time. The ramps with the cameras replaying successful and failed jumps was a huge reason they stayed so long.
On the Pirate River Quest we had a really funny boat pilot. Older guy, but has a lot of fun making the kids laugh.
Even after 4 days at Disney World we spent 2 days at Legoland and had a great time. Probably helped that it wasn't super busy. Our longest wait for anything was maybe 20 minutes.
Just remember, respect the property & treat the staff well and you'll likely have a better time.
I'm going to miss those Apple Fries 🍟
My Aunt always wanted to take my son to Legoland. They went when he was 7 or 8. He said he felt way too old to be there, he was bored, and didn’t care for it. I think Legoland needs to expand their target demographic.
This. I visited Legoland California when I was 10 and my whole family felt like it was way too targeted at very young children. There was not enough for the family to do together. It really limits their market reach.
Oh man. I grew up going to Cypress Gardens frequently as a kid, and worked there when it became Legoland. It's a DAMN shame they didn't choose to go the water park route during the 00's as I think that actually could've saved them. None of the locals had much interest in the Adventure Park, as it was simply too hot most of the time for a rather basic theme park, and it certainly didn't draw in tourists. But once the water park opened, we- and many others- went ALL the time as a fun way to cool off. Unfortunately I think that was built far too late to save them, as I remember it closed not long after.
The lack of upkeep for the gardens themselves also depresses me quite a lot. It used to be so beautiful, but it's clear Merlin Entertainment simply does not care about it. I wish there was some way to properly section it off from the rest of the park and build a separate entrance (which would be difficult due to the park's layout). I think if they maintained the gardens and even put a little cafe up front, it would do great in a place like Winter Haven. Especially with all the retired people that live there, haha.
Also, although I haven't visited them personally, I constantly heard that the other Legolands were superior to the one in FL. It seemed like this was because those parks were built by the Lego Company themselves- however, the parks were sold to Merlin in the 00's when Lego was on the verge of bankruptcy. Merlin chose the cheap route and bought a preexisting local theme park which was never anything big, gave it a new coat of paint, and charged higher prices for the Lego theming. I think we had annual passes for the first year and stopped going after that. I was actually there on opening day.
...And then years after that, I worked there a few summers after school. You mentioned the lack of care from the employees- not surprised. We were treated terribly on all sides as well as vastly underpaid. Higher ups loved to blame the lack of profit on us rather than the park itself, made us stand outside in the sun for hours on end, we had angry customers yelling at us for the low quality of the park versus what they paid (and they were correct!). It was an absolutely miserable experience all around. I remember working 12 hour shifts during holidays. We were only allowed two 30 minute breaks the whole time.
Oh, also, you were "lucky" and it doesn't seem like it rained any of the days you went. You know how Florida summers are with rain- rain would actually shut down most of the attractions in the park, which lead to even more angry tourists as there already aren't too many attractions to begin with. Imagine being an underpaid teenager in that kind of environment, it was brutal. The other employees were usually older people only barely scraping by. I hated it.
I think it's easy to conclude that Merlin is just awful. I don't know if I've ever heard a good thing about them, whether from working for them, or being on the guest side of things.
What's wild is I guarantee the adult market for LEGO is noticeably larger. While it makes sense for it to *mostly* cater towards young children, that doesn't mean it has to be what I can only describe as adult-exclusionary, especially when parents have to pay a higher entry fee. They need to either utilize their own wide market, open up to a wider audience and try to capture some Universal and Disney guest cross-over (especially with the properties they have access to. The LEGO games parody the movies super well, they could probably parody the Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Marvel rides - maybe with similar properties unutilized in the region to avoid copyright and direct competition) OR they need to alter their pricing model.
The issue is that the high-spending adult market is more recent than the park. I think they realized that the architecture sets sold well, which is what got me back in Lego, and have discovered that there's a huge market for display pieces. A good handful of higher capacity family attractions could really do a lot for this park. There's no reason to open something like Pirate River Quest just over a year ago and still not have any significant capacity built in.
A Lego Haunted Mansion would go hard, and some more indoor walkthrough displays and attractions would serve them really well, like Miniland World with international cities, a timeline of sets, maybe to do some stuff off of Florida history (to fit with Cypress Gardens.) Even some indoor Museum type stuff could go over well; add some kinetic displays like they have in science museums - add a robotics lab to the Industrial section. Or - hear me out - "The Great Lego Movie Ride." Just sayin'
Under no circumstances is the adult market larger than the child market it in LEGO.
@@jamal202z2 you'd be VERY surprised.
I said the exact same thing and got my a$$ chewed and called a manchild bc the words got put into my mouth that Lego should cater to their adult fanbase. The adult fanbase is not new. The company knows this and has only recently cashed-in on it. The brand ITSELF hires "master builders" and who are those people? Adult Lego fans.
We took my 6 yr old nephew to Legoland last year. Personally I really enjoyed the boat/ski show. He really liked the build your own mini figure. The wait time for the newest pirates ride was at 80 mins and never dropped. Parking was expensive and they were SO SLOW.
Great video as always!
Little fun fact about the old triple hurricane roller coaster, back when cypress gardens was park. I was lucky enough to be a part of coasting for kids. W said for every thousand dollars we raised we'd spend an hour on a rollercoaster. Cypress Gardens was the only park that said sure you could do it here. We ended up raising a little over 3000 dollars and rode the ride 85 times.
Also congrats on the success! Great to see you succeed!
Thanks but success for what?
@@PoseidonEntertainment on your channel man!
I think a really interesting part of Legoland is how they cater to school groups. There's a building in Duplo Valley and Heartlake City dedicated to hosting school groups and even spots in the Imagination Zone where coding classes are taught.
I also think you should've touched on the Imagination Zone with it's ways for kids to learn certain physics and interact with lego in new ways.
Overall Legoland is a little bit of an educational park i think
Imagination Zone didn't seem to be open when I was there. Perhaps I was wrong, but I didn't get the impression that it was open to anyone, even when I walked directly by it.
That's always been a part of Legoland, I went to Legoland Billund with my class when we were participating in the First Lego League to learn about robotics and renewable energy. The best part was probably that after the class was over we just got to spend the rest of the day in the park and since it was a weekday there were basically no queues.
best value is the Merlin Gold pass that gets you free parking, entrance to all the Legolands and Lego Discovery centers, and the water park, that you missed in this video. For about $150 you can visit multiple days and parks, which we used in 3 cities in the US so it was a fantastic value (and 10% off in the store) We would stop here for a day and then go on to Universal for a few days, or go here on rainy days vs spending a day at Universal.
I didn't look into it, but that does seem like a much better deal. Still, I'm not going to go out of my way to get to any of those places though.
