Theme Park Shark recently experienced LEGOLAND Florida Resort. A family-friendly resort that offers attractions suited for both adults and children, this theme park offers the main LEGOLAND experience, the Peppa Pig Theme Park, an on-property water park, two themed hotels, and access to the beautiful historic Cypress Gardens. Located in Winter Haven, Florida – about a forty minute drive from the theme park hotspot of Orlando – this park is a solid alternative to the Orlando experience.
Planning a family vacation when you have young children can be hard! It can be even harder when you have young kids and teenagers, whose entertainment needs are often vastly different. For any theme park, offering entertainment for guests of all ages can be a challenge, but LEGOLAND pulls it off with flying colors. From areas dedicated to pre-school play all the way to a fully-fledged Vekoma coaster that gets your adrenaline pumping, the variety within this park is truly impressive.
Let’s jump in!
Build Endless Fun with LEGO
To no one’s surprise, LEGOLAND Florida Resort had an almost overwhelming selection of LEGO to choose from. From simple sets for young kids to the advanced, seven thousand five hundred and forty one-piece Millennium Falcon model that made my head spin a little, there was LEGO for every level of experience. LEGO Ninjago, LEGO Ideas, LEGO Friends, LEGO City – you name it, they had it! With several of their most popular builds set up on display for guests to see exactly what the finished project looks like, there was tons to take in throughout several of their major shops.
From The Big Shop to the LEGO Factory, you can find LEGO everything, including individual bricks, apparel, toys, souvenirs, and more. If anyone in your family is a fan of building with LEGO – whether by following the manual or by creating their own builds right from their imaginations – then this is the place to shop! It’s truly an inspiring place. Even I left with ambitious build plans, and I’ve never put together a LEGO set in my life. Seeing the incredible builds at LEGOLAND Florida single-handedly changed that for me.
LEGOLAND’s Rides and Attractions
From DUPLO Valley to The Dragon, the range of attractions At LEGOLAND Florida has something for everyone! Theme Park Shark experienced some of the bigger rides at the park, including Ninjago: The Ride, Pirate River Quest, MINILAND USA, Coastersaurus, The Lost Kingdom Adventure, The Dragon, and THE LEGO MOVIE Masters of Flight, but there are plenty of smaller attractions designed for younger kids as well, like Beetle Bounce, Pharaoh’s Revenge, and LEGO City’s Jr. Driving School.
Immediately, I was impressed by the quality of these attractions, as a theme park junkie who spends most of her days at Universal Orlando Resort. Being the biggest name in the industry isn’t always important, but successfully employing elements of theme park design that make an engaging and exciting ride is. With high-energy experiences on interactive rides like NInjago: The Ride and The Lost Kingdom Adventure, competing against your friends and family during your day at LEGOLAND Florida is always a good time.
One of two competitive shooter games, Ninjago: The Ride had guests throwing ninja moves to defeat some of Ninjago’s biggest, baddest villains and evil minions of all shapes and sizes. This ride employs motion sensor technology to track your ninja moves and throw out projectiles to defeat enemies through several chaotic scenes that blend 3D screens and physical sets that you move through to advance the story.
LEGOLAND’s other competitive shooting game attraction, The Lost Kingdom Adventure, was one of my favorite attractions experienced. Load up in a desert off-roader to explore tombs and caverns while you take aim with your interactive light gun and try to hit as many targets as you can! Filled with genuinely surprising moments and tons of fast-paced gallery shooting fun, The Lost Kingdom Adventure was an indoor dark right that didn’t have many overly-scary elements to it, but still might not be suitable for some of the more sensitive members of the family. You know your kids best!
Another incredible highlight from LEGOLAND Florida was THE LEGO MOVIE Masters of Flight. A flight simulator where guest load up onto Emmet’s newest invention, the triple decker flying couch, this ride is gentle on movement but big on fun as you soar and dip and sometimes crash through different LEGO lands like Middle Zealand.
Fast-paced and filled with genuinely funny writing that’s sure to get a giggle out of you, THE LEGO MOVIE Masters of Flight was definitely one of the highlights of the experience. But roller coasters, dark rides, and flight simulators aren’t the only thing you’ll find at LEGOLAND Florida!
One of the first attractions Theme Park Shark visited was MINILAND, USA – a truly breathtaking scale city of incredible landmarks from all across the country, from monuments right here in Florida to some of America’s most famous man-made marvels, this scale city was not only incredible to witness, but it was also huge, featuring over 32 million LEGO Bricks that took an unfathomable number of hours to assemble. More time was spent examining these builds and perusing the coast-to-coast cityscapes than anywhere else in the park.
MINILAND USA even had a scale replica of the Kennedy Space Center, with a rocket ship that really takes off, complete with sound and smoke effects! It was astounding to watch, and happens periodically throughout the day.
LEGOLAND Florida is Fun for the Whole Family
Whether your little one just grew those extra few inches to be able to ride the big-kid rides or is a seasoned pro at surviving roller coasters, LEGOLAND Florida has something for everyone.
And the best part is, that inclusivity extends to all families. LEGOLAND not only offers excellent shows, attractions, themed areas, and character meets, but extends all of those same experiences to families with exceptional needs. As a Certified Autism Center, LEGOLAND Florida goes the extra mile to accomodate families who might find other theme parks to be a challenge to navigate.
Theme Park Shark recently covered LEGOLAND’s certification, and their dedication to an inclusive experience in a previous article [here]. Check it out for a breakdown of how LEGOLAND Florida Resort helps families with sensory needs navigate theme parks by helping them make informed choices about the attractions they visit!
With this sensory guide to help make choosing rides and attractions easier, as well as the reduced crowds and wait times (we didn’t wait more than twenty minutes for any attraction except the Pirate River Adventure, which was a 70 minute wait), families facing exceptional challenges navigating parks can rest easy knowing that the LEGOLAND experience is different. LEGOLAND also offers quiet rooms for overstimulated guests, noise cancelling headphones upon request, and park-wide autism sensitivity and awareness training so that you never have to navigate alone! All of that information and more can be found in our companion article, linked above.
And don’t forget to check back soon, as Theme Park Shark will continue to cover LEGOLAND Florida Resort and other theme park news from Disney, Universal, and theme parks from all across the world!
