Legoland Florida Resort (stylized as LEGOLAND Florida Resort) is a vacation destination in Winter Haven, Florida featuring a theme park, water park and on-site accommodations. It opened as Legoland Florida on October 15, 2011, and later rebranded itself Legoland Florida Resort with the opening of Legoland Hotel in May 2015. The park encompasses 145 acres (0.59 km2), making it the second-largest Legoland park after Legoland Windsor in the UK. Built on the site of the former Cypress Gardens theme park, Legoland preserved the botanical gardens and re-themed the water park and select attractions and venues to reflect various Lego brands.
Designed for families with children ages 2 to 12, the resort has more than fifty rides, shows, attractions, restaurants, and shops, plus a botanical garden and water park. The 152-room Legoland Hotel opened May 15, 2015, followed by Legoland Beach Retreat on April 7, 2017, which has 166 rooms in 83 freestanding bungalows designed to resemble giant Lego sets.
Video Legoland Florida
History
On January 15, 2010, Merlin Entertainments declared its intention to build a Legoland theme park on the site of the Cypress Gardens theme park, which permanently ceased operations in 2009. Six days later, a news conference was held with Florida Governor Charlie Crist and park officials.
After a relatively short construction period (as compared to parks which were built from scratch), Legoland Florida opened on Saturday, October 15, 2011. Three months later, Legoland Florida announced it would add a water park. The former Splash Island water park reopened as Legoland Water Park on May 26, 2012. The park expanded by adding more lands such as The World of Chima, Heartlake City, and Lego Ninjago World as well as expanding itself as a resort. On November 21, 2013, LEGOLAND Florida announced they would be adding their first onsite hotel, the LEGOLAND Hotel. It opened to the public on May 15, 2015. A second resort, LEGOLAND Beach Retreat, was announced March 15, 2016 as part of a major expansion effort and it opened on April 7, 2017. The most recent development was the announcement of the world's first land based on The Lego Movie. It is scheduled to open in 2019.
Maps Legoland Florida
Park layout & attractions
More than fifty rides, shows, and attractions are featured in the park based on those at other Legoland parks. The Jungle Coaster ride from Legoland Windsor was moved to the park and renamed Lego Technic Test Track (now currently The Great Lego Race). Cypress Gardens' botanical park was preserved as part of the park. Also surviving is a vast Banyan tree that was planted as a seedling in a five-gallon bucket in 1939. The Splash Island Waterpark was kept and is a separately ticketed admission. In addition, four attractions originally from Cypress Gardens were renovated and renamed: the Triple Hurricane wooden rollercoaster was renamed to Coastersaurus, the Okeechobee Rampage family coaster was renamed to The Dragon, and Swamp Thing, a Vekoma family inverted coaster, was renamed to Flying School. The Starliner coaster, formerly of the Miracle Strip Amusement Park in Panama City, was dismantled for sale. The Island in the Sky observation tower was retained and operated from 2011 to 2017.
The theme park has fourteen sections:
The Beginning
The Beginning features no attractions, but it has the park's main gift shops, restaurants, and facilities.
Fun Town
Heartlake City
Miniland USA
Duplo Valley
Lego Kingdoms
Land of Adventure
Lego Ninjago World
Lego City
Lego Technic
Imagination Zone
Pirates' Cove
Cypress Gardens
- The original botanical gardens from the former Cypress Gardens park, first opened in 1936. The gardens are owned by Polk County and are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Legoland Water Park
Former Attractions
The following are individual attractions that have closed formerly operated throughout the park's history:
As of 2018 only one section of the park has closed while another has been rethemed:
- The World of Chima
The World of Chima was a section based on Lego's Legends of Chima sets and was sponsored by Cartoon Network throughout the area's lifespan. The area opened on July 3, 2013 and was the park's first new land. It was closed on May 29, 2017 and will be replaced by The LEGO Movie World. The area contained the following attractions:
- Duplo Village
Duplo Village originally opened with the park on October 15, 2011. On October 3, 2013 it was announced that the area would be enhanced and rethemed as Duplo Valley. One attraction would be removed while the others were re-themed:
- Junior Fire Academy: A small roundabout where children could control a fire truck and attempt to take out fires, similar to the Rescue Academy attraction across the park.
Gallery
See also
- 2011 in amusement parks
- Bok Tower Gardens
References
External links
- Official website
- Legoland Florida Photo Gallery
Source of article : Wikipedia
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