I went to this park for my birthday and as a big fan of lego, it was really fun! I don't regret it at all and I had such a great time with my family. It was definitely one of my favorite and most memorable birthdays. The builds at the park are very impressive and theres a lot to see. Yet I totally agree with you, as an adult myself going for my 18th bday, I really noticed how much this park was specifically aimed at younger kids, I often felt like I was too old for a lot of what was offered. Even for teens I would say this is an issue. I also had to endure a huge wait for the dragon ride, it was especially overwhelming because of all the children screaming around me... despite this though, I loved my experience there. I did stay at the legoland hotel and I will say that the staff was super kind. The hotel also offered daily building demos where we would get to follow an expert in building a small creation which we'd get to keep afterwards, it was a really neat little thing. The hotel had great food at the pirate themed restaurant and the themed rooms were very charming. My brother and I also got very into the minifigure trading aspect of the park. Overall, I'm really glad I was able to visit, I'd only really recommend this place to kids or huge lego nerds like myself but I found it to be a great time ^_^
Legoland Florida doesn’t look too bad for a family regional theme park, it’s like Knott’s Berry Farm, but the adult ticket prices aren’t worth it, it’s a rip-off! I would just go to county or state fair with lower admission costs and more stuff for adults to do like cookouts and horse riding and some carnival stuff with my friends!
Fun fact - the BIG Shop is actually not counted as a Lego store for the purposes of gift cards.
It's a charming little place. As someone who's a fan of Legos, there's still at least a little value in visiting it for me, even if I can certainly acknowledge that I've certainly outgrown its offerings. I wouldn't say no if someone offered to take me, but, thing is, I'd still rather go... virtually anywhere else.
It's not a bad place, but I kind of wish that they'd put a bit more effort into things.
Slightly different take for me. My kids are 8 & 4 and they LOVE Lego land. Main reason, NO LINES!! They were able to ride everything multiple times with a max wait time of about 10 min. I do agree, that anything older than 10, might not enjoy it as much.
I worked for Merlin for many years (not in Florida). If it is the same company as when I was with them staff aren't treated very well or appreciated. Staff morale is low.
I've only heard bad things, both externally and here in the comments. People really hate working for Merlin
Near me home we have a Lego Discovery Center about $25 a person for 2 rides (Kingdom Quest-basic shooter dark ride and Merlin's Flight pedal bike), a 4D theater, a Pirate Play Area, numerous build areas, and some walkthroughs. Most of the times we have gone there it was busy, most rides would still take about 10 minutes due to very slow loading. We went over Spring Break and couldn't do the rides the lines were close to 45 minutes each. We did the majority of the building and walked past Kingdom Quest to still see some of the same people in line. Oh, and the line was going back into the previous walkthrough attraction. My daughter just turned ten and has pretty much outgrown that location, but still loves building with Legos. Most of the time we just find a build spot and build for about 30 minutes. The saddest thing is that they have a build your own minifigs area in the store, with less options and a higher price point than the Lego store in the mall about 1 mile away.
Yeah, Merlin just isn't great lol. I've heard that the Legoland parks were much better when it was actual Lego that owned them.
I went to Legoland last October with my BF. The big draw for us was the waterpark. We got there at like 10 in the morning, only to find that the waterpark was closed FOR THE DAY because there was a CHANCE that it might rain at 3. Mind you, this is in FLORIDA, where at any moment during the day, you can get about 1 minute of the hardest rain ever and it be gone the next.
As someone who worked for Merlin Entertainments during the construction of and opening year of Legoland New York, they have NO idea what they are doing. Construction was a mess, opening way a mess, delay after delay. So many issues, so little rides, and really high prices!! Man do I have so many stories to share,
No one in the comments has yet to say anything positive about the company
@@PoseidonEntertainmentI worked security and I will say they did listen to us for our ideas to keep the park safe (shockingly) but everywhere else (including ride safety) they cut corners. We had some really bad guest accidents, some near fatal and even one employee accident who fell in a live water ride. Then worst of the worst we legit had a person who commited sex offenses work as a security advisor... For a CHILDREN'S THEME PARK!! He was caught at his last job putting cameras in the locker rooms, and another Security manager was discharged from the NYPD after a missconduct investigation that was deemed "inconclusive" We were always so understaffed they would make us do things in our lunches and then still not pay us the 30 minutes. The NY park is built on a massive hill and they would make you walk from the employee parking to the top. We had a lot of employees with disabilities and they made them walk too!! Until someone sued or threatened to sue and they had to get vans but then they got rid of the vans and had crappy golf carts.
As a kid it was so bad. I remember so many people cutting in line and have zero memory of ever enjoying anything from that park.
It was a terrible and boring experience.
Line cutting was a huge issue during spring break. That also contributed to why the lines were long.
As a Danish guy, from the country where Lego is based and invented in, Its really weird that Legolands in other countries are so heavily based on just the youngest demographics.
For context the original Legoland, Legoland Billund, is located here, and it is quite different from most other Legolands, including Florida's. Denmarks Legoland is also a resort in its own right, with 2 hotels, the Legoland Hotel and the Castle hotel, as well as the Holiday village down the road. But Legoland Billund only has Legoland Billund when it comes to theme parks. No peppa pig theme park. And if you want a waterpark, the Lalandia resort exists just across the road from Legoland with a large indoor waterpark. And the 2 basically compliment one another rather than compete. I believe they might have an agreement as to not compete on exact same experiences, since that would dillute the market and possibly cause both to become economically unviable.
Legoland Billund does however have LEGO house, which is basically an interactive museum and playcenter made around Lego.
But regardless Legoland in Denmark is also MUCH cheaper than in Florida, despite being older and larger. Legoland Billund has an upfront admission fee of 72 dollars fixed, but it can be as low as 47 dollars if booked online in advance. As well as 2 day tickets for 100 dollars at the gate or 72 dollars online. Or a Legoland+LEGO house combo ticket for 90 dollars. Oh and parking is 10 dollars.
Legoland Billund doesnt have a Friends themed area, we have Brick street as the entrance leading directly into Miniland. Miniland at Billund was the very original idea behind Legoland. A model village made entirely out of Lego bricks. Along with some more fantastical twists. Model villages were very popular in Denmark at the time and many still exists to this day. The Miniland area also features some of the parks oldest attractons, including a train loop, and a few oldschool family rides like the Safari jeep cars, a family boat ride you steer yourself through gardens, and some froghoppers, along with this parks Driving school.
Beyond miniland exists a DUBLO land and a Ninjago ride at the back and its all flanked by the Legoland hotel with Sealife and a Nintendo playcentre on the left.
The rest of the park goes right with Legoredo, a Wild west area with gold mining, roasting bread on an open fire, a log flume, and a family coaster named Flying Eagle that is unique to Legoland Billund. Legoredo also used to have a unique western darkride called the Minetrain, which was removed around a decade ago to make way for GHOST: Haunted house. Essentially a funhouse and mirrormaze combined with a froghopper in the dark, all given a light horror theme.
Beyond that is Pirate land with a splash battle, a riverrapids with an elevatorlift and a steep drop and a pirate themed boat darkride that is very cute.
