Legoland fans will get to digitally design their own spacecraft for the parks' new Galacticoaster indoor roller coasters, which open in California and Florida in 2026.
Merlin Entertainments announced the feature during a press conference at the IAAPA Expo in Orlando today. While in the queue for the ART Engineering roller coaster, guests will be invited to select a nose, tail, wings, and special features for their Lego Galaxy spaceship ride vehicle, using touchscreen displays. There will be a total of 625 possible combinations that riders can select.
Once selected, the design will appear on screen before riders launch onto their Galacticoaster adventure. Legoland will use RFID wristbands to match riders to their selections.
"Galacticoaster redefines what a family coaster can be," Merlin Entertainments COO Rob Smith said. "It’s not just about the thrills - it’s about giving every guest the power to create their own story. It’s Lego play, elevated to a whole new orbit. These investments reaffirm our commitment to the ongoing transformation of Legoland Parks in North America into world class destination resorts."
Legoland is spending $90 million on its Galacticoasters, which will anchor new Lego Galaxy lands at Legoland California and Legoland Florida. The new attractions will open next year, with specific opening dates yet to be announced.
It sounds a lot like the old Test Track "design your car" feature, which was dumped from the new version.
I agree with Russell. I think they could solve the potential slowdown with more design stations, but we're talking about Legoland so...I doubt it.
This answers the question of what's inside the section of queue labeled "Build/Mission Brief" on ride blueprints. It's interactive elements like this that set the Legoland parks apart, and I'm surprised by the negativity regarding the inclusion of this feature. Like any other preshow, as long as sufficiently large groups are pulsed through it should have minimal impact on the throughput of the attraction, and I'd personally much rather have things like this to break up the line rather than just another room full of switchbacks.
AJ - I think the negativity comes from previous applications of stuff like this, particularly at smaller parks. This is almost identical to TestTrack, and I think the fact that the new version of the attraction dropped this feature should tell you something - either the design stations were not adding value or interest to the attraction or were difficult/expensive to operate and maintain that took guests out of the theme when the stations didn't work or synchronize with the on-ride elements.
I would expect these stations to be pretty simplistic, and highly doubt there will be anything on or after the attraction that will integrate with these stations. For a Legoland park, I think it would make more sense for guests to just have freeplay Legos in the last portion of the queue before boarding the ride instead of a digital "building" interface like this. It's cool that Legoland is trying to do something in the queue to make this attraction unique, but I don't know if this is really going to gain traction with what is often a very fickle and difficult to please audience (kids 5-12).
I think there are two things that people tend to overlook when it comes to Legoland parks.
First, Lego values the idea of play. That can be in diffrent ways like learning while playing or showing creativity while playing.
Second, people are comparing apples to oranges with attractions. Legoland does not get the same daily attendance levels as a Disney or Universal so I wouldn't compare queue issues with them. Also you can always opt out of it and the ride operators will let you pass, especially if your kid is being fussy or is sensitive to the expirence.
Are there going to be issues, yes.
Will there be a learning curve for them, sure. But they did this before with the Bionical kuka arm ride.
I applaud Merlins attempt to stay somewhat current with attractions today at a budget they can afford. We all can see Merlin is in a bit of a struggle right now financially.
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This is one of those features that seems cool in practice, but ends up being a waste and slows the flow of guests onto the attraction.