LEGOLAND Florida Water Park Tips – Everything You Need To Know Before you Go

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I’m not sure I know a bigger LEGO fan than my daughter – she is an 8-year old master builder! She LOVES LEGO Friends and has an entire IKEA shelf FULL of her LEGO sets. And as you know, our family loves water parks! So, we were so excited on our recent Orlando trip to be invited to check out LEGOLAND Florida and especially to visit the LEGOLAND Florida water park!

Momma To Go would like to thank LEGOLAND Florida for hosting our visit. We received two complimentary tickets and complimentary parking. As always, all opinions are my own.

LEGOLAND Florida Water Park Tips: Everything You Need to Know

What is LEGOLAND Florida?

LEGOLAND Florida is an outdoor LEGO-Themed amusement park located in Central Florida. LEGOLAND Florida has two sections – the theme park, and the water park. The theme park features LEGO themed rides, shows and character meets and is open year round. The water park, continues the LEGO theme with water rides and is only open in the warmer months.

NOTE: In 2020 the waterpark will have an extended season with heated pools!

LEGOLAND Florida is geared toward LEGO fans age 2-12, so my kids were definitely on the older end, but they were tall enough to ride all the wet and dry rides, which is so nice!

It’s really important to note that admission to the water park requires a COMBO ticket. So be sure to check whether the water park IS open on the day of your visit and purchase your ticket accordingly.

The best place to buy tickets is by clicking the link below. I had to buy an extra ticket and I saved about $30 vs buying the ticket directly through LEGOLAND.

Where is LEGOLAND Florida?

LEGOLAND Florida is located in Winter Haven, Florida. The parks are about 45 minutes south of downtown Orlando, about 45 minutes from Tampa and about 2.5 hours from Naples, Florida.

A visit to LEGOLAND Florida is a nice add-on to an Orlando vacation. An easy day trip from the Walt Disney World area or you can plan an overnight stay in Winter Haven.

 

LEGOLAND Florida Hours

On the day of our visit in August 2020, the theme park was open from 10am-5pm, but the waterpark was only open from noon to 4pm. If you add on the waterpark option to your LEGOLAND Florida combo ticket, you will still have time to ride the dry rides.

Before your visit, check operating hours here. In the off-season, there are some mid-week days when the park is closed.

Keep reading to help plan your day at LEGOLAND Florida.

LEGOLAND Florida Rides

This was our fourth visit to LEGOLAND Florida, but our first to the waterpark. I have a full LEGOLAND Florida review from two years ago, just updated after this visit.

As this theme park is geared towards kids age 12 and under, there are no crazy thrill rides, although there are a few roller coasters and just enough excitement for my kids.

The dry rides theme park is divided into different lands – my kids love LEGO Ninjago, of course baby girl loves Heartlake City, and we always visit the “schools” in the back. Yes, kids can learn to drive at driving school, boat at boating school and fly at flying school! The littlest ones will love Duplo Valley -with rides for the youngest visitors.

Another really cool thing at LEGOLAND Florida is to take a stroll through MINILAND USA  where you tour major US landmarks, made totally out of LEGOS! These builds are incredible, and there are so many! I personally stink at building LEGOS so I am always in complete awe of these builds.

 

LEGOLAND Florida Waterpark

The LEGOLAND Florida water park is essentially a park within the park. Again, you need a combo ticket to access the waterpark at LEGOLAND. I did see signs around the park that you could add on the water park to your ticket for $25 per person. It’s definitely less to buy the combo ticket before you go.

The LEGOLAND water park is located in the back of the park, so to access it you need to walk all the way through just past Flying School.

When you arrive in the LEGOLAND water park area there are lockers and restrooms for changing. Lounge chair seating is available on a first come, first serve basis and cabanas are available for rent as well.

Within the waterpark there are two eateries (a regular concession stand and then a taco truck) – so everything you need to enjoy your day is inside this part of the park.

The LEGOLAND Florida Water Park has seven water attractions:

• Build-A-Boat, 44 inch minimum to ride alone
• Build-A-Raft River (lazy river) – all ages
• DUPLO Splash Safari – all ages
• Joker Soaker (splash pad) – all ages
• LEGO Wave Pool – 44 inch minimum to ride alone
• Splash Out (bigger water slides) – 48 inch minimum
• Twin Chasers (tube slide) – 48 inch minimum to ride alone, 42” with a taller rider

 

Everything You Need To Know About LEGOLAND Florida Water Park

We had a great day at LEGOLAND Florida! We arrived around 9:45 and secured our parking spot. From the lot (non-preferred parking) we had to walk to the security check and then through the ticket collector.

As soon as you enter the park the locker area is on the left. At the time of our visit, I paid $13 for a larger locker. In this area you can rent strollers, use the restroom, and this is where the larger LEGO gift shop is.

We then headed into the park to hit some LEGOLAND Florida rides! I was excited to see the LEGO Movie World is now open – this was a new-to-us area from our last visit. Back here there are three rides – and the kids got to test them all out.

My guys love coasters so they rode The Dragon several times as well as The Great LEGO race.