After that is Knights Kingdom with the Dragon coaster. In this case the Original Dragon coaster, which is a Mack powered coaster. It features the same general show scenes but after the encounter with Merlin and the dragon, you instead launch out of the building into a series of helixes.
After that it is adventureland with a spinning waterwhip ride, a shooting darkride called "Temple" basically our version of the Lost Kingdom adventure ride. After that is the iconic and classic Firefighter ride and the Xtreme Racer roller coaster. A Mack Wild mouse.
Behind it is Lego Movie world. Very similar to Floridas except with some different flatrides, including one of those Gerstlauer flatrides where you can control how much you spin and potentially go upside down. We have the same flying theatre though ours is called "Emmetts flying adventure".
And last in the very back is Polarland, with ice theming, penguin exhibits, Robotic arm rides, and the parks most thrilling roller coaster. "Polar-X-plorer". A Zierer coaster similar in style to Verbolten, and featuring a drop track.
It is admittedly a long while since Ive been to Legoland Billund but they also get big crowds and probably needs more high capacity attractions. But Legoland Billund is very much focused on a broader audience and is a bit more in line with other theme parks in Denmark. And while Polar-X-plorer isnt huge, its still notable amongst lego parks. But they could admittedly use a little more in that thrill-ish department. Legoland Germany recently added a small wing coaster with inversions, and Legoland Billund could probably use something similar if they find the room for it. That or arguably even perhaps a wooden coaster around the 50-60ft height. Similar to something like Wickerman, White Lightning, or the many Gravity Group family woodies.
Don't forget the LEGO brick shaped fries, that was like one of the best parts of the park as a kid.
Awesome video, as always! I work at Legoland California and have gotten to meet a lot of staff from our sister location in Florida! But this video really highlighted some stuff that I didn't know about the park, like the history with Cypress Gardens (and I'm REALLY jealous of those Miniland awnings).
No clue why but the editing, music, and narration in this video all remind me vividly of “living with the land” Love it!
Imagine watching this video while riding Living with the Land
I do wish LegoLand would get a bit more "extreme" per say, and became more family-oriented as opposed to just child-based. Lego as an IP has MASSIVE recognition and appeal, I'd say as much if not even more so than Disney. I think if Lego took a more Lego-House approach to LegoLand, it would become a lot more successful. Have things people of all ages can appreciate, adults included.
I agree. I still think they're fine as a kid centered park if they just addressed capacity, but I want to see more high quality family attractions added.
The biggest thing for me was that a lot of the lego displays really suffered from being out in the sun all of the time. Some of them really needed to be taken apart and cleaned, and some chipped or faded bricks should have been replaced.
My family used to vacation with my grandparents every year in Florida and my 11th birthday present (2011) was to go to Legoland Florida and I was super excited to go. Roughly last minute my dad researched a bit more and realized that I was probably out of the age range for it and instead got a killer deal on Universal tickets.
I was still a little too timid to go on Hulk or Dragons, but the 3 days we did across the two parks were paramount to starting me down the path to my theme park obsession. Forbidden Journey and Spider-Man were mindblowing to me and still are to this day, and getting to experience a lot of the original UniStudios attractions before they closed by the time I got back in 2014 is something I cherish.
Needless to say, I’m glad my dad picked Universal despite promising something else initially. The only thing I knew was there was Harry Potter and maybe Jurassic Park, but I was just blown away. I want to get out to a Legoland eventually, but it’ll probably be when I have a kid of my own, because wherever there’s a Legoland there’s a ton of attractions I’d rather do instead.
as a huge fan of lego ninjago specifically, going to legoland is really only worth it when they're doing their limited time events. their ninjago days events are absolutely magical to me, even as an adult fan, and those are the only days i find it worth it to travel all the way down. as for any other day at the park its not really all that and it feels very empty compared to the events, which is quite unfortunate. its like legoland is solely relying on its seasonal events to draw people in and provide a majority of its entertainment.
I wasn't aware that they were doing events, but I agree, it sounds fun.
@@PoseidonEntertainment it’s kinda funny, the events are usually scheduled exclusively for the weekends. if you went during the middle of the week you would never even know anything was happening
I used to work at a different location and the turnaround on staff was crazy. People would work there for 2 weeks before quitting mainly due to workload and *other* issues. I have a lot to say after working there and I would not work there again.
Our biggest complaint was indeed the ride times, especially so on peak days during summer break, but rides would constantly be down, especially new rides. One of them even broke down on opening day and didn't reopen for the rest of the day. I wasn't a part of the rides and attractions team but I heard a lot of horror stories from them.
Not surprising. I haven't ever heard a good thing about Merlin
@@PoseidonEntertainment I wish they would do better as their parks have so much potential, and for kids, it's probably their first theme park experience in some cases, but unfortunately, I feel like it's always profit over experience. Since I left, they've almost raised the price of entry by nearly $10 but haven't added much in return. It's honestly kind of sad to see.
Our kids loved Legoland in Carlsbad (California) when they were younger. Legoland had a special $15 "home school day" price, offered a few weekdays during their off season. It a fun park for younger kids, but we never would have visited without this significantly discounted price.
I really appreciate how much you want to give things a fair shot. Absolutely love your videos hearing about stuff I used to experience as a kid.
I remember going there sometime after it opened as Legoland. I do have some fond memories like the driving lesson "ride" and receiving my own drivers license.
Once again want to say that I love your channel. New videos from you are a pretty much instant-watch. I actually visited Legoland that same March, but thankfully I somehow managed to dodge MOST of the crowds you mentioned, as the waits I experienced seemed to be in the middle of your two visits. Nevertheless, my thoughts on the park largely ended up in the same place as your own
I felt that the week I went was probably abnormally busy. I went on a Thursday, the park closed at 6, so I figured it wouldn't be busy, but it was crazy.
We went to that legoland twice, one in 2015 and again in 2018, second time we stayed at the hotel. My kids were small but we had a blast. Not sure if things have changed that much but we enjoyed the lego sculptures and all the rides. The horsey heartland one is very novel and fun to ride over and over. At the hotel, the pool with floating Legos was definitely where we spent most of the time.
This is a place to use your creativity and imagination, it seems that many people have lost that nowadays.
I will say it was pricey but definitely worth it imo.
Your video is helping me get through a sick day... Thanks for all you do!
Honestly, I know the theme was "this park isn't worth it", but I was impressed by how much MORE there is no than when I went. We went to Legoland Cali in 2007 or so, and Legoland Florida in 2011, and both times had perfectly nice times as a family... but the florida one in particular was a lot emptier and smaller back then. They've really added a lot.
youtube didnt notify me that you've uploaded but im very happy you did! this video was great as always :D
ok, hear me out on why I LOVE Legoland Florida. I have taken my kids now not quite 15, to Legoland Florida every year between ages 6-12. We originally went for just a day after a wedding in Orlando. They were little and wedding are boring for kids so as a treat we went as a little add on. We stayed in the Legoland hotel and have at some point stayed in every type themed room in the original hotel except friends themed, we stayed one time at the beach resort across the way(our least favorite by far) and we stayed once right as pandemic was lifted slightly in the pirate hotel. What originally was a treat for twin 6 year old boys ended up becoming our go to vacation for several years. We’d stay up to a week each time and have amazing memories from the times there.
