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I will admit it: my expectations for Legoland were low. 

I dont know why I felt this way, to be honest. I did read some mixed reviews of Legoland parks in general and deep-dove into the website to see what rides were at the park. I also read a Reddit AMA about the food at the park that was not flattering. Skyler and I even watched a couple YouTube videos reviewing all of the rides. Nothing that specifically gave me concern, but nothing that really convinced me that this park was going to be exceptionally worth the time, money, and effort it would take to get there. 

Turns out, I was wrong. Legoland Florida is the best theme park for kids, and one of the best designed theme parks I’ve ever been to.

Most theme parks have a broad general audience of all ages, offering rides and attractions to appeal to 6 to 60 year olds. They have to offer rides thrilling enough for the adrenaline junkies and gentle rides for folks who dont like or can’t go on intense rides. They have to offer passive, restful entertainment and attractions but also enough exciting options so no one has to choose the “boring shows” if they dont want to. Theme parks can never please everyone and rarely cater to one specific audience outside of seasonal events (e.g. Halloween Horror Nights). 

But Legoland only has to care about two specific, mutually-dependent audiences: kids aged 2-12 and their parents. 

Such a narrow focus might sound limiting in scope but “limitations” actually help designers get more creative. Rather than being overwhelmed by infinite possibilities, designers faced with strict design requirements must focus, making intentional choices, and find innovative solutions. And the Legoland designers had a field day! 

These park designers understood the assignment and deeply grasped the motivations of their target audience. They understand that kids are innately curious and playful, that they want to interact with the world around them but are so often told “no.” Everything at Legoland is a resounding YES. 

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Let me present the many ways by which Legoland Florida designers delivered an exceptional user experience (UX). These are the reasons why Legoland is one of the best theme parks I’ve visited and the best theme park for kids.

5 Reasons Legoland is one of the best Theme Parks in Florida

Legoland celebrates its namesake through its theming with pride and creativity.

When we first got to the park, I wasn’t sure I’d rate its theming very highly. Why? Because I went in expecting immersive land design that you get at Universal and Disney. They want you to forget that you’re in The Real World and believe, even for just a few moments, that you’re really in Hogwarts, Batuu, Jurassic Park, Pandora, etc. 

But Legoland isn’t that kind of theme park. Think about theme parks that all embrace their theme well without the fully enveloping immersive world design – Busch Gardens, Sea World, Dollywood. And damn, yeah, Legoland knocked their theme out of the park! 

(A few of the lands at Legoland Florida do feel more immersive, allowing you to temporarily forget about the other areas of the park: Ninjago world, Land of Adventure, and The Lego Movie world all come to mind. Additionally, Cypress Gardens is fully immersive, transporting visitors back to Old Florida.)

They baked in the Lego theme to every part of the park design.

First let’s consider the overall park theme and then look at how it’s integrated into each of the individual worlds. The overall park theme is Legos (duh). 

The 14 lands include both IP-themed and generically-themed worlds: 

• The Beginning and Fun Town (which function as the Main Street or entry portal to the rest of the park
• Heartlake City, based on the Lego Friends line of sets
• Miniland USA, featuring models of USA locations, originally built in 2011 and made of 32 million legos! 
• Duplo Valley, aimed at kids 2-5
• Lego Kingdoms, which is medieval/castle themed (the gift shops included Harry Potter sets)
• Land of Adventure, including Egypt, Safari, and Dinosaur themed attractions
• Lego Ninjago World, which had some of my favorite play features and one of the newer tech-forward rides
• The Lego Movie World, which had my favorite ride
• Lego City, which was my favorite area from an experience design perspective
• Lego Technic, which had the best coaster
• Imagination Zone, which was Skyler’s favorite area
• Pirates’ Cove, which was mostly closed
• Cypress Gardens, the original Florida theme park from 1936

One of the first things I noticed was how well the theme of “Lego” was integrated into the individual lands and the overall experience. Lego was not just a decor theme slapped on. 

