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So I spent part of Sunday watching a large pirate on water skies get chased by a plastic whale.
I had a reason for this.
Legos.
I have always wanted to go to Legoland. Legos filled our lives when we lived in Italy. My brother had the Lego Train, with Lego tracks that we ran under his bed to make a tunnel as the train dashed from Lego City to Lego Town to Legoville. (I may have mentioned that naming things = not my strong point.) We also had Lego Space which occasionally sent down messages to Legoville which generally sparked wars between Lego City and Legoville which no train could halt, especially once stuffed animals were involved. (Important life lesson: if you ever need to stop a Lego train, throw a stuffed dinosaur on its tracks. Works every time until the other sibling runs and gets the dinosaur and throws it, which entirely changes the tempo of the game, but that's another story.)
And someplace, I knew, in the not so distant place called Denmark, stood Legoland. I saw pictures, and it was clearly a marvel – a whole place with little buildings made entirely from Legos. I wanted to go. I desperately wanted to go. But for whatever reason we never made it to Denmark in all our years in Italy (and we probably would have been taken to Educational Things in Copenhagen anyway, coupled with a brief stop at the Little Mermaid.)
Years later, I made it to Denmark. My feet twitched. My hands twitched. Legoland. But I was on an incredibly, incredibly strict budget not helped by getting robbed by an American tourist earlier on the trip, and Legoland was expensive, and –
And I was afraid that it was not going to live up to those childhood dreams. (A guy I met in Copenhagen was decidedly not encouraging.) So I mucked around in Copenhagen for a bit, then headed to Sweden instead, stayed one horrifically expensive night, headed back to Copenhagen...
...twitched more –
And headed to Brussels.
I regretted it the instant I stepped off the train in Brussels. (To be fair, this was because I had, for a number of reasons, a horrible time in Brussels – it was the low point of the entire trip.) I'll go back, I told myself. I'll go back to Denmark.
And yet I never did.
I've travelled extensively since, generally by accident, to various continents and countries and cities and places – part of my twitchy feeling now is that my travelling has slowed down so drastically – but never to Denmark, keeping Legoland always twitching in the back of my mind.
Enter Cypress Gardens.
Cypress Gardens, for those of you who may not remember it, was one of Florida's first theme parks, of sorts, founded in the 1930s and featuring botanical gardens, Southern Belles and water skiing. This did well until the advent of Disney. Unfortunately, Cypress Gardens was a solid 45 minutes away from Disney, and unlike Tampa Bay/Busch Gardens, it did not have the benefit of having a large city like Tampa nearby to provide a steady source of visitors. And, it was located off of US 27, better known to many people as "not one of Florida's more attractive roads" (although US 27 is home to one of Florida's other once-glorious attractions, the Citrus Tower. There's another story with that, but it can wait.) US 27 is best known to us as "that highway where your grandfather fell into a canal" so you can see the fun that awaits you, and that's on a nicer bit of US 27. I kept thinking that I really ought to go and check the place out – and yet I never did. Most of Florida apparently felt the same way.
Cypress Gardens slowly and majestically inclined. In 2004, a group of investors made a heroic attempt to transform the park into an Adventure Park, only to be slammed by the seemingly unending series of hurricanes that hit Florida that year (Charley, Frances, Jeanne.) It finally reopened briefly, to the response of, uh, that's a lot of money for us to drive all the way out there, and a lot of ehs, to the rides. (It didn't help that getting there from Miami/Fort Lauderdale meant a major detour either on the way to or back to Disney, and that's without worrying about the falling into a canal part. A couple years ago, the investors gave up – sadly, more or less at the same time that Florida finally realized that really, something ought to be done about this US 27 deal.
Enter Legoland.
Apparently, Legoland had been hoping to enter central Florida for some time, and was just looking for a nicely failed place to buy up. They purchased Cypress Gardens, agreeing to preserve most of its garden bits, and just add in Legos and rides. (Some of the old rides from the Adventure Park days were kept.) It opened in October 2011.
I'm going, I thought.