Now, let me explain why I personally think we enjoyed it so very much (keep in mind I personally LOVE Disney world, Universal, and Kennedy space center, but I won’t throw a single penny at seaworld with those orcas in captivity)
I was traveling with twin boys with sensory processing issues who loved legos as much as I do as their Mom. As Floridians we bought annual passes even though only going for a week which gave us discounts on the hotels and worked out to save us money in the long run. They would not and still won’t ride coasters at all, and it took years for them to even get on a dark ride at all. We never waited more than 15 minutes for anything that I can remember and often walked onto or close to walked onto most things. The crowd levels were amazing and there was something just awesome about walking literally next door from hotel to the park. It was worth its weight in gold when as a single parent traveling with littles to be able to so easily go back and forth throughout the day without getting on a bus, boat, or other transportation.
As Lego fanatics we all loved the builds, and I loved the mature and beautiful remnants of the cypress gardens landscaping. We would go to the water park and rent a cabana for the day at least once during the week, and sometimes would just swim in the pool, go to the big Lego store and buy something to build in the hotel room later in the evening. It makes for a very chill and truly relaxing theme park vacation vibe compared to others.
The hotels are themed to the max and have a separate little nook with bunk beds, a building table, and a second tv for the kiddos-which made the room feel roomier than most and the theming was super cute and we all loved it.
A second big benefit for me as a parent was not worrying about finding meals that super picky eaters would enjoy. At the Legoland buffett there is a huge variety of food that ensure adults appetites, and picky kids appetites are easily satisfied at the same meal together.
The water ski show was amazing when they did it dressed as Lego mini figs, but it didn’t return after the pandemic. I actually asked about it as it was so cute- but they said water skiing in those huge costumes was simply getting too dangerous. I can understand that-but it was super fun.
We always had a great time, and as a parent I could relax and we could all have fun even though it was definitely not a high adrenaline type of trip in the slightest.
Since the pandemic, we have traveled to Kennedy space center to see a launch and we LOVED KSC! It’s fun educational and in a cool area.
The last two years we have gone to Disney world. I’ll never forget one of my kids the first time in magic kingdom with the waves of people and lines etc asking me “do you think this is fun?”. They still don’t ride coasters or really much at all and are good sports about it because they know I love Disney. The truth is that if we had a dog sitter we’d probably still go to Legoland here and there. We can bring our dog to Disney (for a price) and not to Legoland … I don’t know. I guess for the right audience and personality types who aren’t really looking for big thrill rides this park is amazing. Being able to go to the water park and live it up in a cabana was fun and as Lego fanatics we loved it.
It’s fair to say it caters to younger kids, but also to less adventurous, and was a really fun trip for us for years.
I definitely agree that if you are older and a thrill ride enthusiast, perhaps this isn’t your park. (That banyan tree though is worth seeing at least once- it’s just magical. )
Having recently taken my kids to Legoland Deutschland (Germany) during the off-season on weekdays to experience a "quiet park". We found the experience much the same as you described for the Florida property, it's clearly something that's a part of the "soul" of these parks.
Your Florida park feels like a copy & paste experience to ours. The staff at the Germany park are mostly rude, slow, the rides break down often, the queue times are beyond obscene, there's very little shade in the park. Even with our visit being during the off-season, the park was absurdly full of people. The turn-around time at the rides is appallingly slow, often with several minutes of the cars just sitting at the station and nothing happening, and many of the queues are just boring unthemed switch-back lines. At least in Florida they have shade!
We'll never return, and certainly never go to any other Legoland park as there is something sick with their business model. I don't recommend anyone waste their money on these parks, and I don't understand how Lego wants to trash their brand by being attached to this.
At the German park, The Dragon ride is probably also one of the better rides there - after the dark ride portion it actually drops down suddenly before starting the lift hill. Many of the other ideas for the rides are basically the same as your experience. The splash ride is probably the best ride in the park, but doesn't justify the expense.
Your description of the Ninjago The Ride experience is totally true - the same ride exists at the German park too, and operates like a poor version of the spiderman ride at Disney Studios in France - it's just chaos and noise.
The German park has the fire rescue ride on a larger scale, themed as some sort of Egyptian thing. The theming in Florida makes more sense, as it didn't make sense to be putting out a fire in that theme at the German park!
I feel like they had a conceptual idea to make parks based on lego, but beyond that they didn't really come up with any unique theming ideas beyond things built out of lego or lego characters and existing lego sub-brands, so everything feels very forced and not very well thought through. There's no enhancement to the branding or theming, and it feels like a giant cash grab.
They also have a "Sea Life" park in a nearby town in Germany, with a mini aquarium inside the Legoland park, so I suppose Merlin is duplicating the model around the world.
Amusingly, in Germany they've also rapidly converted a part of their carpark into a Peppa Pig park, which already has terrible reviews since recently opening.
Thanks for your video :)
What a great video (as always!). Thank you for the time and effort.
I'm not going to lie if I was in the park, I would definitely imagine taking my girlfriend who loves Legos throughout the Cypress Gardens area and enjoying the nature around it.
However it is unfortunate that so many attractions are focused exclusively for kids and not for "everyone" in the family.
Yeah and I'm not going to knock them on that, but you can't have rides for kids with 60 minute waits. Something is deeply wrong when that's the case.
@@PoseidonEntertainment I can imagine though that the price tag might be too high for a simple walk around garden that would be the main highlight for us two.
Honestly, this sounds much like how the original Billund location operates. The actual park is mostly meant for families with younger kids, but adds value for older family members by tacking on add-on admission to the neighboring Lalandia indoor waterpark as part of its resort packages. It's a bit too expensive for my liking these days, but a pretty solid holiday for families, who want something more chill than the big thrill ride parks. That's actually the charm of the Legoland park, which keeps people coming back, I think. It's not a park, which demands you plan your entire day around it - you can go in for an afternoon with the kids, then go back to your cabin/hotel room and eat or grill a chill meal - but that's built on the expectation that the crowds aren't huge.
And it seems like they built this park to Danish crowd numbers, which are significantly smaller overall. Hell, a lot of the rides shown here, I recognize from my own childhood visits to the Billund parks nearly 20 years ago! The Dragon, The X-treme coaster, the "singing founfain", the water attraction at 23:22, the firetrucks, and the 'driving school' are all exactly the same as the ones found in the original Danish park. They weren't built to handle capacity, they were built to entertain the 1,7 million people, tops, who visit the Danish park year-on-year. That's peanuts compared to the numbers even the dinkier American parks sees, nevermind Disneyland or Universal. Little wonder the rides aren't up to US crowd standards, when they were built for an insular Danish market in the early 00s.