Instead of just building things to look like they were made from Legos, they literally built things OUT OF Legos. People – both human and min-fig, animals, full sized cars, signs, even the Model Citizens’ (staff members’) name tags were made out of legos! So anything that could be made out of Legos, was; otherwise it was made to look like giant Legos, making guests feel like mini-figures. There was some seriously impressive craftsmanship and building techniques! Our budding engineer got a kick out of figuring out how they built a lot of the sculptures throughout the park. These also provide fantastic photo opps for parents 😉 

Miniland USA deserves a documentary!  

Miniland USA, a Lego exhibit featuring miniature versions of iconic American landmarks and cities, offers a fun and interactive experience for guests. Our kid was transfixed by the jaw-dropping builds in front of us (click here for a full list of what’s included in Miniland) and then gleefully discovered both the animatronic and interactive elements throughout the exhibit. We could have spent a lot more time exploring these constructions since there were so many fun details to take in. 

From a learning perspective, I love how they provided lots of educational fun facts throughout the exhibit. Builds of this complexity yield a lot of questions from young inquisitive minds; the signs with behind-the-scenes information helped answer many of them. 

I had a hard time choosing a favorite section of Miniland USA. Washington DC was impressive. NYC was mind blowing. The space shuttle was too cool. Miami Beach, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Tallahassee, Daytona Speedway, it was all amazing!!

The park is a beautiful, shady treat for the senses. 

When we visited Dollywood in 2023, I thought it was one of the most beautiful theme parks I’d visited. But then I went to Legoland Florida. Legoland Florida is beautiful and shady, filled with some of the most beautiful flora that Florida has to offer. 

When Merlin Entertainment bought the property to build Legoland, they maintained the original historical botanical gardens as a land in the larger park. Cypress Gardens is a botanical delight! A horticultural treasure trove! Cypress Gardens is also a Floridan blast from the past and a peek into old Florida. Cyprus Gardens opened in 1936 and claims to be Florida’s first commercial theme park, known for stunt ski shows, botanical gardens, and Southern Belles.

They no longer have the real Southern Belles walking around but have paid homage to the past with Lego Southern Belles. 

When I was a kid, Cyprus Gardens was the “boring” park that was included in our annual pass to the Anheuser Busch parks (Busch Gardens and Sea World). In all honesty, I think the only reason we ever went here was to spend time with my great aunt who lived in Winter Haven. I never understood why she and parents enjoyed visiting the park; there was nothing for them to do. All they could do is walk around and look at things. Well, now I get it. The whole park is beautiful. (And fwiw, this is the only Legoland that does not require a child for entry.)

The absolute highlight of Cyprus Gardens is the Banyan Tree. I’ve read conflicting information about this tree – we know for sure it was brought to the park in 1936. But some accounts say it was transferred in a 5-gallon bucket as a seedling and others say it was already a full-grown tree. No matter how big it was when it arrived, it is utterly magnificent.I have no memory of this tree from my childhood, but holy moly. I found it stunning. It was so humbling to stand in its peaceful presence. I wish we could have spent more time with the banyan tree but our almost-six-year-old had run out of ice cream and was antsy to go do something else. 🙂

Legoland caters to its primary target audience: young children. 

Kids dont just want to ride passively; they want to DO, they want to act independently, they want to have some control. Kids want to run free and need time to engage in unstructured play. And kids who love Legos want to build! Legoland keeps all of these things in mind with its smart and efficient curation of attractions and rides. 

Rides are designed for kids first, but still keep adults in mind.

All of the rides are built for 12 and under and most allow anyone over 48” to ride by themselves. Many allow kids over 44” to ride by themselves. This opportunity to let a child wait in line and ride solo promotes independence and builds confidence; they can do this without Mom and Dad! (Or at least with minimal interference from parentals units.)

Dont assume that the kid rides will be boring for parents! The rides still offer butterfly-inducing thrills. The Great Lego Race coaster made me scream each time we rode it. And Unikitty’s Disco Drop had me screaming and laughing the whole time.  

Many rides, especially those with potential for longer lines, included dedicated lego building areas in the line area! Kids are free to play while their parent(s) hold(s) their place in line. An absolutely genius way to prevent boredom and tantrums!!

