Claire&TheBoys
The Queen of the Castle!
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2007
- Messages
- 6,331
Since I found some information on this board about Legoland Florida, I wanted to come give an overview of our day there this week. We are typically on-site Disney-ers, we drive and park and do not venture off Disney property when we vacation there, perfectly happy to stay inside the happy confines of the Most Magical Place on Earth. This time, though, we only wanted to be gone a couple of days and only decided to go a week in advance, plus we had the McDonald's coupons that expired 3/31, so we thought it was the perfect time to visit Legoland.
First, we stayed in Lake Wales at a Hampton Inn & Suites. It was a nice hotel with a great hot breakfast. We got a military rate of $82/night, which I thought was very reasonable. There was a mall nearby but we didn't go there. The hotel has an outdoor pool, but when my husband investigated it, it was not ready for the season yet - he said it had a film (scum) on top of the water. The hotel was about 8 miles from Legoland and it took about 15-20 minutes to drive there. We left the hotel shortly after 8:30 for a 9:30 opening time. We arrived and paid the parking fee and were very close to the entrance. There was no wait at the ticket window. The employee there told us that we could add an extra day to our tickets for $15 each and that we could do that day anytime in the next 9 days.
We waited in line at the gate until about 9:15 and were allowed into the first section, called "The Beginning." The carousel was operating and the stores there were open. There were ropes up on the paths leading to the other sections of the park. One of the threads here on the DIS pointed me to another website with Legoland FL tips (can't remember where it was, though) and that site had a Legoland Touring Plan, which I wrote down and took with us. It was a very good touring plan, I have to say. We did the carousel while we waited for the rest of the park to open. When it did, we started at The Dragon Coaster, waiting about 5 minutes for that, then went to do Lost Kingdom Adventure but that was down, so we moved on to Coastersaurus, which we rode twice with about a 5 minute wait each time. We then hit the Boating School (probably waited about 10-15 min here), then Driving School (maybe 5 min wait) and Flying School (rode twice with 5 min wait each time). From there we went over to Project X Coaster and again, waited about 5 minutes. We skipped the stuff like Rescue Academy and the Imagination Zone, thinking we could hit those in the afternoon when the lines were longer. We grabbed some lunch near the Ski Show stadium and took it in with us to eat while we watched the show. We saw the first show, and it was pretty full. After that we walked through the Cypress Gardens section. At some point we went back to ride Lost Kingdom Adventure and waited about 30 minutes for that. My youngest wanted to go back and do the Dragon Coaster a second time, so we did that -- waited about 30 minutes for that. We spent some time in Miniland, we skipped the 4-D movies, my youngest wanted to do the carousel again, then we did the Island in the Sky very last. We did some shopping, of course. We never went back to the Imagination Zone and other "build it" zones but kind of felt like that was "filler" anyway. We were out of the park by 4:00. We did not feel like we needed the 2nd day.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable day. We had wonderful weather - warm but not too hot. The crowds were very manageable, especially in the hours before lunch. As with Disney parks, it pays to be there early! As the day wore on, the crowds were thicker and lines were much longer. One thing that was nice about the park was that my youngest, age 6 and 46" tall, was able to ride everything. It is small enough that we did not even take a stroller with us and he didn't need one at all. Other pluses include a nice atmosphere and great theming. We enjoyed all the Lego figures all over the park. We also enjoyed the old section of Cypress Gardens and give them props for preserving it. The employees (I think they're called "Model Citizens") were all friendly and helpful. The park was clean.
Some things that I found a bit lacking were the general speed of loading the rides and movement of guests through the park. It took a long time for us to order and get our food at lunch. It just seemed inefficient to have the same guy take our order, fix our drinks, fix our fries and get our food and take our money all at the same window. Later I got an order of the famous granny apple fries and again, it just took forever for the line to move. Most places only had one line open, gift shops and restaurants, both. The Dragon Coaster had 2 trains running, but I think Coastersaurus and I know for sure Flying School only had one train running each. Of course, those rides are over in about 2 minutes, so I guess they can't really run more than one at a time. My oldest thought the rides were way too short. They did make good use of employees to get guests lined up waiting for the next ride, though.
All in all, we had a good time, but I do have to say I think it's way overpriced. $75 for an adult admission is just too much for what you get there. We had the free kids' tickets, so our total for the 4 of us was $150 plus tax and it was probably worth that if you average it out. I would never ever pay full price of close to $300 for a day there. It was not worth that in my opinion.