There's definitely room for improvement and a need to adapt to their location/unexpected level of success, but I also think it's kind of cute that I can recognize Danish park design so clearly in a park so far away. Legoland Billund, Sommerland Sjælland, Djurs Sommerland, Bakken, Tivoli, and BonBon-Land all share a lot of these characteristics - open to nature, small square-footage, much more centered around families having a picnic in-between rides than packing the place full of expensive rides, smaller ride budgets overall with a stronger emphasis on theming to make up for it - basically, going for a hyggelig time, rather than trying to be some kind of frontrunner competing on who can have the greater value. I see why Legoland purchased this park - the botanical garden is such a perfect compliment to the "relaxing hygge-day with the family" approach they're used to from back home.
It's clearly not your cup of tea, but families absolutely eat this up. Even if it's expensive, even if it gets a bit boring for the adults, it's a family-holiday destination, which lets you sit and breathe, while the kids run off to ride something. No Disney Genie, no fast-passes, no planning around mealtime reservations, no stress, no bullshit. Just you, a box of apple-fritters, and a sick Lego recreation of Florida locations to admire. Simple, easy, functional.
I see your point, but the park opened under Merlin. Don't they not follow this kind of model either? It seems that they copy and pasted those attractions over a re-skinned park without taking into consideration the kind of crowds they would generate. With the hotels, Peppa Pig park and now the aquarium, they're definitely trying to pack the park with the Orlando market
@@PoseidonEntertainment Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you. I was just saying all this looked super familiar to me, and that the park being more popular than you or the owners expected isn't surprising to me. Legoland brings in a certain crowd, who's often looking for something that a more thrill-intensive park doesn't provide.
I agree that the owners cheaped out. You're 100% correct that copypasting large parts of an existing park created for a much, much smaller crowd of people onto an American park isn't a very good idea, and that the rides have wait time issues. If Legoland Billund is crowded, I remember the wait on some of the rides I mentioned being about 20-50 minutes on average, which wasn't ideal. Even less so, as I grew older, and some of the rides simply weren't an option anymore due to age restrictions. Had Merlin been smart, they'd have R&D'd these 20+ year old rides to combat that known issue with the park they were copying, but if they weren't expecting huge crowds, maybe they just didn't think it was necessary at the time? I'm a casual park fan, so you probably have a better idea of that than I do. Definitely a huge flaw that they need to straighten out, if they care about guest experience going forward. Especially, if they want to attract more people to the park. Three hotels and plans to expand their offerings suggests they do, so, yeah, time to start investing and adapting this park to suit its own audience's needs.
TLDR; Your criticism is valid, I mostly just wanted to point out that I found things very familiar from back home, that the root of their park design issues might stem from a foreign market's much smaller demands, and that there's definitely an audience for this sort of park out there, who'd prefer it to a more flashy park like Legoland's bigger Floridian competition. I don't disagree with you on Legoland's design flaws. It's present in the original park, too, to a less critical extent. They mostly fixed it by partnering up with Lalandia over here. Maybe the Florida park will copy that, too? lol
Billund does have a lot more rides that cater to a broader age demographic, plus just generally higher quality theming.
I love LEGOLAND Florida and grew up with LEGOLAND California, so I'm disappointed to hear about some of these negative developments as of recent.
I am a huge fan of "The Dragon" as it was one of my favorite coasters as a child; definitely agree regarding Vekoma's strengths there. Lost Kingdom Adventure is great as well.
Coastersaurus in FL is strong, especially compared to the CA counterpart. Miniland is awesome (I love Bok Tower Gardens)!
Pirate River Quest is a nice attraction as well.
Thanks for the detailed analysis as always, Poseidon!
That was really fun to watch! It is disappointing to hear that the operational part of this park struggles to do well with high capacity. And yeah, Legoland has some good rides if you know where to look for them.
Frankly, I haven’t been to Legoland California in over 6-7 years, but I had a ton of fun being there. I find it interesting how most attractions from California are present in Florida with some unique rides in there (the wooden coaster, the lake pirate ride, the Florida specific models from Miniland, and the cypress gardens).
I went to the original one in Denmark in 2018 and it was on a whole different level then the other ones. Great video as always and I like seeing some legoland videos.
It's kinda disappointing since I'd expect more from LEGO but maybe it'll improve over time.
Thanks for the tour! Having only gone to the Carlsbad park, there are a lot of the same attractions at this one too. But since this was built on the foundation of Cypress Gardens, it may warrant a visit at a decent price, which is below it's cost.
Never thought the park was great for the rides, but it allowed me to see my kids react to things at their scale. Lots of great memories on low capacity weekdays. With the lack of crowds we could walk on attractions and give the kids longer leashes. We invested in annual passes one year and dropped into the park in different seasons. Bric O Treat was a perhaps the best seasonally overlay, but nothing on the level of Disney or Knotts.
Other than Miniland - Legoland seems to miss an opportunity engage older Lego enthusiasts. Like a Lego Build Vacation.
Funny how just yesterday I was thinking, "I know it's more for young kids, but surely it would be worth checking out at least once as someone who appreciates Lego sets and creations." Good timing to help me be better informed!
I have been to this park 3 times once in the mid 80s when it was just Cypress Gardens, the gardens were immaculate at the time, there were beautiful women in hoop skirts, a high diving show and synchronized swimmers. It was great. When I went back the second time it was before Legoland, but the gardens were more overgrown, the ski show was worse than in the 80s, but there were animal displays everywhere with Florida animals, much like at Homassassa Springs, a really cool electric railroad display and a good live show with singing, as well as the janky carnival style rides and the wooden coaster (which was pretty fun at least then.) As Legoland other than the some of the lego city builds much of it did not appeal to me at all. At least the gardens and the ski show still exist, but the gardens were even worse than the previous decade, things that were super cool to me as a kid, like the Florida shaped pool that Esther Williams filmed in, were grown over and it was sad to see.
Cypress gardens for me 80s > 90s > 2010s and I can imagine in the 50s and 60s during its heyday it was even better. But I was not alive for that.
The pool definitely seems to be maintained, although maybe that's because they put a "Redbeard" figure at the end for the River Quest. The gardens are still nice but lack the variety that they've had historically.
We always went to Lego land for home school field trips because they have school days where kids get in for free, which was always nice
What a coincidence that I was watching videos about Legoland Florida last night and then the goat posts a video this morning about it 😂
I thought I had been to Legoland but the timeline and location you gave didn't make sense with when my family went to Orlando. You then mentioned the Disney's Legoland store, I googled it and yep that's what I went to, I remembered the sculptures. Surprised it opened in 2011 considering I thought it was a around when I was a kid
I think that particular Lego Store has been around since the late 90s at least. It was a lot cooler before the Disney Springs refurb.
