Legoland Florida reopened to the public this morning, kicking off the return of America's theme parks.
The Orlando Sentinel's Gabrielle Russon reported that about 100 guests queued in front of the Winter Haven park as it opened this morning. The majority were not wearing masks, as Legoland is not requiring them - a departure from what is becoming industry practice in the United States.
Legoland has modified its operations to encourage social distancing from spacing cars in the parking lot to marking queues and spacing tables in restaurants to keep families six feet apart. Legoland also has installed hand sanitizer dispensers throughout the resort and is encouraging cashless and touchless forms of payment as it looks to minimize opportunities for the virus to spread.
One of the interesting developments during this pandemic for fans is learning more detail about parks' operations. General Manager Rex Jackson told the Winter Haven city commission last month that the park would operate with a daily capacity of about 6,000 guests, which is 50 percent of the park's maximum.
Legoland Florida doesn't show up on the TEA/AECOM Theme Index report, meaning that its annual attendance is less than 3.1 million a year. The latest I heard was that Legoland's attendance comes in between one and two million annually. Doing the math, with two million annual visitors, a park that's open year-round but taking Wednesdays off during the school year, as Legoland Florida does, would do an average daily attendance of about... 6,000 people.
Attendance is rarely distributed evenly throughout the year at a park, so a 6,000-person limit would cut off access to some visitors on above-average summer days. But with international borders closed and interstate travel sharply down sharply, it's hard to imagine that any park is going to experience an "above average" day this summer. That said, putting 6,000 people in the spacious Legoland Florida property still allows plenty of area for people to spread out, so social distancing should not be a problem within the park even if it were to hit its new capacity limit.
Next up to reopen is Universal Orlando, which welcomes back guests for a reservation-only soft opening on Wednesday and Thursday and all comers on June 5.
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For discounted tickets to Legoland Florida, please visit our travel partner's Legoland Florida tickets page.
The "no masks" rule is pure madness--after social distancing, it's the number one, easiest thing you can do to stop transmission. Consider too that anyone willing to visit a place that doesn't require masks is themselves a very risky individual, which is to say they're more likely to have the virus.
I think we're seeing Darwinism in action.
It's a big day for the history of theme parks no doubt and I'm happy it's here. But I do agree with the previous posters. Not requiring masks is a big no no. It just makes too much sense now. This summer I wouldn't go to a place without this requirement. But anyways good vibes and hopefully it provides a fun and safe time for folks. Just wear your mask people, protect yourself.
Note free face masks available for Guests at LEGOLAND Florida and all of their "Model Citizens " required to wear them. Staff who must get closer to guests (attractions hosts checking ride restraints) also have face shields on. At their Soft Opening event on Saturday, Guests were wearing masks first couple hours though noticed most had removed them after a couple hours. Rides are closed for deep cleaning often and the entire property is now only using cash free transactions. Note Merlin Entertainments is following same protocol globally- Guests are encouraged politely to wear free masks but only required if mandated by local law.
The WHO now says healthy people should only wear face masks if taking care of Covid patients. It’s time to stop clutching to fear and make face masks more of a suggestion than a requirement. I know I’m in the minority here but go ahead and fuss at me about it if it makes you happy.
Face masks have become a totem of 'responsible' citizens but here in Wales the Welsh Government has come out AGAINST recommending we wear masks in public. In a refreshingly honest statement they said that whilst the evidence suggested there were some minor benefits to wearing a mask (mostly if you happened to be carrying the virus yourself) there were also many disadvantages to them (false sense of security, most people not being trained to wear and use them and dispose of them properly, constant adjustment of the mask leading to increased touching of the face, and so on. On balance they concluded the disadvantages outweighed any advantages.
And this seems to be the biggest problem with the current situation. Many people are trying to be responsible and follow the statements of experts and scientists, but as they're apt to do, those scientists and experts often disagree or make minor differences in their interpretations. What may appear to be contradictions and inconsistencies, are just different interpretations of human scientists making hypotheses based on often flawed and incomplete data.
However, the science and expert interpretations become distorted when individual, and sometimes conflicting, views are politicized and/or routed through political mouthpieces. What are just different interpretations of data then become ways to "take our liberty/freedom" or "make us stupid, callous, uncaring individuals", and the political machines use these to promote viewpoints and ideologies that have absolutely NOTHING to do with wearing a mask or obeying a "safer at home" order.
The fact of the matter is that barring government standards based on scientific consensus, businesses need to establish policies that they think will best protect their employees and customers given their own individual situations. Those rules only impact the time you are physically on property, and most are being very open about announcing those policies prior to reopening so it's clear what is needed prior to guests showing up. The choice then becomes very simple - if a business is requiring guests to wear a face mask, whether YOU or anyone else in the world, including the WHO (funny how some ignore their opinions when they conflict with their views, but when the WHO says something that aligns with their ideals then they"re an authority), feel about it, you need to wear a mask, and if they don't, you don't need to, but should feel welcome even if you choose to don one. You can then make the choice to support that business based on those requirements and level of safety (whether real or perceived) you feel comfortable with. In the end, we should all respect the individual decisions of businesses, and then make our own personal choice whether to visit a given park based on its policies. Whether you want to make that a personal choice based on your level of risk tolerance is up to you, but criticizing others who make a similar choice, elevates your choice and stance to an unnecessary political demonstration that in my view has no place in a theme park.
Glad to see some good news on this site again. Way too much doom and gloom on this page recently. Much like when I visit a theme park, I come here to escape the real world, not be reminded of it.
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The "no masks" rule is a jarring one given so many places holding to it and the kids alone should make it more of a requirement.