Will we go back? Maybe. It was fun to go, once, but I don't see us going back yearly like we do Disney. We spent 6 hours there and felt like we'd seen all we cared to see.
Hope my comments are helpful to those planning trips to Legoland FL.
First, we stayed in Lake Wales at a Hampton Inn & Suites. It was a nice hotel with a great hot breakfast. We got a military rate of $82/night, which I thought was very reasonable. There was a mall nearby but we didn't go there. The hotel has an outdoor pool, but when my husband investigated it, it was not ready for the season yet - he said it had a film (scum) on top of the water. The hotel was about 8 miles from Legoland and it took about 15-20 minutes to drive there. We left the hotel shortly after 8:30 for a 9:30 opening time. We arrived and paid the parking fee and were very close to the entrance. There was no wait at the ticket window. The employee there told us that we could add an extra day to our tickets for $15 each and that we could do that day anytime in the next 9 days.
We waited in line at the gate until about 9:15 and were allowed into the first section, called "The Beginning." The carousel was operating and the stores there were open. There were ropes up on the paths leading to the other sections of the park. One of the threads here on the DIS pointed me to another website with Legoland FL tips (can't remember where it was, though) and that site had a Legoland Touring Plan, which I wrote down and took with us. It was a very good touring plan, I have to say. We did the carousel while we waited for the rest of the park to open. When it did, we started at The Dragon Coaster, waiting about 5 minutes for that, then went to do Lost Kingdom Adventure but that was down, so we moved on to Coastersaurus, which we rode twice with about a 5 minute wait each time. We then hit the Boating School (probably waited about 10-15 min here), then Driving School (maybe 5 min wait) and Flying School (rode twice with 5 min wait each time). From there we went over to Project X Coaster and again, waited about 5 minutes. We skipped the stuff like Rescue Academy and the Imagination Zone, thinking we could hit those in the afternoon when the lines were longer. We grabbed some lunch near the Ski Show stadium and took it in with us to eat while we watched the show. We saw the first show, and it was pretty full. After that we walked through the Cypress Gardens section. At some point we went back to ride Lost Kingdom Adventure and waited about 30 minutes for that. My youngest wanted to go back and do the Dragon Coaster a second time, so we did that -- waited about 30 minutes for that. We spent some time in Miniland, we skipped the 4-D movies, my youngest wanted to do the carousel again, then we did the Island in the Sky very last. We did some shopping, of course. We never went back to the Imagination Zone and other "build it" zones but kind of felt like that was "filler" anyway. We were out of the park by 4:00. We did not feel like we needed the 2nd day.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable day. We had wonderful weather - warm but not too hot. The crowds were very manageable, especially in the hours before lunch. As with Disney parks, it pays to be there early! As the day wore on, the crowds were thicker and lines were much longer. One thing that was nice about the park was that my youngest, age 6 and 46" tall, was able to ride everything. It is small enough that we did not even take a stroller with us and he didn't need one at all. Other pluses include a nice atmosphere and great theming. We enjoyed all the Lego figures all over the park. We also enjoyed the old section of Cypress Gardens and give them props for preserving it. The employees (I think they're called "Model Citizens") were all friendly and helpful. The park was clean.
Some things that I found a bit lacking were the general speed of loading the rides and movement of guests through the park. It took a long time for us to order and get our food at lunch. It just seemed inefficient to have the same guy take our order, fix our drinks, fix our fries and get our food and take our money all at the same window. Later I got an order of the famous granny apple fries and again, it just took forever for the line to move. Most places only had one line open, gift shops and restaurants, both. The Dragon Coaster had 2 trains running, but I think Coastersaurus and I know for sure Flying School only had one train running each. Of course, those rides are over in about 2 minutes, so I guess they can't really run more than one at a time. My oldest thought the rides were way too short. They did make good use of employees to get guests lined up waiting for the next ride, though.
All in all, we had a good time, but I do have to say I think it's way overpriced. $75 for an adult admission is just too much for what you get there. We had the free kids' tickets, so our total for the 4 of us was $150 plus tax and it was probably worth that if you average it out. I would never ever pay full price of close to $300 for a day there. It was not worth that in my opinion.
Will we go back? Maybe. It was fun to go, once, but I don't see us going back yearly like we do Disney. We spent 6 hours there and felt like we'd seen all we cared to see.
Hope my comments are helpful to those planning trips to Legoland FL.
).
There's this one and one sitting on a bench. Very cool!
I just don't know...
