NEWS: Merlin announces agreement to open LEGOLAND Korea

[Garet]

Legoland has switched their rides to the 'split' style on weekdays with one ride per area running morning only and another next door afternoon only on weekdays. Everland also uses this style on weekdays, although in their case it's due to their water park absorbing most of the crowds to the point that water park guests can go into Everland for free.

Legoland also announced their water park expansion will be a water maze from next Friday along with the return of Legoland's fireworks shows.

[Anything]

Great photos and insight into the place. I have never seen one of these brand new Legoland parks and I always wondered how sparse they are, at least at first. I have to say this one does look a little sparse in barren surroundings but hopefully it can fill out very nicely soon.

[Garet]

Hmmm, even with the busy 6-day public holiday coming up and the Fall season, Legoland has now switched some rides to weekends/holidays only, including its flagship attraction, and has now added delayed openings and split shift rides to the weekend schedule as well compared to July (see above)

 

[Garet]

After closing for the winter last year, Legoland will be running Fridays-Sundays after Christmas, bringing it a bit more in line with the rest of the parks in Korea that run 365 days a year.


Mini-TR: I held off on this TR because although we had fun, it's going to come across very negative. However, I also think that it is important to set your expectations before you visit a park, so you can plan and adjust accordingly.

After delaying our trip during the Bring a friend thanksgiving event from a weekday, due to them wanting to experience the Factory Ride (see schedule in last post) went to the park on a Saturday in mid-September to finally experience Legoland's Starry Night. Was the park being open until 9PM worth it? Err, it was cool to see all the models lit-up and enjoy the park at night... but not sure the operational cuts to match the extra costs were worth it.

As per routine, my son made us arrive stupidly early to be near the front and try and get noticed to open the park and win the yellow brick and certificate. The Legoland characters had been switched out for Halloween.

Your word of the day is.... capacity. Despite it being a busy Saturday, nearly all rides that could run half a side did just that. We ended up bailing on the Wave Racers because only one staff was working the ride and there was also a broken car roped off. We were told the line was 30 minutes, but after seeing the time taken for unloading, checking the cars, loading, checking the bars were locked and seeing the line move by about 3 people (one family split up and a fast-pass group boarding) we bailed.

I assume this is to cut costs due to the longer hours. However, as Tim has mentioned in another thread, the Korean media has been playing up Fast Pass anger recently, so we heard some grumbling here and there throughout the day of people thinking it was to drive up sales. However, the real fury was aimed at.....

...The Driving School. In 12 years of covering parks in Korea, I've never seen guests actually confronting staff about operations until now. And it happened more than once! Usually pre-show is run while the ride is going so next drivers are always ready to go.

The view above was the norm, on this visit.  For whatever reason, the operation that day was to count the people into the pre-show and make them wait. The movie wasn't allowed to be started however until the ride had completely finished, unloaded and cars checked. So we saw people in the queue confront the staff as their kids fidgeted and cars sat empty outside without riders for almost 10 minutes, as the staff stood around outside, then we saw different people confront staff in the pre-show after spending 10 minutes looking at the screen logo above.

I want to give the park the benefit of the doubt and say this is the only way to get the batteries on the cars to last the 11hour operating time, but then be honest! Asking angry guests to be patient and understand just makes it worse.



Outside of the two restaurants, and despite the heat, the only snacks were Churros or Coffee, outside of the apple-fries stand which was the only place selling slushies which meant a long line at that stanf. Unfortunately despite the long line and 4 slushie machines, they weren't staggering the machines, and an employee topped up all 4 at the same time, we and some other annoyed guests found this out the hard way, when we got to the front of the line to be told we'd have to wait 20-30 minutes for the drinks.

My son took most of the operational issues in his stride but this one hurt him. For whatever reason, the app hadn't updated in the store in time and was still set to Summer. We tried constantly to get some meet and greets on that day hoping that the times had at least been changed in the app, but never found a character after opening.

All the on-ride photo counters have also been ripped out and removed, and we didn't see any licenses for sale anymore at the driving school.

Now onto the main reason we were here:



So despite all the operational headaches, I'm happy to say my son had a great day, he always spends a lot of time around Mini-Land, and getting to see the models lit up and in night-time mode made all the headaches worth it.

So we grabbed a night ride on the Lookout to see it from above, notice how busier the car-park is compared to the previous TRs.

We had planned to head out since the Saturday fireworks were not happening (moved to the Thanksgiving public holiday instead) but we saw a show and headed over.

Dracula was hanging out mostly in the background, its been an awkward year for theme parks, due to the Itaewon disaster, all of them have had to relabel events to Fall or Thanksgiving despite the use of monsters.


We ended the day checking out one of the new 4D movies to arrive this year. City 4D was still the favorite by far however.

[Garet]

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Legoland Hotel, located in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do, will renovate the existing outdoor water park into a 'Water Play' that can be used all year round and open on the 7th of next month.

'Water Play', a facility exclusively for Legoland Hotel guests, was located outdoors and was not operated during the winter. However, renewal work to transform it into an indoor water park that can be used all year round was recently completed.