Rides include playful interactive elements for all ages.

Many of the rides give guests something to do as part of the experience, promoting more active engagement. (Skyler wouldn’t let us go on the interactive water ride, the Battle of Bricksburg, because everyone who got off of it was soaking wet. 😆)

The best interactive rides, in my opinion, were: the Ninjago dark ride, where you score points using ninja hand moves to blast animated fireballs and work your shoulders at the same time, and Lost Kingdom Adventure, an interactive dark ride where guests use a laser gun to battle mummies and zombie (similar to the Men In Black or Buzz Lightyear rides). 

The WORST example of interactive ride design is the Technicycle which requires constant, fast-paced cycling to stay in the air; the first time he rode it, Skyler got SO MAD at Justin for stopping cycling that he lost his shit and made me go on it with him immediately after. I had to keep cycling the entire time so we remained at the highest possible position for the duration. My legs were jelly afterwards! Lol 

Lego City offered many opportunities for riders to interact with the attraction, in some cases solo! We started with Junior Driving School, which Skyler LOVED (and was so so bad at). Kids 2-5 get to drive a car around a simple loop track. Because crowds were so light, he got to stay on for three rounds! 

We thought he’d want to go to the big kid Driving School which had a more complex road system (and even included stop signs!) but he seemed intimidated and opted not to. 

He did make me do Coastguard Academy with him, which THANK GOODNESS I was there, he was a terrible driver! To be fair, those boats were very hard to steer accurately. We crashed twice and had someone pass us. 

Rescue Academy was the most creative and interactive ‘ride’ – and the most vigorous workout of the day. (Note to parents: get ready for an upper body and cardio workout!) Rescue Academy is a competitive team attraction where groups get in a fire truck that they have to hand-pump to race down a street; at the end of the street, they have to jump out of the truck to douse a building “fire” with real water; then they have to get back on the fire truck and hand pump it back to the starting line. THIS IS MUCH HARDER THAN IT LOOKS. We started out the fastest of four groups but had a real hard time coming back and ended up last; the dynamic emcee of the game had to help us finish pumping. My arms were so tired and I was laughing so hard. This one really got the endorphins up (and Elle Woods was right! We were all happy afterwards!) (Flying School, a suspended coaster, was sadly closed!)

Interactive playground structures encourage unstructured free-play. 

Sometimes, a kid just needs 20 minutes to run around like an idiot. Seriously! Sometimes, a kid just has pent up energy they need to expel or a bad mood they need to chase away. Sometimes, when our kid is on the Crabby Train or just being a real Piece Of Work, a quick exercise session will improve his mood dramatically. (As Elle Woods always said, ‘Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy.”) 

So I think it was a stroke of genius to incorporate playful opportunities throughout the park. (The theme parks I’ve visited tend to limit these elements to lands dedicated to small kids. TBH, I dont remember many of these, if any, at the Disney parks.) These elements don’t just engage young kids, but big kids and adults as well! We all need more play in our life, so I love seeing this kind of interactive design used so freely. 

The Lego Movie world smartly places a playground, Benny’s Play-Ship, smack dab in the middle of the land. Parents could sit in the shade enjoying a cold drink on the nearby benches and let the older kids run off to one of the rides they could do solo while the younger kids played on the playgrounds. Brilliant! 

Duplo Valley includes a cute little splash pad for the littlest guests that also serves bigger guests as a nice way to cool down on a hot day. 

One of the coolest play areas is Pharaoh’s Revenge, an interactive two-level play structure involving foam balls moved around by air currents and suction. Skyler LOVED this, and I could see why! This game-like attraction was accessible by all age and abilities: big kids climb up the maze-like structure to the second level to fire the balls at enemies down below. Down on the lower level, smaller kids can push foam balls into tubes to get suctioned back up to the upper level (and if you’ve ever hung out with a 2 year old, you know how much they like putting things in other things). The lower level also offers a flat entrance accessible to wheelchairs, cane-users, or toddlers alike. 

