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Subject: 
LEGOLAND California Water Park is Getting Bigger
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lugnet.mediawatch, lugnet.general, lugnet.lego, lugnet.legoland
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lugnet.mediawatch, lugnet.general, lugnet.legoland
Date: 
Fri, 13 Sep 2013 12:06:44 GMT
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LEGOLAND® California Water Park is Getting Bigger

By Lori Weisberg
Sept. 12, 2013

LEGOLAND California three-year-old water park will grow by more than two acres next year when it introduces a new themed area tied to LEGO® Legends of Chima product line. — Courtesy of LEGOLAND.

CARLSBAD, CA - In what will be one of its largest investments, LEGOLAND announced Thursday that its water park will undergo a major expansion next year, modeled after a popular LEGO product line and cartoon show, “Legends of Chima.”

The 2.5-acre addition, while a part of LEGOLAND existing water park, will be a distinctly new area that will include an interactive wave pool designed specifically for the park’s key demographic -- families with young children. The announcement, made at a morning news conference at LEGOLAND California, follows the opening in April of its new 250-room hotel, the park’s largest investment since opening in 1999.

“This will feel like a very contained, themed area, and the children will get it quickly because of the Chima product line,” said LEGOLAND California President Peter Ronchetti. “Our sister park in Florida opened a Legends of Chima area on the dry side of the park, and we chose to go with the same product line because it gets heavyweight support from the LEGO toy company, and the cartoon is on the Cartoon Network. It’s the No. 1 new product for LEGO.”

He acknowledged there isn’t much more open land at the park to expand further, although built-out areas could be re-purposed in the future.

The expansion, expected to cost an estimated $12 million, will be located on the northeastern side of the water park next door to the 1.5-acre Pirate Reef attraction that opened in 2012. While the theme park’s owner, London-based Merlin Entertainments Group, typically doesn’t divulge project costs, Ronchetti said the Legends of Chima attraction will be very similar in cost to what was spent on the original water park. The $12 million investment in that project was disclosed at the time it opened in 2010.

Admission to the aquatic attraction, including the new addition, will remain $15, over and above the charge to get into LEGOLAND, which is $78 for adults and $68 for children. It is a seasonal attraction that is open between Memorial Day and Labor Day and subsequently, weekends through November.

Final sketches of the project have not been completed yet, but LEGOLAND revealed details on four of the eight principal areas of the new water park, each tied to characters in the Chima story line. Chima, as LEGO describes it, was a once “pristine, natural paradise” that has been transformed into a battleground where animal tribes vie in a mystical land for control of the precious energy source known as “CHI”.

The centerpiece of the planned water park is “Lion Temple Wave Pool,” where water will cascade down a 30-foot-tall floating “Mount Cavora” that depicts the various creatures representing each animal tribe.

“Craggers Swamp” will be designed as a hands-on water play area where kids will be able to ride water slides, blast water cannons and slide through the head of a huge crocodile.

“Eglor’s Build-A-Boat, similar in style to the existing water park’s Build-A-Raft attraction, will give children the chance to build a boat while learning how to adjust the currents, create and dodge obstacles and race against their companions.

A fourth area, called “Wolves’ Cantina,” will be devoted to food service in an environment populated with collectibles belonging to the wolf tribe.

“If you combine the sounds, the sights, the rock work, the brick theming, it will give children the feeling they’re walking into this world with a lot of interactive activities,” said Ronchetti. “The wave pool in Florida (not Chima-themed) is extremely popular so we’re very excited to have one of our own.”

LEGOLAND regularly introduces new attractions on an annual basis, but larger investments like the Chima park are not as frequent. The park is banking on the new project to help boost attendance, especially now that it has its own themed hotel to attract guests who want to spend more than a day at the park. Not long after the first season of the water park, LEGOLAND officials noted that the new attraction had helped lift attendance by double digits.

The theme park’s latest initiative is not only in keeping with a nationwide trend to expand aquatic attractions, but it also makes good business sense given its tie-in to a popular LEGO product, said theme park expert Dennis Speigel.

“In that Southern California market, with that weather band, this is a logical type of expansion, and LEGOLAND is capitalizing on their existing relationship with Legends of Chima, which is very popular with their demographic, so it’s a smart move,” said Speigel, president of Ohio-based International Theme Park Service. “This will boost attendance.”

Merlin makes it a policy of not revealing actual attendance figures, and Ronchetti declined to say how the park’s attendance is currently trending. The hotel, however, experienced a very successful summer, he was quick to point out.

“If you had tried to book a hotel in June, July or August, you would have found us full,” Ronchetti said. “This was a massive project, and we feel compelled to go into another large-scale investment so you can assume from that it’s been a very successful launch.”

UTSanDiego.com

-end of report-



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