At around noon, we headed back to the front of the park (Called The Beginning) to go to our locker and get our swimsuits. This is where having a stroller, or wagon (I saw several families with this wagon) would be a smart idea. I definitely could not have carried everything around in the heat – and it was too hot to wear our swim suits under our clothes, but we had to walk ALL THE WAY BACK to the front to get our stuff when it was water park time.

At least we got our steps in!

Once we grabbed our swimsuit bag (check out my pool day essentials to see which pool bag we love), we headed ALL THE WAY back to LEGO City to ride driving school (Baby girl’s favorite ride) before heading into the LEGOLAND Florida water park. Sadly, she was too short to ride Flying School (you have to be 52” to ride unaccompanied) and needless to say, she was not happy about that.

But when we arrived at the waterpark, our tickets were scanned and we headed into the restrooms to change. We then found a lounge chair to park our stuff and the kids were off in the wave pool.

Over the course of the afternoon, the kids did all the water slides (3 plunge slides and two tube slides), spent a lot of time in the splash pad and we all rode the lazy river around several times.

For the littlest guests, there is a toddler slide area – so cute!

We did take a 2PM lunch break to sit in the shade and have some food. We had brought a whole cooler of water and drinks so that helped keep costs down.

At 4PM, the lifeguards blew the whistles and cleared the kids out of the pools and attractions. We then went to change back into our dry clothes ( you cannot go back on theme park attractions with wet swim suits).

PRO-TIP: Use the restrooms and changing rooms right behind the wave pool. That is where we went to change and it was empty. When we went to exit the water park, the restroom area by the water park entrance was very crowded.

 

Should You Buy a LEGOLAND Florida Combo Ticket?

This is definitely a tough question and one that for sure depends.

If you have never been to LEGOLAND Florida and you only have one day – you will be very rushed to do all the dry rides AND the waterpark. The park hours are fairly short to essentially do two parks in one day. If this is your first visit and you want to do both, I suggest making a two-day trip (one day to focus on the theme park, one day for the waterpark) OR follow our itinerary below and hit up the big theme park attractions and then spend about 3 hours in the waterpark.

If you just visit the theme park, you will never even know the waterpark is there, it is WAY in the back of the park.

With that said, the waterpark was a great way to spend a HOT Florida afternoon. See more below, but we also visited during the COVID-19 pandemic and the theme park was so empty we could ride everything quickly, there were no “extras” like shows and play areas available, and masks are not required in the waterpark, so three hours in the H2O was worth it for us.

LEGOLAND Florida Water Park Tips for Your Visit

 

Here are some LEGOLAND Florida Water Park Tips to make your visit AWESOME:

• Parking costs $23 for regular parking and $33 for preferred parking
• Lockers are located both in the “Beginning” which is the front of the theme park and inside the waterpark.
• Towels are NOT provided at LEGOLAND Florida Waterpark, but are available for purchase in the Surf Shop
• What to bring to LEGOLAND Florida water park? Check out my ultimate water park packing list.
• Strollers are available for rent
• You can bring your own food and beverages to LEGOLAND Florida. Small snacks, bottled water, nutritional supplements, baby food, allergy friendly food and small coolers are allowed.
• You may bring your own Coast Guard approved life vest, or they are available (free of charge) at the LEGOLAND Florida waterpark.
• Cabanas are available for rent. After my day at Island H2O LIVE when I seriously regretted not getting one, I will consider this for future water park visits!

 

LEGOLAND Florida Re-Opening

Lastly,  the time of our recent visit in August 2020, was amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We were not concerned about our safety having read the protocols in place.

As we arrived, we were temperature scanned (non-contact) which was the same we experienced at the re-opening of Disney Springs. Hand sanitizer was located throughout the park, although of course we brought our own.

Pretty standard these days, right?

Face coverings were required when indoors and on dry attractions. Face coverings were not required while riding water rides or while walking around outdoors. I only went on one ride, so my mask time was minimal, but the kids wore them on rides and did not complain.

PRO-TIP: Pack extra masks and maybe purchase a box of disposable masks to have on hand.

At the waterpark, tubes were constantly being sanitized and there were physical distance markers throughout the whole park.

On the day of our visit, attendance was extremely low. I don’t think my kids waited more than 5 minutes for any ride. There were no crowds or bottlenecks, and at no time were we in close proximity to others – even in places like the lazy river or at the water park lounge chairs. We also visited on a random Monday in August, which was also the first day back to school for local students.

It was great for the kids to just be able to ride and ride, and it seemed like all of the attractions were open. However, most other “stuff” was not. Only a few concession stands were open, hardly any retail shops outside of the main one at the entrance, and all the playgrounds and toddler play areas were closed.

Also, when we arrived, from 10am-11am, several attractions were not yet open (specifically in LEGO city).

It looked like the LEGO 4D Theatre did have show times, but that was it. There was also no minifigure trading onn the day of our visit.

Lastly, LEGOLAND Florida did a great job to employ physical distancing on the attractions, seating parties every other car, etc. There was also frequent breaks (about 5 mins) for rides to be sanitized.

If you just want to ride rides and cool off in the waterpark, this is a great time to visit LEGOLAND Florida. With low crowds and all the safety measures in place, we had an awesome time!

 

Have you been to LEGOLAND Florida? Have you visited the LEGOLAND Florida Water park? Tell me about it in the comments!

 

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