*(We didn’t go through Heartlake City since the main ride was down, but the website says there’s an interactive, heart-shaped fountain filled with LEGO brick instruments that play music which would encourage free play and discovery! We also somehow missed the Forestman’s Hideout, a multi-level wooden playground designed for younger children; it may have been one of the closed attractions that day.)

Attractions that let kids be kids and build freely for as long as they want.

Free play with building pieces such as Legos promotes creativity, problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and fine motor skills while also fostering a sense of accomplishment and encouraging imaginative play. Building with blocks is proving to be more essential than ever before, in our digitally-addicted era. This is why we let Skyler spend so much of his free time doing nothing but building with Legos. The older he gets and the more advanced sets that he completes, the more creative he’s becoming with his free building. Plus, it’s just so good for his cognitive development.

Legoland’s building experiences are not only a fantastic educational opportunity but also a nice moment of rest during an exciting, often-overwhelming day. By placing these building areas throughout the park, the designers build in moments of rest – which parents appreciate and children greatly need whether they will admit it or not. Building in natural pauses helps pace a guest’s experience; another example of thoughtful UX. 

The interactive free build experiences at Legoland Florida include:

• DUPLO® Valley Schoolhouse, which we did not visit since it is for the toddler crowd. The description sounds amazing though.
• Rebuild the World, near the front of the park, where guests are encouraged to build whatever their heart desires on a giant model of the planet in the center of the space. We built a roller coaster in here! 
• Zane’s Temple Build, in Ninjago World, where you can contribute to a giant mountain monastery. 
• Ferrari Build & Race, which features a full-sized car made out of Legos that you can get in!! You get to build a Ferrari and then test it on one of three test tracks. You can also digital scan and customize your car to virtually race it. We spent a long time in here as Skyler tested and tuned his race car over and over again. He was not interested in the digital racing, and shyly placed his creation on the display shelf before leaving. (The Model Citizen told me they leave the models up for about an hour before disassembling them to return the pieces to the building zone.)
• LEGO® DREAMZzz™, which we skipped entirely. We dont know anything about this IP and it was the end of the day when we noticed it. We still had to get through The Big Shop at the end 😅
• Imagination Zone, a massive building with colorful furnishings, several themed “building zones” including spaceship and moon lander, race cars, trains, and buildings. On our second day at Legoland, we spent nearly two hours at the Imagination Zone, letting Skyler build his brains out. Smartly, this massive building center includes a restaurant so parents can sit in the cafe area and still have eyes on the building room in the center of the building. (The food is mediocre and overpriced, just bring your own food.)

Incorporating building experiences also plays into how lovingly this park design embraces its namesake. The theme is not just slapped on to a generic amusement park; it is baked into the experience. Guests get so many opportunities to unleash their creativity through Legos throughout this park, no Master Builder can go home unsatisfied. I think some kids (like mine) would probably be totally satisfied only visiting the building attractions. 

Legoland’s park design and amenities doesn’t forget its secondary target audience: parents of young children. 

The Legoland Florida park designers understood the needs and desires of Parents of Young Children. 

The Legoland Florida app was actually useful and well-designed.

These days, I think we all expect to have an app for any large-scale experiences such as theme parks, conferences, Vegas hotels. But I dont think we always expect these apps to be great. 

The Legoland Florida app was simple but not barebones, intuitive and user-friendly. It contained all the information we needed, answering all of our questions throughout the week. It contained our tickets, our parking, our photo pass, the photos themselves, FAQs, accurate ride wait times (!), and a multi-layered interactive map with GPS.

Parents always need to know where the nearest bathroom is.

You never know when the baby’s next poopsplosion will be or how quickly that lemonade will hit your six-year-old’s bladder, so you want to make sure there’s a bathroom nearby. There were MANY bathrooms – with plenty of stalls and changing tables! –  and they were always clean and stocked. There was only one part of the park (Lego City) where I felt like we had to walk a little too far to relieve ourselves. 

You can bring in your own food and drink to Legoland Florida.

