Legoland Hotel Review: What to Know Before You Go

Last Updated on September 18, 2024 by Adrienne

We recently celebrated my daughter’s 5th birthday with a long weekend at Legoland Florida. One thing that made our trip a lot easier and more fun was staying at Legoland Hotel. There are two main reasons to stay in a Legoland hotel: how close it is to the theme park and all the Lego-related activities and play areas, including giant Lego pits and master builder workshops where kids get to build (and keep) a Lego-of-the-day.

While the official Legoland properties are more expensive than nearby off-site hotels, the price difference wasn’t as much as I expected and when you factor in that the Legoland hotels include all you can eat breakfast, as well as park hopper tickets that give you access to Legoland, the Legoland water park and the nearby Peppa Pig Theme Park, the price is pretty reasonable.

Legoland Florida advertises three hotels, but that’s a little misleading because two of them, Legoland Hotel and Legoland Pirate Island Hotel, are really two wings of the same property. Guests of both hotels have access to the restaurants, pools and themed play areas on either side, so there’s no reason to pay for the more expensive Pirate Hotel unless you really want a pirate-themed room. This hotel complex is adjacent to the theme park and it will take you no more than a few minutes to walk from the front door of the hotel to the park entrance gate, even at a little kid pace. The third hotel is Legoland Beach Retreat, which is across the highway and operates a free shuttle to the theme park. We didn’t visit the Beach Retreat on this trip.

Rooms at Legoland Hotel

Rooms at the Legoland Hotel and Legoland Pirate Island Hotel are designed with families in mind. Every room, even in the most basic room categories, has a separate bunk bed sleeping area for kids. The rooms are all themed (we had an entry level “Kingdom” room in Legoland Hotel) and include a big box of Legos for building with while you’re there, plus some small Lego kits you get to take home. You’ll also get some mini-figures that can be traded with Legoland employees (“Model Citizens”) so there’s no need to bring these from home or buy some specially for this purpose.

Free Master Builder Workshops

One of the highlights of the Legoland Hotel for my daughter was the complimentary daily “master builder workshop,” a guided build of a small Lego kit – and yes, you get to keep what you build! You can only register for one workshop per day, but each day has a different kit, so you wouldn’t want to do it more than once per day anyway.

I highly recommend signing up for the workshops before your trip (the link for the Florida resort is here), as it seems like they do fill up in advance and I saw disappointed people being turned away. Children 6 and under will need a parent to go with them to the workshops; older children can attend alone. The staff who run the workshop are great, and I was impressed with how fun and creative the designs were.

Creative Play Areas at Legoland Hotel

As soon as we walked in the door of Legoland Hotel, my daughter ran to the giant pit of Legos in the lobby, and to be honest I think she would have been pretty content to spend the whole trip doing nothing but playing there. I appreciated that you can see the Lego pit from some of the seats in Brick’s restaurant, so kids can play while the parents wait for the food.

In addition to the Lego pit, Legoland Hotel includes elaborate themed play areas like an indoor castle and a Lego pirate ship outdoors in front of the pirate wing of the hotel, which distracted us more than once on the way to the theme park. These play areas are really thoughtfully designed, and will be a huge hit with younger kids. And of course, there are fun Lego sculptures throughout the hotel just like there are in the park.

Dining at Legoland Hotel

All you can eat breakfast is included with the room, and you can choose to eat at either Brick’s (the restaurant in Legoland Hotel) or Shipwreck Restaurant (at the Pirate Hotel). The menu is basically the same in both places, although not identical. The main component of breakfast is a skillet filled with eggs, potatoes, bacon, biscuits and a rotating bread product like waffles, pancakes, and french toast sticks. You can also order fruit, cereal, yogurt and omelettes (made to order) a la carte.

The breakfast is pretty average, but I did enjoy the omelettes and biscuits, and it definitely fueled us up for long days in the theme park. We didn’t have to spend much money on food in the parks, because this breakfast kept us full for most of the day. The hotel restaurants also offer dinner but we never ate there in the evening.

Pools at Legoland Hotel

Both the Legoland Hotel and the Legoland Pirate Island Hotel have zero entry pools filled with floating foam Lego bricks, which provided hours of entertainment for my daughter and many other kids in the pool area. The Legoland Hotel pool also has a fun, twisty waterslide next to it.

We visited in February and had some cooler than average weather, with temperatures in the high 60s and low 70s, but the Legoland Hotel pools are heated to near-hot tub temperatures, so swimming was not only possible, but actually really enjoyable. On our third and final day we ended up only doing a half day in the theme park and spending the afternoon just hanging out at the hotel pool, which was very relaxing.

Are the Legoland Hotels Worth It?

In my opinion, yes! The hotels offer so much in the way of Lego-related activities that for many kids (including my daughter) the hotel is likely to be just as much of a thrill as the actual Legoland theme park. The rooms are well set up so everyone in the family can sleep well, and the play areas will keep kids entertained while grown-ups do boring stuff like check-in and order food. While you can certainly find cheaper prices at off-site hotels, the Legoland Hotels are a great value, especially when you factor in the cost of Legoland theme park tickets and the value of the all-you-can-eat breakfast.

This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission at no extra charge to you if you book a trip to Legoland through my link. I visited Legoland at my own expense before writing this post and my opinions are entirely my own. Thanks for your support of Destinations & Desserts!

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