LEGOLAND Florida September 2024

Our family of four recently returned from a two week long trip to Florida. We spent eight days at Walt Disney World, visited The Crayola Experience Orlando, explored the Gulf Coast and ended our trip at LEGOLAND Florida Resort. Here’s how our time at LEGOLAND Florida Resort in September of 2024 was spent.

LEGOLAND Florida Resort

LEGOLAND Florida is in Winter Haven, about an hour south of Orlando. Our kids are currently LEGO obsessed. Last year we completed a Homeschool Lego Unit Study and I also became infatuated with the company. LEGO has a lovely history and continues to strive to make high quality products. When we learned LEGOLAND theme parks were a thing, they quickly became high on our travel bucket list.

Maybe it’s because we were coming off of Disney prices but the LEGOLAND theme park tickets seemed reasonably priced. We had a “kids go free” ticket for each child that we found in their LEGO magazines. Coupons like these or a similar promotion can be found online or on their website.

The hotel prices in September were fantastic. It was slightly more to stay here then a local Hampton Inn and Suites and the perks were plenty….but….the cost of this hotel at times is INSANE. In September we paid 150.00 a night. When I quickly searched to see prices at other times of the year they range from 200 all the way up to 600 dollars a night! Although we loved our stay here, it’s definitely worth doing the research and visiting during one of those lower cost times.

These are the amenities included with the LEGOLAND Hotel stay.

LEGOLAND Hotel 🏩

We arrived at the LEGOLAND Hotel around noon. Jamie checked us in but they let us know our room would most likely not be ready until 4 PM. They were correct. In fact we weren’t able to access our room until about 4:30. I think this is the norm.

They let us know we were free to hang out at the resort and enjoy the amenities while we waited for our room. We were given a resort brochure and told we could sign up for a free Master Model Builders Class that afternoon.

I went on their website and was easily able to sign us up for a builders class at 3 PM. We made a trip to the Publix, a couple of miles down the road to grab some groceries and have a quick picnic lunch. Then we headed back to the resort, arriving at 2:22 😇.

Parking

We easily parked in the cover parking area adjacent to the resort. Parking is included in the price of the hotel stay. Normally LEGOLAND parking is 35 dollars a day!

Exploring the Resort

We still had some time before our class began so we walked around and explored the resort. This place was a dream to our LEGO loving children. Everywhere we looked….LEGO.

Master Model Builders Class

Soon it was time to head to the Master Model Builders Class. I signed up online for a designated time slot.

A Master Builder taught the class how to create the build of the day and then we kept the creation! We learned we could go everyday we were staying at the resort and adults are welcomed to make a build too! The first day the kids built an airplane.

After the class we hung out for a bit more around the resort. We checked out the pool, watched one of the LEGO movies that was playing in the lobby areas, explored the gift shop, built stuff with LEGO’s. LEGO’s are just everywhere here.

Adventure Themed Room 507

Finally we were able to check into our room. This was one of our favorite moments of the trip. We were assigned an adventure themed room.

The rooms are themed from head to toe.

This hotel 100 percent is designed for kids while also keeping parents in mind. The rooms have a king size bed and television in one area and then a set of bunk beds (with pull out trundle below the bottom one) with another television in a separate area of the room. The kids loved this. Everything was LEGO themed, right down to the LEGO brick bar of hand soap. The bathroom had a wooden step stool as well as a separate attachment on the toilet seat that made it smaller for toddlers or preschoolers.

The best part of entering the hotel room was the treasure hunt set up for the kids. They followed three clues that lead to the combination of the lock on the safe. When opened they discovered a bagged LEGO set for each kid, as well as a LEGO magazine and a juice box! The kids were elated. They immediately got to work building their sets. The rooms also include a box of LEGO’s for kids to play with during their stay.

We spent the rest of the evening enjoying this LEGO themed room. Jamie picked up Hibachi takeout from Hibachi Express that was delicious.

LEGOLAND Free Breakfast

We woke up excited to go to LEGOLAND theme park today. But first we headed down to enjoy the free sit down breakfast. We were advised to go early as it gets busier the closer to park opening. When we opened the door to head down to breakfast we found a free LEGO times newspaper outside of our room. Super cute touch.

The free breakfast was substantial. It was all you can eat family style. The waffles were shaped like LEGO bricks. The first platter of food was pretty cold and honestly not great, but the second serving our waitress brought was hot and tasted much better. Drinks like coffee, milk or juice were also included.

LEGOLAND Theme Park

After breakfast we headed back up to our room to pack our backpack for the day and headed back down to the theme park. Another perk of staying at the hotel is the one minute walk to the park. There is an entirely separate entrance and security line for guests of the hotel.

We took some pictures with the sign and then waited in line for a few minutes for the park to open. When it did a bunch of staff members (LEGOLAND calls them “model citizens”) were located at the front just to greet the crowd and say good morning. The LEGO model citizens are just as friendly and helpful as Disney cast members, who are known to be top of the line for customer service.

