Legoland is piecing together its expansion plans for inside and outside of its 145-acre Polk County park.
During the 2018 International Association of Amusement Parks & Attraction Expo, running Nov. 12-16 in Orlando, the Merlin Entertainments Plc.-owned (LON: MERL), Winter Haven-based theme park shared a peek at its new The Lego Movie World area coming next year, as well as plans for a new hotel in 2020.
Tampa Bay Business Journal first broke the news in August that the park was planning to build a five-story, 150-room hotel in addition to an existing hotel at the Legoland Florida Resort.
At the IAAPA event, TBBJ's sister publication the Orlando Business Journal got additional details for the hotel and the new attractions for the park.
The hotel will open in 2020 and connect to the existing five-story, 152-room hotel. It will feature a pool and massive deck area, which is what an earlier Southwest Florida Water Management District permit showed.
The hotel is big news for the park especially as it would be a big investment, costing at least $25 million to build by industry standards.
Merlin’s Legoland theme park division has reported more than $352.5 million in its first-half 2018 revenue, and hotels represented $78.4 million, or 22 percent, of that, OBJ reported.
However, the highlight of the Legoland appearance at IAAPA had heads turning.
The park had a Lego model of the future land, inspired by the popular 2014 film "The Lego Movie." The new land will debut with three new attractions: The Lego Movie Masters of Flight, Unikitty's Disco Drop and Battle of Bricksburg.
Legoland Florida also revealed the technology behind the Masters of Flight ride — the m-Ride flying theater from Taiwan-based ride designer Brogent Technologies Inc.
The m-Ride technology is a 180-degree rotating theater attraction with additional 4D elements such as smells and water sprays.
"There's a unique moment where guests actually can load in and not understand what that 'a-ha' reveal moment was going to be. And as the ride rotates 180 degrees, guests will be thrown in front of this giant dome screen. It's utilizing things that might already exist in the industry, but making it special for us," Keith Carr, project director with Merlin's North America division, told OBJ.