Legoland Florida, Orlando FL

Update 1/2014- We’ve included pictures from our trip including the playground of course! We loved Legoland, and thanks to Ned and Sue for introducing us to it, the kids can’t wait to visit again!

Editor’s Note:  Thanks to the Moraghans, our resident travel family experts, we got an informative review for our “Travel Beyond NJ” section.  This time Ned and family make the trip from NJ to Legoland Florida!! They share many pictures and tell us what were their favorite highlights… 

While vacationing in Orlando during Easter break, we also drove a half hour to Legoland. This park is very different from Universal or Disney, its rides are similar to Land of Make Believe or Storybook Land.

My first recommendation is when you enter proceed to the back of the park first. There will be plenty of time to see the Lego designs later. Those sculptures aren’t going anywhere.

The first places you should hit are Driving School, Boat School and Flight School. Flight School is one of the roller coasters at Legoland and it’s pretty good for a kids coaster.

However, Boat School and Driving School is the part of the parks that my kids and I will remember most fondly. Boat School is two people usually a kid and an adult on a boat where the kid drives around the water. The kid has complete control of steering if you choose. These are not bumper boats and we did collide with several walls and other boats. At one point it felt like a Nascar race with boats three wide all trying to make a left turn. However, you do not go very fast so there is no danger.

 

Driving School was the most memorable of the rides we did hear. The age to drive is 6-13.

Both my girls were of age so they sat thru the safety course and then for about five minutes were driving in a mini city by themselves. The cars had seatbelts and did not go over 5 MPH. My oldest understood the rules of the road and stopped correctly at stoplights and stop signs. My youngest who is six did have enough firm grasp of the rules of the road and briefly did drive on the wrong side of the road. My wife and I watched from the viewing area and it was very enjoyable to watch. Check out the video below of the driving school course!

Both my girls did get drivers licenses at the end of their drive.

As for the other rides, there are a couple of coasters and water rides that were a lot of fun. The Dragon and Lego Technic coasters were enjoyable. So were the Wave Racers and Fire Academy rides. Island in the Sky give you a great birds eye view of the park and surrounding area. The carousel is memorable since it’s a two story carousel. Rescue Academy was also a family favorite where there is a four car race to the “fire”. Each family gets into a police car or fire truck. At the start of the race, there are two hand pumps which made the car accelerate. When you get to the fire or bank robbery, everyone gets out of the car to man the hoses. The adults pump while the kids shoot the hoses at the “fire” or the bank robbers. A whistle sounds when the task is complete and now everyone must jump back into the car for the race back to the station. I am proud to say that our family “won” our race but both my wife and I were a little bit tired upon its completion.

Now to the Lego part of Legoland. The entire park has sculptures of made of Legos throughout the park. Some of these sculptures are part of the rides you go on like the Dragon roller coaster or the Safari ride. Others are just huge statues of dragons like the one in the front of the park. There is also Mini Land which has impressive recreations of New York City, Washington DC, Las Vegas and Florida.

Then there is also the Star Wars section of Mini Land. They have at least one scene from all six Star Wars films along with life size replicas of Darth Vader, Darth Maul and R2D2. I was most impressed with their recreation of the Battle of Hoth as well as a scale version of the Millennium Falcon.

There is also an Imagination Zone area where the kids can build their own cars made of Legos and then race them down a ramp. This is a very good place for the kids to imagine on their own and the parents can take a rest in air conditioning.

There is also a water park here at Legoland that we did not have time to visit. While I’m glad we visited this park, I don’t see us going back here in the near future since the rides aren’t in the class of Disney or Universal. It is definitely worth visiting once especially if all your kids are in the 6-13 age range.

1/14/2014 UPDATE- If you want a little more low key sit down break, check out the Legoland playground! Here are some pictures from our December 2013 trip.

Want to check out something about legos a little closer to NJ? Check out our post on Legoland Discovery Center in Westchester, NY here!