We learned early that morning to ask LEGOLAND model citizens if “They have Mr. Gold?” Each day they give out 10 to 15 of these “pop badges” and when you find someone with one they give it to you. We weren’t able to find Mr. Gold, but we definitely had fun trying.

Another fun thing we learned about was LEGOLAND Mini Figure Trading. It’s kind of like Disney’s pin trading but with mini figures. Mini Figures can be traded with any model citizen in the park. There is also a giant wall located inside The Legoland Story where you can pick any mini figure to trade with. This was definitely a highlight of the kids day.

Our strategy for LEGOLAND was to start in the back and work our way forward. This worked well for us. We spent the first two hours of the day in an EMPTY park. Minus the exception of one family that took our picture for us, we saw NO ONE. We walked on every single ride, rode some multiple times in a row. The kids noted how relaxing it was here compared to Disney World. They weren’t wrong.

We had watched a couple of Youtube videos the night before that suggested to ride The Great Lego Race Coaster early on. So we did that one first. Then we proceeded to go on ride after ride for the next few hours. Here are a few, I didn’t get pictures of everything.

The Great Lego Race Coaster

Coast Guard Academy

Driving School

The kids wanted to do this three times 🤣. That red light actually works. Jake obediently stopped at it and waited for it to turn green. 🤣

Lego Ninjago World

Lego Ninjago The Ride

The kids were so excited for this one. We rode it three times in a row and never even saw another family.

We read that Pirate River Quest can get quite busy, so we headed to ride that one as soon as it opened at 11 AM. There was no one else around and we hopped right on the boat. Cool thing about this ride is it actually brings you into a real lake at the end.

Pirate River Quest

We got an excellent view of some cypress trees. The kids and I learned about these before our trip while doing our Florida homeschool unit study.

Kid Power Tower

Safari Trek

Royal Joust

The Grand Carousel

Merlin’s Challenge

The Lego Movie Masters of Flight

Ice Cream, A Show and Apple Fries

After going on many, many rides we wrapped up the afternoon with an ice cream from Kingdom Cones (they sell Dole Whip here too!), a 4D Lego Friends show in the movie theater and some apple fries from Granny’s Apple Fries.

We tried the apple fries with a side of caramel sauce to dip them in. This picture doesn’t do them justice. Yum.

We also spent some time in Mini Land USA. The kids probably could have spent an entire day here.

We went here on our last big vacation to California!

Also to make note of is the amount of LEGO Sculptures throughout the park. We also stopped and spent time admiring them throughout the day.

We wrapped up our LEGOLAND day with a stop by The Big Shop gift shop where Jake bought a small Lego set.

*Side note to tell the story of a random thing that happened while at LEGOLAND: we saw some vloggers that looked like the people from All Ears Youtube channel. We were kind of like, “no they wouldn’t be here…this isn’t Disney”…and dismissed it. Well turns out it was them! Here’s the LEGO video they made the day we were there. You can even briefly (very, very briefly, like don’t blink briefly) see us in the background in parts of it 🤣. So funny.

We were in LEGOLAND from 10 until 4:30 pm. The park hours were 10-5 that day. After riding every ride the kids wanted to ride and skipping the Duplo area, we felt like we got to do it all. LEGOLAND was unexpectedly large. It is a full day park.

LEGOLAND Resort Time

We left the park and it took us two minutes to get back to our hotel room. The kids were happily surprised with another LEGO Pack! We learned they get one every night you stay in the hotel.

We decided to keep it easy tonight and have leftover Hibachi and ham and cheese sandwiches for dinner.

I signed the kids up for another Master Model Builders class at 6 PM. This time they made a crab.

After the class we spent the rest of the night at the pool. The kids swam, played with the giant LEGO bricks and went on the slide over and over again. Jamie and I laid down in the pool chairs and watched them. The pool was perfect for kids. There was a nice big zero entry side to the pool that very gradually dropped off. The deep end of the pool was well defined. Many attentive life guards surrounding the entire pool. The slide was fun for the kids.

Check Out Day

We woke up, went downstairs and got our free breakfast. It was similar to the previous morning but with pancakes instead of waffles today.

Jamie took Jake to the pool for a bit while I packed up the room and Anika watched The Lego Movie.

We checked out and headed to Orlando to stay in a hotel near the airport where we would fly out of in the morning. LEGOLAND Florida was the perfect way to end this trip.

The LEGOLAND Florida Resort was fantastic. The kids liked it here just as much if not more then Walt Disney World. The whole experience, the hotel and the theme park was so immersive. The added little touches like, free LEGO kits and Master Builder Classes rounded out the experience. They cater to kids, but definitely keep the parents in mind too, to ensure they have a bit of a relaxing vacation too. The price of the hotel at the time of the year we went was so reasonable. When we factor in the extras like; parking, 4 LEGO kits, 2 Master builder builds, 2 sit down full service all you can eat hot breakfast, convenience to the parks, the price seems fantastic. We didn’t even get to all the amenities that the hotel offered.