Legoland New York
Front Gate at Legoland New York in Goshen, New York
We are Elite Passholders at Legoland New York. For those not familiar with our blog, I generally do not visit theme parks without an annual pass, as I do not see the value in it. Paying $400+ for our family to visit for one day is too big a gamble while our kids are still small. Having an annual pass allows us to come and go as we please and makes us feel as though we don’t have to get it all done in one day. This way, if there are meltdowns, nap times, illnesses, or weather issues, we can take care of the issue at hand and return to the park later or on a better day. From a budgeting standpoint, I generally buy passes that get us into multiple parks and then plan our annual travels around visiting said parks. I buy the passes in the fall when they offer the rest of the year for free plus the upcoming year, or on Black Friday when many companies offer deep discounts. We got our Elite Passes for about $200 each on Black Friday 2022, and they are good for one calendar year. It gives us access to over 30 Merlin Entertainment Venues, including the Legoland Parks in New York, Florida, and California. I think it is a great value and we have already gotten more than our money’s worth visiting Legoland New York, Legoland Discovery Centers in NJ and PA, and Sea Life Aquarium in NJ. We had plans to visit Legoland Florida over Spring Break but our youngest got sick on the way down (see above re: annual passes and flexibility) so we postponed our visit to this summer.
Giant “Mini-Fig” built our of LEGOS
I wrote a blog on Legoland, NY earlier this year, but during the winter months more than half the park is closed, so I wanted to update you now that we have experienced the entire park. If you are looking for information on the dry rides and build experiences on the upper end of the park, check out my previous post. I will update you below with rides I did not cover in that post.
I am of the “go left” school of thought when it comes to theme parks. If you are not familiar, studies have been done in US theme parks that when given the choice, most people will go right on walkways and queues. I am sure it’s years of Disney indoctrination, but I generally go left when given the option in hopes of avoiding the crowds. So in this blog, I am going to start on the left side of the park, heading down the hill past the Ninjago area, which I covered in my previous post.
Ninjago Play Area
The main entertainment stage is your first stop after the Ninjago section. Check your app for showtimes. I did notice that Legoland really steps up their entertainment game during the summer season. They host several shows on this stage, as well as a variety of themed shows on smaller stages throughout the park.
The Dragon is the main roller coaster at Legoland, with a kiddie version for the preschool crowd nearby. While this is hardly a major thrill ride, I would not expect it to be in a park geared toward younger kids. However, this is a great smaller coaster with a smooth ride. In the beginning, you navigate through a few LEGO scenes indoors before heading outdoors for the thrill portion of the ride. The indoor section reminded me a lot of the Mine Scene on 7 Dwarfs Mine Train at Walt Disney World. My 6-year-old and I had a lot of fun on this one and rode it several times together. Side Note: You need to be 4 years old and 42” to ride, so my little guy was out of luck until next year. However he had Dad to keep him company, as there is a 76” height maximum on this ride, which my husband exceeds. Just a heads up for our taller friends, as that kind of restriction is not super common. There is an indoor castle-style build area near the ride entrance. This is a great place to get out of the sun or occupy a younger child while other members of your party enjoy The Dragon. There are a few more dry rides in this area that we did not get a chance to try yet. I will have to save those for my next post.
Policed-themed LEGO Build Trailer
As you continue down the hill you come to a police-themed build in a small trailer. As usual, my LEGO master-builder-in-training had to stop to create. This one is the smallest in the park and there is little shade for waiting parents. Just past it is the Coast Guard-themed play area, which my kids loved. It consists of two ship-style play structures with plenty of options to climb, slide and pretend play. There is some shade here and the single-entrance gated setup allows parents to sit on the benches just outside the fence, while still being able to keep an eye on their children. Behind the playground is the Coast Guard Academy where you can drive your own boat. It looked fun, but it’s painfully slow loading, so even on a quieter day in the park, it had the longest wait time out of any ride. My kids opted instead to head across the way to Driving School. There are separate tracks for the 3-5 and 6-13 age groups. Each child gets to navigate their car around a track. The track for the older kids is a bit more complex, with cross streets and merges, while the toddler side is more or less a round track. Both kids loved it and the ride has a very high load capacity, so wait times were minimal to non-existent.