Parents will recognize these contradictory truths about my son: he devoured green olives for years but will only eat black olives now. He loves pepperoni pizza – unless it’s too cheesy, too melty, too floppy, too stiff, too crunchy, too saucey, too burnt. He will eat exactly two kinds of chicken nuggets – Dino nuggies and McDonalds – and will absolutely not touch a chicken tender (except the ones at Party Fowl, which are “the best”) or breaded chicken such as schnitzel or shake and bake. He will eat many vegetables, including carrots, broccoli, bell peppers, but will only consume them raw. 

Kids can have specific dietary needs and parents can stress over what/if/when their kids eat. It can be exhausting to plan around. We will often feed Skyler something at home before we go out to dinner so we don’t end up wasting money on something he doesn’t eat. 

If the park were to force us to only buy their food, they know people would either leave the park for a couple hours in order to feed their small children; when people leave your park, you can’t get any more of their money. But let us bring in our own food – food we know our child will eat – and parents are likely to still spend money on food (namely in the form of fun treats or alcoholic drinks). 

It’s also cheaper for the park to allow people to bring in their own food: they can have fewer food options, fewer food stalls, hire fewer people, so really it’s win-win-win: the park earns more money, parents have some control over the food situation, and kids will actually eat instead of getting hangry!

Some parents want to imbibe on vacation.

This won’t matter to a lot of you, but for those who like to day-drink on vacation, you will be happy to know that Legoland Florida sells a variety of alcoholic drinks – to go! This was something that disappointed our group when we visited Magic Kingdom in 2022 and Dollywood in 2023. You couldn’t walk around and day drink. 🙁 But at Legoland Florida you can 🍺So even when you’re sitting around watching your kid build for an hour, you’re not bored 😜

Some parents want to encourage life-long learning, even while on vacation.

From a learning perspective, the park designers once again slayed. This might not be a priority for you, and that’s fine! But for those extra nerdy parents and practitioners of life-long learning like myself, you will be DELIGHTED. 

As a learning professional, I was impressed by how well the designers understood their target audience – though, credit might actually need to go to the Lego brand itself. Lego’s values – Imagination, Creativity, Fun, Learning, Caring, and Quality – aim to foster a culture that inspires and develops children through play and creative expression. I mean, check out this handy flyer they’ve made for parents to understand the importance of learning through play. Lego gets it. 

The park designers took Lego’s philosophy and ran with it!!! Children need to practice independence and to do things for themselves; the park gives them many opportunities to do so both through interactive attractions and the overall park design. They understand what kids of different ages want in terms of freedom and engagement, from toddlers stumbling around wherever they want to pre-teens running from ride to ride without their parents. They understand the power of age-mixed play in which the younger kids “learn skills and sophisticated ways of thinking from older ones” while older children “learn how to nurture, lead, and, in general, be the mature person in a relationship”. 

“In play, away from adults, children really do have control and can practice asserting it. In free play, children learn to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, create and abide by rules, and get along with others as equals rather than as obedient or rebellious subordinates. – Peter O. Gray, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life 

The park designers also understand that kids need unstructured free play to practice life skills in order to become more self-sufficient and capable of handling everyday tasks. Play comes in many forms – physical, constructive, social, fantasy, games with rules – and children need a little bit of all kinds to not only feel satisfied but also to support their well-rounded social-emotional growth. From real-world tasks in Lego City and hands-on building challenges to gamified rides with rules and more flexible game-like activities, every attraction at Legoland Florida engages a child’s natural play instincts. From both my viewpoint as a parent and as a learning professional, this focus on play-based learning makes my heart so happy. 🥰I’m all for any fun experience that can also promote organic learning! As Sugata Mitra says, “If you allow the educational process to self-organize, then learning emerges. It’s not about making learning happen. It’s about letting it happen.”

Legoland’s park layout is compact and efficient without feeling small.

When I first saw the map of Legoland Florida, I overestimated its size. I was concerned that there would be long sections of “boring walking paths” (as I thought of them as a kid). But I shouldn’t have worried! The map is deceptively big. 