I went to Legoland back in March for the first time and it was awesome!! My favorite part of that trip was the lego ninjago show, I was pretty much the only teenager who took part in the show during the trip. And tbh, I didn't regret it 1 bit!! And the Lego Movie section is amazing!! I love the dog! And the "where are my pants" joke!
I was completely unaware of a Ninjago show. Where even is it? I didn't see any space to perform a show like that
@PoseidonEntertainment it's basically a act, there are theese performers and a Floyd costume and they are giving instruction to the kids (and me) how to nail different types of ninja moves
I love the dragon! I went to Legoland Denmark on my 30th birthday with my friends. The one in denmark is simmilar, but better as it is buildt from ground up as a castle. Florida seems like it repurposed from an old track. You should check out videos from Legoland billund, especially the pirate boats. It is a darkride like PotC, but with lego characters from the sets.
As far as I'm aware, The Dragon was custom built for Florida, but I do agree that it "feels" repurposed.
Crazy seeing a video on this park. I went to it technically a week before opening via some AARP promotion that my aunt got us through somehow, and even at 10 years old I thought it was terribly young for a park. Granted they didn't have areas like Lego Movie or Ninjago at that time, but even then ride times were exorbitantly high and what I was able to do felt very childish. As for the Lego store in the park, I enjoyed it but felt that it would just be better to visit the one in then Downtown Disney.
I've only been to Cypress Gardens, but just looking at the map when it opened, this "new" park looked like a reskinned Cypress Gardens. I feel like the Lego brand deserves something at the level of the Super Nintendo World, at the very least.
Yeah, reskinned Cypress Gardens is a good description. It does appear that the park has a lot more trees and landscaping than the original did though (outside of the actual gardens themselves), so that's a positive development.
I’d love to see an outer-space themed indoor LEGO theme park called “LEGO Space Central Galactic Theme Park” perfect for the LEGOLAND Resort as a true LEGO-themed second gate instead of the one non-LEGO themed one that’s themed to a certain kids’ IP that I don’t wanna mention or maybe a LEGO-themed third gate for the LEGOLAND Resort with an other-space theme along with another LEGO-themed theme park with a dinosaur theme or maybe a standalone indoor LEGO theme park located elsewhere in Florida!
LEGO Space Central would feature multiple themed sections including the LEGOLAND Space Discovery Center (the main street with lots of retail and dining locations), the LEGO Space Station (the hub with plenty of retail and dining locations and some attractions and some spokes that would lead guests to through the space portals to different sectors), Sector 1 (featuring some rides), Sector 2 (also featuring some rides), Sector 3 (also featuring some rides), etc.!
Great video I got to visit Old Cypress Gardens in the late 70's and mid 80's; it was before it was reborn as Cypress Gardens and then Legoland Florida. I guess if the kids enjoy Legoland with their family the same way I enjoyed Cypress Gardens with my family that is all that matters in the long run.
Great video! We had been talking about a day trip to Legoland this year after becoming fans of the TV show LEGO Masters. So glad we didn't end up wasting a day/our money on this park!
It's so disheartening as someone who grew up with this as the main park I went through. Disney and Universal were absolutely a part of my childhood too, but my mom, brother, and I always took multiple yearly trips here years ago (aka, back when the Lego Movie area was Chima themed). I might try to make an off season trip up there at some point just for nostalgia's sake because I do still have a soft spot for it
I’ve been saving this to sit down and watch! I grew up around there and Cypress Gardens was a big part of my childhood. I still go with my mom and we like the old garden section the most…I’m glad that they preserved that so well.
I remember watching all the videos of people going when this park first opened in 2011. I was 8 at the time and extremely interested in it. I begged my family to go as any kid would, but with time I forgot and never did end up going. Looking at it now, as an adult I have no interest in this park. My brother took his kids this past summer, and he said that it was meant for little kids and that it would likely be his last time going since his kids are growing out of it. It really does look like a nice park, but I know as an adult, it would not offer me what I want now.
I went to Legoland California several times as a child, but they've added so much since then. As someone who doesn't have kids and doesn't want kids, it feels like I'm not going to get my money's worth if I go now, as an adult. One thing I know from my friend who used to work there though, is that the CA park's capacity and wait times are much smoother, nothing over 40 min. I feel like the one in Denmark would be the only one actually worth my time.
Around a decade ago, there was a promotion where you got a free ticket to Legoland after purchasing a $20 ticket to see the Orlando soccer team play. You still had to pay for parking, but I thought that was a reasonable price. My buddy and I went, had a few beers to get a small buzz but be safe to drive home, and we had 3 - 5 hours of fun in the park.
I distinctly remember my friend and I saying "for $20 - $50 we could do this every year or two". Then we saw the ticket prices and almost fainted. Even back then it was over $100. Yeah we like Lego but not that much lol.
this is prob the closest park to where i grew up so it was so interesting to hear that it’s considered out of the way, i never thought of it like that before since i’m used to it being so close to me lol. when legoland opened, i was too old for it but i have younger brothers so i would take them, & enjoyed having fun with them. doubt i’ll go back now, but it’s a fun memory!!
I know this doesn't have much to do with the problems you went over in the video, but I did have a chance to visit Cypress Gardens a few years before the ill-fated Wild Adventures takeover. Certainly a far cry from the bigger, newer parks a couple of hours away, but it made for a nice half-day experience. One of the smartest things Legoland did when it took the property over was holding onto the actual botanical gardens at the heart of the park, but one of the biggest mistakes it made was not preserving more of the original park. Even Wild adventures tried to keep alot of the older attractions around, mostly building out or replacing newer attractions that weren't bringing people in.
The old Cypress Gardens were almost like a time capsule -- not just of the different eras of Florida history that it used to celebrate -- but of the different eras in Florida tourism. You had the luxury gardens that were dug out of the swamp, the waterski shows on Lake Euphalie, defunct attractions like the train ride and the Island in the Sky, and the themed areas that were meant to act as a living history museum. Almost all of that was demolished or rethemed to fit with the typical Legoland fare. And despite buying up a bunch of the surrounding property and almost quadrupling the size of the land, capacity issues are worse than ever and there's somehow *less* to do if you aren't a kindergartener.
Seems to me they could've taken a cue from what was there before and kept some of the shows and older, slower attractions that the whole family could've enjoyed. Or the historical attractions that schools in the area used to take fieldtrips to see. Even if they still glued faux lego brick facades to everything, leaving more of those original attractions in placed would've at least given some local color to Legoland Florida and made it distinct from the other Legolands open at the time.
Glad someone finally made a video on this place 😭, it’s just been going to far down hill over the year. Sad to see
What has declined?
Although I love Legoland California, a lot of these criticisms can be applied to that park too. I remember many of the rides having incredibly long wait times. Before ninjago opened, the smaller rides had very long lines. The newer attractions added in the 2010s took some of that away, but they have very long lines for what they are. An interesting ride that used to run there, Knights tournament, had incredibly poor capacity due to being a Kuka robocoaster.