Up next was my favorite ride of the day, Fire Academy! My oldest and I tried to ride during spring break, but this is another one with a very low ride capacity so wait times can creep up fast. We got in line and abandoned mission more than once. However, crowds were light this time and we probably waited about 10-15 minutes to ride, which was equivalent to about 3 ride cycles. On this ride, groups of 2-4 use a hand pump to propel their fire trucks across the course. Once they reach the burning building, you use another hand pump to pump water through the house to put out the fire. Once the fire is out, you jump back in the truck, throw it in reverse, and pump it back to the start. I had read several reviews with people absolutely HATING this ride. They were annoyed with how slow it loads and they didn’t understand why they had to do so much work on an amusement park ride. I may be the odd man out, but I loved it. I loved that our family had to work together and I loved that you were competing against other teams. I am not a fan of waiting in lines, so this will be reserved for low-crowd days for our family, but I think it is so much fun and an experience you don’t see at other theme parks.
Memorial Day Weekend was the Grand Opening of their splash pad. We visited the following Tuesday and made reservations to visit the splash pad the morning of our visit. After 7 am, you can use the app to book it, and because crowds were low, there was plenty of availability all day. So much so, that when we got to our time frame they weren’t even checking reservations. I did notice them checking about an hour later, but they also were not asking people to leave after their allotted twenty-minute time slot. I asked on Instagram and via DM if the reservations were temporary while they learn to manage crowd control or if they anticipate them to be permanent and they would not answer me. Many people on social media were annoyed by the reservation system, however, I understand the need for it. Since the utilization of it during the first weekend was consistently inconsistent, we will have to wait and see. I will say, the park has very little shade, and on a hot day, I could see where the splash pad could become a mob scene. There is minimal seating around the splash pad and it is not terribly large. Fortunately, it is designed in a way that they can easily control traffic in and out of the area.
Adjacent to the splash pad is a new LEGO build experience, Build-A-Boat. Here you are given a plastic hull and access to tubs of LEGO bricks to design your own boat, which you have the opportunity to race down the water track, challenging fellow builders. This was so much fun and my oldest could have spent all day here! The area has several sail shades, making it a nice spot to spend some time even on a sunny day.
Pirate Playground
Finishing out the bottom portion of the park was the pirate area. My oldest enjoyed the pirate-themed playground on our last visit. This is the largest of the three outdoor play structures in the park, and he spent a lot of time in it, climbing and exploring. Like the Coast Guard playground, it is fenced with a single entry point, which I love. Shaded areas are sparse in this part of the park, so grab it wherever you can find it. On either side of the play structure are the two pirate-themed water rides. We rode Rogue Riders over Spring Break. It is a spinning ride on water, where you control a wheel to swing your ride vehicle out as the ride spins, creating a tidal wave that splashes onlookers. As with Fire Academy above, I’ve never seen anything like it at other parks and I love that you control your own ride vehicle.
On the opposite side of the playground is Splash Battle. This ride accommodates 8 passengers per boat, sitting back to back on a pirate-themed vessel. Each person has a water cannon with a wheel that propels water at passing boats as well as onlookers ashore. This ride is perfect to cool down but not get too wet. Our entire family enjoyed shooting the targets along the course as well as fellow guests.
We still have some of the smaller dry rides we have yet to enjoy, as well as the LEGO 4D Theater, and the shows that take place throughout the park. That is the joy of an annual pass, we have all summer and fall to get it all done.
One update from my last post is regarding food availability. Now that they are in full summer season, all eateries are open and lines seem much more manageable. However, my kids don’t particularly love any of the offerings, and Legoland allows you to bring in your own food. This visit was on our way back from camping in the Adirondacks, so we had lunch in the car before we arrive, I packed a few snacks in our bag, and we grabbed a pizza on the way home, outside the park. We brought our own reusable water bottles and were able to fill them at any of the bottle-filling stations throughout the park, as well as any of the Coke Freestyle Machines.
We look forward to more visits this summer and can’t wait to share our experience at Legoland Florida. Be sure to follow us on social media for updates and even more tips and tricks for budget-friendly family travel. We look forward to helping you plan your next family road trip, whether it’s a day trip close to home or a several weeks long epic adventure!