Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 11 years and 3 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

We had friends from Ohio visiting after Christmas who wanted to hit some of the Orlando theme parks during their stay. Their primary target was Disney World, but having younger children they also wanted to scope out LEGOLAND. We had always meant to go check it out, and I had recently received a flyer in the mail about the new Star Wars Miniland grand opening, so we were (I was) more than happy to spend a day at the (relatively) new theme park.

LEGOLAND is the old Cypress Gardens (which closed back in 2009) in Winterhaven, FL. I personally hadn’t been to Winterhaven since 2008 when my Cleveland Indians still held spring training there before moving to the Cactus League (it was a little driving past the old Chain of Lakes Park stadium). The old theme park was purchased in 2010 and re-opened as LEGOLAND Florida in October 2011.

While LEGOLAND can’t really compete at the same level as the traditional Orlando theme parks (Disney, Universal, Sea World, etc.) if you have fond memories of playing with LEGOs, or have kids that love LEGOs, you’ll have a good time. It has most of your traditional theme park rides, but all with some sort of LEGO brick theme. There’s a Duplo section for the smaller tots, a Technics area with rides for the older set, the old traditional water-ski show, character meet-and-greets (think life-sized mini-figs), and of course shopping, food, and other shows, including LEGO brick-shaped fireworks (thanks to special glasses … it’s a gimmick, but it’s a hilariously cool one).

My favorites part, though, was Mini-Land. The entire middle section of the park is nothing but incredible dioramas built out of LEGOs. The attention to detail is amazing … you could stand there for hours and see all sorts of new things. You can see all my photos here and I’ve included a few in the gallery below. Really cool stuff … and the new Star Wars area was awesome too.

I don’t see us getting an annual pass to LEGOLAND any time soon, but I would like to go back for a second day to see the stuff we missed and check out Mini-Land some more.