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First look: Galacticoaster at Legoland Florida, inside and outer space
WINTER HAVEN – Final preparations are being made inside and outside Galacticoaster, Florida’s newest roller coaster, which is set to open at Legoland Florida theme park this month.
Space-themed Lego models — rotating ride vehicles that are customized by passengers and a next-generation animatronic named Biff Dipper — are prominent parts of the indoor coaster.
Near the entrance is a brick-by-brick and way-bigger-than-life model of Lego set 918, a spaceship introduced in 1979.
It’s “a classic ship, but it’s got some extra flourishes that you only really find in the Legoland park,” says Rosie Brailsford, senior project director for Merlin Magic Making, the creative arm of Merlin Entertainments.
About four years ago, Brailsford was instructed to work with Lego Group to develop an attraction that would work on a global platform, she says.
“They have a line, kind of from the ’70s and various different iterations of that, which is what you will find in Lego Galaxy,” she says. “So, it’s kind of a merge of past and present and opportunity for future iterations as well.”
Brailsford guided the Orlando Sentinel on an exclusive walk-through — no riding yet — of the attraction, which opens to the public Feb. 27.
An upsided minifigure is one of the aliens that greets Legoland Florida visitors to Lego Galaxy area and Galacticoaster. The new indoor roller coaster opens Feb. 27. (Dewayne Bevil/Orlando Sentinel)
What’s outside
The new coaster is on the site of the Flying School ride that was closed in August 2023. The exterior queue looks down at the park’s Driving School attraction. There are two entrances, including one from Legoland’s water park.
The spaceship is surrounded by Lego characters, including photo opportunities. The Alien Tourist figure — outfitted in a floral shirt, red shorts, aqua hat and big old-school camera — takes snaps of a green and antennaed alien family. A Duplo play area dubbed Tot Spot and designed for the youngest visitors, includes a Lego Shuttle. (A shade structure is being added.) Nearby are large Lego space flowers and a robot dog.
Early on, potential riders meet Capt. Olivia on screen.
“She’s welcoming you to the Lego Galaxy, telling you about a little snippet of the mission that you’re going to go on,” Brailsford says.
A large screen televises a 10-minute loop of details about what’s coming up.
“There are little moments of backstory here, so that if you are milling around in the land, you’ve already started to absorb in your subconscious what’s going on,” Brailsford says.
What’s going on? In the Galacticoaster universe, they are bracing for “the asteroid of probable destruction.”
What’s inside
The front lobby features a large blocky version of the Lego Galaxy logo, which is a bit interplanetary and a bit NASA meatball. Below it are actual assembled Lego models on display, some of which are vintage and difficult to find, Brailsford says.
A series of halls and customized posters lead to a big Briefing Room with animatronic Biff Dipper, the chief engineer. He’s about 4 feet tall and standing on an elevated platform. His arms, legs and head move, and his face is animated below the visor of his space helmet. He greets future riders — there can be as many as 80 people in the room — and explains the goal. It’s us versus the asteroid.
“Most of our minifigures in our Legoland are static, smooth minifigures. … Biff is essentially next generation of how we want to do that on a show basis,” Brailsford says. They partnered with Engineered Arts of Cornwall, United Kingdom, to create this figure, which sports 45 facial animations, Legoland says.
Merlin is “working really closely with Lego to make sure all of that motion that they do is true to how a minifigure would move, and we’re not just making them do random things,” she says.
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Other on-screen characters give ride instructions and advance the storyline of how to deal with that asteroid. Plans A and B (one involving a giant net) were flops, and they need help with Plan C. It involves “separator swarms.”
The room includes interesting visuals such as a blueprint for vehicle options and a sign that reads “Interested in time travel? Meet here last Monday, 2 p.m.”
From here, Biff sends riders into a room where ride vehicle options are selected. Riders pick design features for wings, tail, nose and such. The choices range from practical to fanciful — add-ons such as hamburger wings and disco balls. The console allows 15 seconds for each selection, and then the total look is uploaded onto an RFID-enabled bracelet. There are more than 600 possible combinations.
The idea, we’re told, is to make the spacecraft “so awesome that it grabs the separators’ attention like nothing else.” Also, don’t let them catch you.
Next stop: the Galacticoaster loading bay.
The ride stuff
Passengers navigate a moving sidewalk to the in-real-life vehicles, which seat four passengers across and have lap bars that lower from overhead.
The ride moves into an airlock space, and there “you’ll see yourself in your awesome creation,” Brailsford says. You’ll linger for about 10 seconds, “then you will launch, up to 40 miles an hour, off on your adventure,” she says.
“And you have your kind of save-the-day moment on the ride.”
The Sentinel walk-through did not include a ride-through. Brailsford said the experience is smooth and the launch makes it punchy, probably more intense than the Dragon coaster, its Legoland Florida sister attraction. The height requirement is 36 inches for riders accompanied by an adult. Unaccompanied visitors must be at least 48 inches tall.
“It’s not like terrifying or anything, but being indoors, we do feel like they’ll get a little bit more of that thrill factor as well,” she says. “Because it’s dark, you don’t necessarily quite know where you’re going.”
The spinning is programmed, she said. “It’s not like a free spinning.”
Legoland’s website says to expect “Special effects, synchronized lighting and surprise appearances from classic Lego Space characters.”
Ride time is about 1 minute and 30 seconds, and, per theme park tradition, the exit is through the gift shop (official name: Orbital Outpost).
Another Galacticoaster is under construction that’s set to open March 6 at Legoland California, and, in theory, there could be more. There are also Legoland theme parks in New York, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Malaysia, Dubai, Japan, South Korea and China.
“We have, like, a base story and land concept that we can adjust and tweak if we were to roll a version of it out,” Brailsford says. “It might not necessarily be this ride. It might be a different ride with another story from the world.”
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