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Late 2011 - New Park - (9/2/10) For anyone interested, here is the official For Sale page for the Starliner at Ital. Unfortunately, if you look at these pictures taken by JohnnyUpsidedown not too long ago, the pieces of the Starliner look morelike they’ve been just cut up and thrown in a big pile, with little care taken to stack them or label them for any kind of reassembly in the future.  For comparisons sake, check out how the Starliner was taken apart and put into neat piles when it was shipped down to Cypress Gardens in the first place back in 2005. A big difference from this taken in August 2010. Somehow I think this Lincoln Log has seen it’s last functional days.
    (8/19/10) Legoland Florida has confirmed that the Starliner is currently sitting in storage somewhere… waiting for someone to make an offer to buy the classic woodie. It’s just kind of sad it has become homeless again… a pity Disney can’t find room for it at Downtown Disney or at their Boardwalk area. Maybe Wild Adventures will step up to the plate to give it a home before it’s lost for good. No? Daytona Beach maybe?
    (8/6/10) Legoland Florida has announced the selection of PCL Construction Services, Inc. (PCL) as the builder of the new 145 acre theme park. “Merlin Entertainments Group is confident that PCL is the right company for this enormous job,” said John Ussher, LEGOLAND General Manager of Development.  “PCL’s quality standards, along with their attention to detail and incredible safety record make them our company of choice.”
    Now before it all changes into Legoland, lets take a last look at Cypress Gardens as it was over at Amusement Insider.
    (8/3/10) Legoland Florida has announced the Adrian Jones has been appointed as the GM of Legoland Florida for Merlin Entertainment. Previously Jones served as the Divisional Director overseeing several smaller Merlin owned attractions in the US: Legoland Discovery Center (Illinois) and the Madame Tussauds locations in Las Vegas and Hollywood.
    (7/11/10) Take a peek at the former Cypress Gardens park one more time while the old logo is still up before it gets transformed into Legoland Florida.
    (7/10/10) Another update from the Legoland Florida Open House event can be seen over at Amusement Insider. They also have pictures of the park’s old Vekoma Roller Skater coaster (Okechobee Rampage) being taken apart, with a pile of track laid out in the parking lot.
    (7/9/10) Legoland Florida held a special event to give off a small preview of the park as well as answer various questions. You can see pictures from the event posted to Orlando Parks News and Johnny Upsidedown who also has a video clip where they confirm the fate of the Starliner.
    The Starliner is being taken down carefully in the hopes that they will find a new owner for it who will want to put it up again. They felt the coaster simply would not fit in well with the rest of Legoland Florida. That said… I have heard from another source that buyer for the Starliner may have actually been found… they just haven’t finalized the new home for the ride just yet. Anyone else know more?
    As for the park, they had artwork showing off new lands like Castle Hill, City, Land of Adventure (where Triple Hurricane looks to get a dinosaur theme) and posters showing off how they will transform existing park areas into new attractions and themes.
    (7/6/10) A good breakdown on how the new Legoland Florida park may end up, as seen in a special park-preview brochure they’ve sent out to the local area hotels, can be found at Orlando United this week. It described the various lands in the park (Duplo Village, Miniland USA, etc) as well as pointing out a few specific rides as well (Clutch Powers 4-D, Technic Coaster, Wave Racers, Fun Town Fire Academy, Dragon Coaster, a wooden coaster and several others. The park will share their plans with the local public this Thursday according to this article, so many a few readers will attend to get the skinny first hand.
    (5/28/10) From what I’m told the Bionicle themed Supersplash boat has been on the site for the last couple of years, so it’s nothing new designed for Legoland Florida I’m afraid. Still, it is Florida and the park will need some kind of water ride, so you never know.
    (5/25/10) Legoland fans may find something interesting over at the Mack Rides website. On the product page for the Supersplash flume ride, in the picture showing four different theme ideas for the boat, the lower right boat has been given a Lego Bionocle theme. Could a Bionicle themed flume ride be in store for Legoland Florida when it opens, or is this simply old artwork from a concept passed over long ago?
    (4/8/10) An Orlando United reader posted a picture today showing off cranes taking down the park’s Galaxy Spin coaster. I guess it’s been sold to another park.
    (3/5/10) Details about a little land swap between Polk County and Merlin Entertainment that will allow Legoland to take over some new property and for improved roads to be built around the park to avoid traffic issues.  Make the jump to Behind the Thrills to read all the details.
    (2/25/10) The official new website for Legoland Florida has been launched. While we’re talking Legoland, I’ve been told that the sale of Cypress Gardens “Swamp Thing” coaster (Vekoma Family Suspended) to DippieDoe (Netherlands) has fallen through, with the park opting to buy another coaster instead. Looks like Legoland may get to keep an extra coaster… if they want it.
    (2/5/10) According to a Screamscape source the Jungle Coaster being removed from Legoland Windsor (A Mack Expanded Mouse) will very likely find it’s way across the pond to Legoland Florida where it will be rethemed and have the trains returned to their intended form.
    (1/31/10) According to the OBJ, construction work on the new Legoland Florida is set to begin in May.
    (1/26/10) We’ve heard a few interesting rumors over the weekend about the possible fate of Legoland Florida’s two wooden coasters… the Triple Hurricane and the famous Starliner. Unfortunately what we’ve heard so far does not bode well for the Starliner. Despite Merlin officials staying that they had not yet made up their minds about the fate of the coaster, there is a popular rumor going around claiming that the coaster may very well have been sold to “a small family park in Wisconsin” who has been wanting to find a good family friendly woodie for some time now. One very possible park is Bay Beach who mentioned back in October that they were now looking to find a good deal on a family sized wooden coaster.