But not immediately. I don't handle crowds well these days, and it's a solid hour drive from here – which meant I would already be tired once we arrived, which does not help with the crowds. But the second weekend in January is not exactly high tourist season at the theme parks, and so, despite reports that the park had filled to capacity a couple of times between Christmas and New Year's, we headed down Sunday, armed with Gatorade and my scooter.
We didn't take US 27 down – we headed down another road, with more miles, but more lakes and fewer traffic lights; it takes about the same amount of time, which meant going through Lake Alfred, a town that has seen considerably better days, but still has lovely lakes, and Winter Haven, ditto, and then we were there.
Having gone through the park, I can say that if Legoland is going to last, it's either going to need more rides, or better rides, or just slightly lower prices. Currently, it's about $10 to $20 less than Disney/Universal/Sea World – but unlike those places, it's clearly a one day sort of thing, and the surrounding area does not exactly offer a number of places to stay or other things to do (aside from Bok Towers and that ghost road thingy which makes your car go "uphill", which turns out to be a solid 45 minutes away from Legoland anyway), and as I've noted, it's a solid 45 minutes away from Disney and a good hour from Universal and further from the rest of Orlando – and a solid hour from Tampa. None of the roller coasters come anywhere near matching what Tampa Bay/Busch Gardens or Universal has to offer; the King Tut ride is a decidedly lesser version of the two Disney equivalents (I cracked up) and so on.
And it also needs to work on its merchandise. I came prepared to resist temptation, and as it turned out, I really didn't have to resist much. It's a problem when my local Target, not exactly a Lego destination, offers a better selection of both Lego Star Wars and Lego Harry Potter. It's an even worse problem given that Downtown Disney still has the large, elaborate Lego store with a considerably better selection of items.
But, for its targeted age group – six year olds and inner six year olds – it's awesome.
And I have to say, aside from a sad accident with a latte early on and the decision of my camera to turn from a cheap camera into a cheap, temperamental camera that couldn't decide if it was on or off –
Yeah, awesome.
Plus, a Lego pirate on water skies chased by a plastic whale. There's a lot to be said for that.
Pictures follow in the next posts.
I had a reason for this.
Legos.
I have always wanted to go to Legoland. Legos filled our lives when we lived in Italy. My brother had the Lego Train, with Lego tracks that we ran under his bed to make a tunnel as the train dashed from Lego City to Lego Town to Legoville. (I may have mentioned that naming things = not my strong point.) We also had Lego Space which occasionally sent down messages to Legoville which generally sparked wars between Lego City and Legoville which no train could halt, especially once stuffed animals were involved. (Important life lesson: if you ever need to stop a Lego train, throw a stuffed dinosaur on its tracks. Works every time until the other sibling runs and gets the dinosaur and throws it, which entirely changes the tempo of the game, but that's another story.)
And someplace, I knew, in the not so distant place called Denmark, stood Legoland. I saw pictures, and it was clearly a marvel – a whole place with little buildings made entirely from Legos. I wanted to go. I desperately wanted to go. But for whatever reason we never made it to Denmark in all our years in Italy (and we probably would have been taken to Educational Things in Copenhagen anyway, coupled with a brief stop at the Little Mermaid.)
Years later, I made it to Denmark. My feet twitched. My hands twitched. Legoland. But I was on an incredibly, incredibly strict budget not helped by getting robbed by an American tourist earlier on the trip, and Legoland was expensive, and –
And I was afraid that it was not going to live up to those childhood dreams. (A guy I met in Copenhagen was decidedly not encouraging.) So I mucked around in Copenhagen for a bit, then headed to Sweden instead, stayed one horrifically expensive night, headed back to Copenhagen...
...twitched more –
And headed to Brussels.
I regretted it the instant I stepped off the train in Brussels. (To be fair, this was because I had, for a number of reasons, a horrible time in Brussels – it was the low point of the entire trip.) I'll go back, I told myself. I'll go back to Denmark.
And yet I never did.
I've travelled extensively since, generally by accident, to various continents and countries and cities and places – part of my twitchy feeling now is that my travelling has slowed down so drastically – but never to Denmark, keeping Legoland always twitching in the back of my mind.