The overall size of the park made it easy to bounce between the lands without feeling like you’re wasting time traveling between them. You’ll get in lots of steps for the day but won’t feel overtired. Both days, we stayed at the park for 6-7 hours and racked up around 15,000 steps. 

The individual lands were not big; generally, you could see most or all available attractions when entering a land. In many cases, you had sightlines to most or all ride entrances/exits. This visibility can reduce parental stress because it is easier to keep an eye on rambunctious kids and to feel comfortable allowing bigger kids to run free. 

(Nerdy aside: As a longtime devotee of the classic computer game Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, I really appreciate this efficient use of space in creating compact lands. I strive for this smart design in my own parks to help with traffic flow.)

I loved how they could make the most out of a small space or a niche theme. Take Ninjago World, which features exactly one ride. 

Don’t get me wrong! It’s a super cool interactive 3D dark ride that will give your arms a workout. But you see an area labeled as a “world” that features a singular ride, and you get worried. This turned out to be one of my favorite worlds! Through immersive theming and free-play elements, they created an area that kids would want to spend a lot of time running freely (and where parents could rest). 

Kids love to jump and climb and spin, so why not build opportunities into the experience? Kai’s spinners are simple playground equipment that bring a lot of joy. Jay’s Lightning Drill lets kids practice precision and reflexes by pressing as many light-up targets as they can in 30-second sessions. Cole’s Rock Climb (pictured below) combined physical activity with interactive media.And finally, at the entrance to the land, there’s Zane’s Temple Build (below), one of many free-build experiences where kids can contribute to a giant model. 

Can you do the whole park in one day?  

When I first read the hours were only 10-5, I was skeptical. Only 7 hours in this park? Will it be enough time? Will we be rushed? I bought a two-day one-park pass to ensure that we didn’t miss anything that Skyler wanted to do. I absolutely recommend two full days in Legoland Florda. It was the right amount of time. 

Our district’s spring break is a bit early in the season, so there were very few crowds when we went. We enjoyed two non-rushed days at the park and didn’t even see or ride everything! (Several attractions were closed and there were a few Skyler was uninterested in.)  Based on this experience, I would certainly recommend at least two days regardless of season but especially during peak tourist months.

Critiques

I’ve been raving about the UX and design of Legoland Florida. But don’t worry, I still have a few critiques of the overall park experience. 😝

The staff were mostly disengaged.

Most of the staff members seemed pretty checked out. On one hand, I get it, working at a theme park is probably super annoying; people are the worst (and there were plenty of rude visitors)! I guess one perk of this lax attitude was that they let us take our drinks on the gentle rides (I have no idea if this is within policy or not). 😝

On the other hand, c’mon y’all, you’re in customer service at a theme park; at least lean into it a little bit. Pretend to care. Pretend you’re a “Model Citizen”. Smile. Put on your game face. The folks who did – and there were plenty! – were courteous and helpful. A couple staff members even went above and beyond the call of duty (I’m thinking of Alan who worked it hard at the Fire Rescue Academy! I know you’re putting on a show, dude!).

The food and beverages were overpriced, even for a theme park.

Yes, you’re gonna pay premium prices at a theme park, but $18 for 4 tenders and fries? $6 for a bag of chips? $14 for a cold Caesar wrap that we have to put our own dressing on? And finally, $14 for a High Noon? C’MON. You already have a captive audience, and yes, we appreciate that we can bring in our own food and snacks – you have no idea! But you also know that parents want to drink, and we’re gonna, so just cut us a little bit of slack? Maybe $10 for a hard seltzer? 

Overall review of Legoland Florida

The TL;DR is that Legoland Florida is a thoughtfully-designed theme park that prioritizes the kid experience without forgetting their parents. The theming is baked into the design without feeling like an afterthought. The rides and attractions are not only fun but also encourage physical activity, promote problem-solving and creativity, and help kids practice independence. 

I would recommend this theme park experience for any kids under 10 (I would worry that double-digit kids would feel too antsy and want the more intense thrills of other theme parks). If you have a Lego-obsessed child like ours, take them to Legoland Florida for an absolutely unforgettable experience!!!