    To my way of thinking the choice should be easy for Legoland, as the Starliner is famous to the Florida area and is an old time family classic… nothing too big to scare off the kiddies as it features a first drop of only 65 feet. Meanwhile the much shorter Triple Hurricane is 40 feet tall by comparison, but hardly a match in the overall ride experience department. Unfortunately it sounds like they may have already written off the Starliner.
I’d hate to see Legoland Florida get off on the wrong foot and ditch the Starliner after all the work was done to save it. Good wooden coasters are hard to find in Florida after all. So if you want to see the Starliner say… you might want to get Legoland know about it, before it’s too late.
    It is also worth pointing out that on the Ital website, the Starliner is still listed as being up for sale along with the Galaxy Spin, while the Triple Hurricane has been removed from the for sale list which makes it appear that they have made their choice. While the Swamp Thing was confirmed as being sold over this past summer to a park in Europe the Okeechobee Rampage (Vekoma Roller Skaker) is now also no longer for sale, so I can only guess that Legoland will be keeping that one.
    (1/25/10) An interesting letter published by a local news site proposes that the state and Polk County look into extending the new SR-429 toll road (the one that connects to Disney’s new Western Way future developments) down to the former Cypress Gardens area to ensure a quick and easy commute for Orlando tourists to the new Legoland Florida park, helping to ensure it’s future success.
    (1/22/10) It’s official… Legoland Florida will open on the site of Cypress Gardens by Late 2011. The 30 acre gardens themselves however will remain, and may even keep the Cypress Gardens label, though that has yet to be finalized.  However Merlin Entertainment did announce that Legoland Florida will become the biggest Legoland park in the world, offering between 40-50 attractions when it opens as well as the famous Miniland section. It was also mentioned that the existing waterpark will stay, but be a separate gated attraction, much like the new one going into Legoland California I suspect. The good news is that they also confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel that the Water Ski Show and Starliner wooden coaster would most likely be intergrated into the new park experience as well. The key factor of choosing the Cypress Gardens site over a new location was time, as they will be able to get the new park up and running in less than 2 years this way, but building from scratch would have cost millions more and extended the timeline to around 5 years before we would see the park open.
    You can catch a few pictures of the big announcement over at Behind the Thrills, as well as the press photos of the event sent out by Merlin that I’ve posted here as well.

(1/21/10) According to this news article an e-mail was sent to various county commissioners, inviting them to attend Merlin’s announcement today about the transformation of Cypress Gardens into “Legoland Florida”. We’ve also got a price tag for the purchase of Cypress Gardens… $22.3 million. For that much I can only hope that Legoland Florida is planning on keeping the Starliner at the very least.
    We’ll know more about the future of the park very soon I guess, but I’ll leave you with this thought. If anyone can make parents drive out of the way to Cypress Gardens, then Legoland is the site’s best hope. I think it is a safe bet to say that Legoland Florida will not open for 2010, but I’m hoping they can work some magic and get it up and running by Spring 2011.
    (1/18/10) As detailed in several news reports over the weekend, Merlin Entertainment has confirmed that they are behind the purchase of the Cypress Gardens site. However the only thing more they had to say was that they would be ready to release all the details of what is going on there on Thursday. Will the park become a Legoland Florida or something much more?
    (1/15/10) The big shocking news of the day is that Merlin Entertainment may actually have purchased Cypress Gardens. Check out the Polk County website and do a search for “land south adventures” and you’ll find three documents at the bottom dated 1/12/2010. The first two detailing how property ownership is being transferred from Land South Adventures to “Merlin Entertainments Group Florida” while the third involves the matter of unpaid tax Land South owed, but has now suddenly been laid and the lein from the Florida Department of Revenue has been released.
    (1/14/10) It seems that not only are the “new” Cypress Gardens rides up for sale, but the park’s signature Flying Island attraction has also been put up for sale at Ital.
    (1/11/10) A reader reports that the Stars of Florida waterski show website has a special message on the right side in their news feed that claims to check back on January 21st for possible big news about Cypress Gardens. Oh… and in case you were wondering, the parks’ remaining rides are still up for sale at Ital, including the Starliner.
    (7/7/09) In this latest article at the Orlando Sentinel, Merlin Enertainment really played down any possible plans to build a Legoland park in Florida right now. They admit that Florida is one of several key sites they are investigating the possibility of building a Legoland park in, but right now they have no solid plans to build a new Legoland park anywhere in the US. Yet...
    Of course this is also known as playing possum... since they apparently shook up the proverbial bee-hive with their survey which eventually alerted the mass media to their actions, they now how to lay low since they havn’t purchased any property yet and are not committed to anything right now. But you can bet they did take notice of just how huge a reaction they got from the Florida area, which I’m sure will play a major role in deciding where to place their next US location when they are ready.
    (6/18/09) One of our readers was invited to take quite an interesting online survey the other day that involves the possibility of a brand new theme park coming to the central Florida area. The questions were all about building Legoland Florida, which would be based on the basic design and layout of the Legoland California park, and feature about 50 different rides and attractions.
    The survey asked some basic questions about ticket price levels as well trying to tell how interested people would be in visiting Legoland Florida on their next trip to the area as well as what age groups were thought to be just right or too old for a Legoland park trip. They also asked questions about where people would rank a trip to Legoland in comparison to all the other central Florida area attractions. However the most interesting thing of all were questions that asked if Legoland chose to build their park on the site of Cypress Gardnes, would you be more or less interested in visiting. They even drew up a map to show off where Cypress Gardens is located, kind of between Tampa and Orlando, but unfortunately it has utterly dismal freeway access, requiring about a 30 minute drive off into the middle of nowhere to find it.

???? - Legoland Resort & Convention Center - (6/4/10) According to this report, Merlin will follow up the Fall 2011 opening of the new Legoland Florida theme park with a new resort and convention center along the shore of Lake Eloise.