That park does look built up a bit better than the Florida one though. These parks desperately just need capacity.
This is a good review. I went to the CA one, during the Halloween event, with my husband and my best friend. She and I love halloween, so that was a great time to go, and we were doing Disney halloween later in the week. While there was a lot to look at, especially a Star Wars showcase going on of small sets and builds from the movies that were really quite good, there wasn't much beyond that and walking. I think we rode one ride, but I don't remember it. Oh, and a sky tram. Husband suffered through that for us, he's afraid of heights. While it was a fine day, the builds were honestly all there really was for us, and the nice aquarium too. I always love checking out some fish. Not really a park for casual LEGO fans (I haven't gotten a set since I was young), or adults without kids, but not a BAD time, and I think it wasn't overly expensive as it was 10 years ago.
I worked at this park in the rides and attractions section, particularly in the Technic and Lego City areas, Especially on the Great Lego Race ride (called GLR by fellow staff). I can confidently say that working there was the Worst experience I have had, and only Part of it is due to the high temperatures with very little to help.
The rides are constantly shutting down mainly due to two reasons: Guests breaking the rules, and ride faults. For example, on GLR, if a guest gets off on the wrong side of the cart, (The wrong side is clearly marked as such, but that doesn't stop ANYONE) we have to hit the Emergency Stop button. Then we have to wait for Maintenance to unlock the ride and let us continue. The ride faults to us just typically mean a cart went too fast/slow and tipped off a safety sensor. Then we have to wait for Maintenance again.
If it takes Maintenance longer than 10 minutes to get to the ride, we have to evacuate the ride. This means climbing up two stories of wobbly spiral staircases and guiding kids and their parents down those same staircases. Break 2 always had loose guardrails but Safety never "saw a problem" so for the nine months I was there, it was never fixed.
There is a lot of red tape when it comes to doing really ANYTHING in regards to loading people faster, especially because there's just not enough people to staff the place, and the turnover is so high we literally didn't have enough people qualified to train people to new rides. Pair that with a 115F heat index, with only a fan and the rare electrolyte infused ice pop, and turnover rate is brutal.
The worst part of working there day-to-day was the guests who thought they were above rules tbh. To evacuate GLR, guests in line have to be moved back a bit so we can make sure they aren't running out into the ride mechanisms. (Rule exist for a reason) and there was an incident where a mother nearly Threw Hands With the manager because she wanted her kid off the stopped ride, but to get them off the ride, we needed her to move back a bit. The Supervisor then proceeded to give the mom a fast pass and a free funnel cake for attempting to assault the manager (and one of her kids broke the lap bar during the panic, so we had to bench the entire cart.)
It was very clear that as employees, we're not cared for and our safety didn't matter. People fainted in the heat. They disregard our disabilities (having an epileptic employee operate rides alone, making the heat-sensitive employees work at rides with no shade, etc), and really just use us to make a bigger buck.
I'm glad I left.
Though for the Slightest defense of why GLR is built Like That, it used to be a VR ride with headsets and everything. Then Covid.
Ah, that's all very interesting to read. No one in the comments has anything good to say about Merlin, so this really doesn't surprise me.
We went last July and agree with your perspective. We ended up getting rained out of most of the day and got a rain check but it has so many blackout dates that it is probably not usable for us, as out of towers.
19:43 growing up in Orlando, I remember going to Cypress Gardens many times in the late 80’s-early 90’s with my horticulturist Dad. It was usually boring besides the boat skiing shows.
Hello. Local Florida man here that lives right next to this place and grew up next to it. We very much Miss Cypress Gardens which was like a budget Busch Gardens.
Even if you like Legos, Legoland is one of those things that if you go once you've already seen everything. I dated a girl that loved going to Legoland a lot and after about the third time I felt like I knew every corner of the park.
She even used to work there for a time and used to talk about how in the meetings they would talk about how they need to copy Disney and do things to Disney way which is very odd considering that's like a very small restaurant trying to copy Chick-fil-A operations
I'm SO glad there's finally a theme-park youtuber making a video of any Legoland! I used to go to Legoland CA a ton when I was younger, and I'm kind of jealous that Legoland Florida has way more rides and hasn't removed their original rides, unlike Legoland CA (WHY WOULD THEY REMOVE AQUAZONE, I'M STILL SALTY ABOUT IT)
As a local to CA's, Florida's has such an uncanny feel to it, like as if you're dreaming of a nostalgic place but your brain's got it all mixed up, so there's a lot of familiar but "wrong" things about it.
However I can see why its not the best deal, as why would you go when literally Magic Kingdom is there (I can understand CA's because Disneyland
I don't know much about the CA park, but it seems more interesting to me. Explorer River Quest looks more interesting than the pirate theme here and the sub ride looks really cool for a regional park.
We have an annual pass and we haven't experienced anything negative. The employees are always kind and helpful. Granted I do think that it is catered to a younger crowd. My 2 year old loves it and we enjoy seeing her have the time of her life.
The multicolor water slide that was at cypress gardens was swapped by merlin to Thorpe park in uk,they got the technic coaster from legoland (Windsor another Merlin park) in return.
Only rode the technic coaster when it was at Windsor with my kids as had real long que s.
Got removed due to noise complaints from nearby residents from kids screams.merling added a Perspex box rear folding lid on last 2 seasons to mute noise but that then killed throughput per hour.
The legoland hotel now sits in its place.
The water ride that Thorpe part got is now called storm surge,nice ride in nice weather but not a British spring or winter ride.
One of my most memorable experiences from this park when I was younger was being stuck on the adventure mummy ride for like an hour and having to be eventually evacuated off of it. First ride I ever had to evacuate. I also have vague memories of enjoying the water park and going to the very first halloween event they ever held, me and my siblings enjoyed it. Though in recent years me and my family went back to the park when they were having this big discount day just to experience it once more and yeah, it didn’t age great. Though I can still see a kid really enjoying it.
We had a lady from our church, who works at Legoland, she gave us free tickets to Legoland and we went their at least 5 times in a span of several years from 2014-2017. I am biased, since we didn't have to purchase the tickets, and my brothers and I were huge Lego fans when we were young, but all 5 times we went there I enjoyed every bit of it. Yes, there are a few young rides that were too small for us, but the big rollercoaster and all the Lego stuff we bought were WAY worth it.😀
Compare this to Alton towers, Chessington world of adventure and Legoland Windsor, which are probably the 3 most visited of Merlin’s parks in the UK. Both Legoland and ATR have a SeaLife aquarium and CWOA has SeaLife Chessington and Chessington Zoo included in the price. Also in the case of Alton Towers, if you stay onsite you get your choice of accommodation, Breakfast and a round of Mini golf. You do have to pay for admission to either the theme park or water park which is automatically calculated for the amount of days you’re there and gives you the option to use a hotel guests only entrance
I didn't know that was the case, but yeah it seems like a better deal.
