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Legoland News - (10/28/09) News articles posted this past week claim that Legoland may be poking around the area of Glen Carbon, IL, just across the stateline from St. Louis, MO, as a possible site for another Legoland theme park. After poking around a couple of sites in Kasnas in 2006 and 2007 with no luck, it looks like they are still determined to find a Mid-West location for the next US based park.
    (7/7/09) In this latest article at the Orlando Sentinel, Merlin Enertainment really played down any possible plans to build a Legoland park in Florida right now. They admit that Florida is one of several key sites they are investigating the possibility of building a Legoland park in, but right now they have no solid plans to build a new Legoland park anywhere in the US. Yet...
    Of course this is also known as playing possum... since they apparently shook up the proverbial bee-hive with their survey which eventually alerted the mass media to their actions, they now how to lay low since they havn’t purchased any property yet and are not committed to anything right now. But you can bet they did take notice of just how huge a reaction they got from the Florida area, which I’m sure will play a major role in deciding where to place their next US location when they are ready.
    (7/1/09) Time to eat my words it seems, as the local news confirmed with a Merlin Entertainment spokesperson that they are the ones behind the Legoland Florida surveys.
    (6/30/09) I’ve been told that the local news has gotten hold of the Legoland Florida story at last and mentioned that two other sites in addition to Cypress Gardens are also under consideration: an unknown site in Kissimmee near Old Town on 192 as well as the old Splendid China site off 192 on the other side of I-4.
    (6/29/09) I just wanted to post a quick update on the whole Legoland Florida story, mentioning a little something that I’ve only shared so far with our Twitter readers so far. Whoever is behind this survey is apparently quite serious about it since I’ve been contacted by both Strata Research and E-Rewards (not sure how they are involved) who have both requested that I remove any and all mention of the Legoland Florida theme park, the survey and it’s involvement with Cypress Gardens.
    Obviously I declined to do so, other than removing the screen captures which could be considered their copyright material, as I am will within my rights as a journalist to publish this story. However it did get me to thinking… as the whole process seems to have gone through a very poor thought process. If they were really that seriously about keeping the idea of a Legoland Florida theme park a true secret, they would have NEVER gone out and introduced the idea in a public opinion poll on the internet. To do something this like “out in the wild” like that, you can guarantee that someone is going to leak the information, and I think Merlin Entertainment and Blackstone are far too intelligent to make that kind of error.
    So if we write them out of the picture… who else could have been behind this survey? Who would stand to benefit the most from Legoland building a new park on the site of Cypress Gardens? I can only guess and speculate that perhaps the current owners of Cypress Gardens may have been the ones to set this survey in motion. It would also explain why they wanted me to remove my story as well, as I’ve been very openly critical of just how poor a location Cypress Gardens would be for a Legoland Florida theme park. Anywhere else closer to the action in Orlando it would be a sure fire hit… but I really don’t believe it would work at Cypress Gardens, which these days seems to have more in common with the Titanic than a bunch of plastic bricks.
    (6/18/09) One of our readers was invited to take quite an interesting online survey the other day that involves the possibility of a brand new theme park coming to the central Florida area. The questions were all about building Legoland Florida, which would be based on the basic design and layout of the Legoland California park, and feature about 50 different rides and attractions.
    The survey asked some basic questions about ticket price levels as well trying to tell how interested people would be in visiting Legoland Florida on their next trip to the area as well as what age groups were thought to be just right or too old for a Legoland park trip. They also asked questions about where people would rank a trip to Legoland in comparison to all the other central Florida area attractions. However the most interesting thing of all were questions that asked if Legoland chose to build their park on the site of Cypress Gardnes, would you be more or less interested in visiting. They even drew up a map to show off where Cypress Gardens is located, kind of between Tampa and Orlando, but unfortunately it has utterly dismal freeway access, requiring about a 30 minute drive off into the middle of nowhere to find it.
    Personally I think a Legoland theme park in Central Florida would be a huge draw and would quickly become the premier Legoland experience in the world. However trying to set up roots on the Cypress Gardens site is one of the worst ideas I’ve heard. If they could take over the former Boardwalk & Baseball site right next to the freeway or somewhere even closer to Orlando, that would guarantee their success. Unfortunately I have no confidence at all in the Cypress Gardens site so I’d avoid it like the plague since I believe the poor freeway access has been a major issue all along with the park’s ability to survive. (Editor’s Note - Previously I had posted a few screen captures sent in by our source, but I have been asked from Strata Research to remove them.)
    (5/20/06) Though they were only looking to build a second US park right now, they did mention that they could see building three in the US in the future by adding an East Coast and Mid-West site.
    (1/20/06) In an interview about the new expansion plans at the California park, the GM of Legoland California stated that the company’s new owners are looking at sites in the US to build the fifth Legoland theme park sometime in the next 3-5 years.