Enter Cypress Gardens.
Cypress Gardens, for those of you who may not remember it, was one of Florida's first theme parks, of sorts, founded in the 1930s and featuring botanical gardens, Southern Belles and water skiing. This did well until the advent of Disney. Unfortunately, Cypress Gardens was a solid 45 minutes away from Disney, and unlike Tampa Bay/Busch Gardens, it did not have the benefit of having a large city like Tampa nearby to provide a steady source of visitors. And, it was located off of US 27, better known to many people as "not one of Florida's more attractive roads" (although US 27 is home to one of Florida's other once-glorious attractions, the Citrus Tower. There's another story with that, but it can wait.) US 27 is best known to us as "that highway where your grandfather fell into a canal" so you can see the fun that awaits you, and that's on a nicer bit of US 27. I kept thinking that I really ought to go and check the place out – and yet I never did. Most of Florida apparently felt the same way.
Cypress Gardens slowly and majestically inclined. In 2004, a group of investors made a heroic attempt to transform the park into an Adventure Park, only to be slammed by the seemingly unending series of hurricanes that hit Florida that year (Charley, Frances, Jeanne.) It finally reopened briefly, to the response of, uh, that's a lot of money for us to drive all the way out there, and a lot of ehs, to the rides. (It didn't help that getting there from Miami/Fort Lauderdale meant a major detour either on the way to or back to Disney, and that's without worrying about the falling into a canal part. A couple years ago, the investors gave up – sadly, more or less at the same time that Florida finally realized that really, something ought to be done about this US 27 deal.
Enter Legoland.
Apparently, Legoland had been hoping to enter central Florida for some time, and was just looking for a nicely failed place to buy up. They purchased Cypress Gardens, agreeing to preserve most of its garden bits, and just add in Legos and rides. (Some of the old rides from the Adventure Park days were kept.) It opened in October 2011.
I'm going, I thought.
But not immediately. I don't handle crowds well these days, and it's a solid hour drive from here – which meant I would already be tired once we arrived, which does not help with the crowds. But the second weekend in January is not exactly high tourist season at the theme parks, and so, despite reports that the park had filled to capacity a couple of times between Christmas and New Year's, we headed down Sunday, armed with Gatorade and my scooter.
We didn't take US 27 down – we headed down another road, with more miles, but more lakes and fewer traffic lights; it takes about the same amount of time, which meant going through Lake Alfred, a town that has seen considerably better days, but still has lovely lakes, and Winter Haven, ditto, and then we were there.
Having gone through the park, I can say that if Legoland is going to last, it's either going to need more rides, or better rides, or just slightly lower prices. Currently, it's about $10 to $20 less than Disney/Universal/Sea World – but unlike those places, it's clearly a one day sort of thing, and the surrounding area does not exactly offer a number of places to stay or other things to do (aside from Bok Towers and that ghost road thingy which makes your car go "uphill", which turns out to be a solid 45 minutes away from Legoland anyway), and as I've noted, it's a solid 45 minutes away from Disney and a good hour from Universal and further from the rest of Orlando – and a solid hour from Tampa. None of the roller coasters come anywhere near matching what Tampa Bay/Busch Gardens or Universal has to offer; the King Tut ride is a decidedly lesser version of the two Disney equivalents (I cracked up) and so on.
And it also needs to work on its merchandise. I came prepared to resist temptation, and as it turned out, I really didn't have to resist much. It's a problem when my local Target, not exactly a Lego destination, offers a better selection of both Lego Star Wars and Lego Harry Potter. It's an even worse problem given that Downtown Disney still has the large, elaborate Lego store with a considerably better selection of items.
But, for its targeted age group – six year olds and inner six year olds – it's awesome.
And I have to say, aside from a sad accident with a latte early on and the decision of my camera to turn from a cheap camera into a cheap, temperamental camera that couldn't decide if it was on or off –
Yeah, awesome.
Plus, a Lego pirate on water skies chased by a plastic whale. There's a lot to be said for that.
Pictures follow in the next posts.