I actually use to work at Legoland as a chef, I will say the behind the scenes of Legoland Florida was alright, I was there during the canopy construction for Mini City (2021ish). I think Legoland has really sold out and isn't fun like before, management fell apart in recent years and many good employees left during 2021, Legoland NY had just opened and we had trained some higher ups in the the resort kitchens. I would highly recommend going to Bok for lunch though! I also worked in the Cafe at Bok and they have excellent food and service!
Edit: Say hi to Rachel and Julian at Bok's Cafe if you go by. Say Ash sent you. 😉
I have been to Legoland Germany, Denmark and Florida (Florida was 5 years ago, so some changes...). Both Denmark and Germany have more attractions than I remember in Florida, and are maybe more inclusive to older demographics, though 12 or 13 is something of a cut-off age even there. As the Merlin card in Germany included one visit to one overseas park What we found unique were the waterski show and the woody that I liked quite a lot.
Oh man, I remember Cypress Gardens in the 80s! Best memory i have from there was the two, adorable tiger cubs they were leading around on leashes. Why the heck CG had tiger cubs, I don't know, but I had pictures of them!
Speaking of Florida theme parks and tigers .... anyone remember Circus World? :)
I remember going a couple times when I was younger, and only Miniland USA and the Mummy dark ride were really enjoyable to me.
It's crazy because I grew up in Winter Haven right down the road from Cypress Gardens, and I loved CG. And I always wanted to go to Legoland Cali and was so excited when it was announced. But gosh was I disappointed lol
I enjoyed this e-tour way more than expected! If I have small kids in a few years that really like Lego, I will try and shell out to give them this experience.
I did get to go to Florida during Spring Break in I think 2011 or 2012, and this was one of the places I got to. It's great to see this park again, but I'm not sure if I would go back now that I'm in my early 20s. Maybe for nostalgia's sake someday, though.
I coincidentally just went to Legoland Billund today, and I honestly had a blast (as a 17 year old Lego fan). A lot of the rides from Florida are also in the Billund park, like the Dragon and Masters of Flight. So the parks are quite comparable. But it did feel like there was way more care put into it.
First off, the Aquarium and Peppa Pig land (which was actually based on Lego Peppa Pig, instead of just the normal version, making it already feel higher effort) were both included in the ticket price, so they are a lot less greedy with pricing
But I also felt that unlike you said in your video, the people working there are genuinely having fun.
I went to the haunted house, but before I was let in. The employee needed to check if “I was tall enough” (I’m 1,90 meters). He lifted the measuring tool far above my head, and said “sorry, you’re not tall enough. I’m going to have to eliminate you”, and pulled a fake gun on me.
Stuff like that just really makes the experience more fun, since the people working there look like they really enjoy their job.
Even if the rides are a bit mediocre compared to Disney, Universal and my personal favorite: Efteling. It was just plain fun to me
The employees at Billund are probably payed more than double of their american counterparts and have significantly better working conditions so that probably explains the difference. Also I mean working there is like every Danish kids dream so it probably is kinda fun.
I went to this as a kid. It was awesome going back in 2013, and it was one of my highlights at florida. I remember it fondly, and loved it all. But I was a youngin at the time, so I only remember faint things, until I found photos from the trip.
I used to work there for a few months in 2023 and the being unprepared for large crowds is an understatement, they basicslly always run on a skeleton crew, barely having enough employees to get by each day and usually consisting of part-timers, the turnover rate is so high they have hiring events every 2 weeks and hire about 20 people each time, the training is pretty lackluster, and you basically learn as you go, getting a promotion is either impossible or the easiest thing ever depending on how many employees they have at the time, some rides go down for a few days straight, there was a ride after Lego City and before the water park that got shut down due to a lack of traffic because it was so out of the way, they removed a bridge in Cypress Gardens to let the boats pass for Captain Brickbeards Boat Ride, and the Lego Movie shop has no Lego Movie sets due to them being discontinued, theres even talk that they'll soon remodel that area.
If anyone has any questions ill answer to the best of my ability
i operated mr freeze at st louis, its a fairly complicated ride to operate, theres 2 side each with 1 train, theres one person on each side, one in the middle, and one in the box, it requires 3 people to move a train and launch it, fathersday is the craziest day of the year, everything has over an hour wait, but we kept mr freeze under a 40 minute wait time, we only needed 2 rows of the extended queue, half the day we were only on one train, it helped that the ride was short, but that extra time was used on loading, we managed to get people on and off fast and still entertain many of the guests, we kept load times around 45 seconds
there really isnt an excuse to have poor load times in moderate crouds
Sounds impressive, definitely better ops than what I saw at Magic Mountain
As someone with a 5-year old and an emotional attachment to Cypress Gardens, LLFL hit the sweet spot for us for several years. It's only 45 minutes from Tampa, my kid loved the Lego stuff, especially The Dragon and the Lego Movie Ride. I loved the ski show and Miniland, and we all loved staying at the on site hotels! There's build activities, interactive story time, a treasure hunt in your room with minifigs as prizes, great pools, etc. It was awesome. BUT, this was back when you could buy an annual pass for $99 and get a room in the Pirate hotel for $150/night. Since then they've TRIPLED their annual pass prices to $299 and hotel rooms are routinely $300+ per night, sometimes as high as $600! This Spring break, a single day adult ticket to LLFL was MORE than a single day ticket to Magic Kingdom. Bonkers. It used to be a great regional park that was a good value, but now they're trying to charge Disney prices for a Fun Spot caliber park, and it's just not worth it.
The pricing is just insane for the experience. I want to like it, but I was mad that I even had to pay twice to make the video lol
Interesting you say the quality of the food was pretty good at the burger kitchen. Merlin has had a habit of putting the same 4-5 restaurants in every theme park they own. The Legoland in Windsor also has a burger kitchen. So does Alton Towers and Thorpe Park.
But the one at Alton Towers was awful last time I visited, it was was a dry burger in a untoasted bun, quite frankly I've had better out of a van on the side of the road. And a lot of people complain the quality of the food in Merlin owned UK parks has gone down in quality, including Legoland. When I visited Windsor as a child there were some really quite interesting places to eat, there was a buffet with all kinds of dishes, a seafood restaurant in the pirate area, a BBQ restaurant in the castle, and more. And it wasn't just junk food, it was clear they wanted to provide healthy options for kids that they might actually eat. And it was the same with the other Merlin parks, each one you went to had their own selection of unique restaurants. Thorpe Park had a fantastic rib shack with huge beef ribs! But now it seems to be the same wherever you go, even across continents. At least the burgers in the US are better.
Interesting anecdotes and from what I've heard about Merlin, I'm not surprised. Still, while Disney food quality in Magic Kingdom is often poor, it's still a bit unbelievable that Legoland Florida is doing better than them.