To celebrate the renewal opening of 'Water Play', Legoland Korea Resort is holding a 'Flash Sale' offering up to 30% discount on three types of hotel packages until the 31st. The flash sale is for those who make reservations on the Legoland official website and is available until March 31.

The three hotel packages are △Water Play (limited to 500 rooms) △2-day park pass △Breakfast package. Among these, the Water Play Package provides a one-night stay in a hotel theme room, breakfast at the hotel restaurant, and a Legoland signature shower gown and swimming bag set.

Meanwhile, Legoland Hotel currently operates a variety of programs exclusively for guests. You can see the 'Lego Creative Workshop', which offers classes in various fields such as creating a shelter for animal friends and playing Lego basketball games, and the 'Kids Ground', which consists of eco-bag coloring, etc. en1302@fnnews.com Reporter Jang In-seo

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Previous look of the pool.

New look

Not much but it's another step in Legoland trying to be year-round like the other Korean parks and cash in on the busy Lunar New Year season tourism. The opening of this lines up exactly with the start of this year's new year.

[Garet]

Legoland have released their 2024 calendar. Unlike 2023, they haven't announced the 'festivals' to go along with it. A lot more closed days and there's been no mention on if late night closing and fireworks will return this Summer yet. My hope is with the reduction of days they get rid of running rides at half capacity as well as split-shifting the rides. It was quite hard to get things done last year when some rides were only open for 90 minutes to 2 hours a day.

 

 

Legoland was in the news just before over attendance, so I wonder how this calendar will play out in the local media.

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“Legoland was said to have 2 million visitors a year, but last year there were only 630,000 visitors.”

Chuncheon City Councilor Yoon Min-seop said, “There is a significant difference from the actual count” from Legoland based on telecommunication data.

Chuncheon Legoland, which had a rosy forecast of '2 million tourists per year', was found to have only 630,000 tourists last year, which is one-third of the number.

According to data on the number of tourists at major tourist attractions provided by Chuncheon City on the 5th by Chuncheon City Council member Min-seop Yoon (Green Justice Party), the number of tourists to Legoland last year was 632,871. This is a decrease of 21,120 compared to the number of tourists in 2022 (653,991). Chuncheon City's data was compiled based on KT's big data (floating population based on telecommunication data). Previously, Gangwon-do announced that it would host Legoland in September 2011 and said, “More than 2 million family tourists from home and abroad visit each year, which will revitalize the local commercial district and is expected to create new jobs and increase population.”

Rep. Yoon said, “It was revealed that less than a third of the number of tourists visited Legoland last year than the original target. “In particular, the number of tourists actually decreased last year when the COVID-19 situation was completely resolved,” he pointed out. He added, “This is a shabby report card even compared to other winter festivals in the province that have been attracting a lot of attention, such as the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival, which recently attracted more than 1.5 million tourists.”

On the other hand, Legoland's attitude is that the number of tourists announced by Rep. Yoon is different from the actual number of visitors. A Legoland official said, “In May of last year, the cumulative number of visitors exceeded 1 million in about a year after opening.” This is a great achievement as more than three times the population of Chuncheon City (approximately 280,000 people) arrived in one year. “The tourist statistics revealed by Rep. Yoon are arbitrarily estimated using indirect methods such as traffic volume and communication network usage, and are significantly different from the actual count,” he refuted.

Regarding the target of ‘2 million tourists per year’, Legoland said, “The figure of 2 million tourists per year is presumed to be an estimate of long-term goals and expectations before the size of Legoland was reduced to its current size, and is not the figure we presented.” revealed.

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And other local attraction figures:

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Meanwhile, the number of tourists by major tourist attractions in Chuncheon other than Legoland is 1,504,063 at Nami Island Amusement Park, 555,407 at Samaksan Lake Cable Car, 487,618 at Gangchon Rail Park, 283,568 at Soyang River Skywalk, and 283,568 at Chuncheon National Park. The museum was followed by 243,993 people, followed by Jade Garden with 160,024 people.

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[Garet]

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Chuncheon and Pyeongchang were found to be the areas most visited by foreign tourists.

According to a recent survey by global travel platform Trip.com on the reservation rate of foreign travelers visiting Korea during the Lunar New Year holiday from February 9 to 12, the reservation rate for foreign tourists increased by about 40% compared to last year's Lunar New Year holiday.

By region, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States showed the highest reservation rates in that order.

Seoul, Busan, Jeju, Daegu, and Incheon ranked high as the most visited cities in Korea by foreign tourists.

In terms of regions, Pyeongchang, Chuncheon, Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, and Jeju ranked high.

Travel attractions preferred by foreigners include Chuncheon Legoland Korea Resort and Everland and other amusement parks ranked highly.

In addition, ski resorts where you can see snow, such as Vivaldi Park and Elysian Gangchon Ski Resort, were ranked high.

It appears that Chuncheon, where the theme park 'Legoland Korea' is located, and Pyeongchang, where there is a ski resort, have become popular with foreign tourists.

출처 : 강원도민일보(http://www.kado.net)

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Legoland was open for their first ever Lunar New Year, with about 5 rides (since kids can only do one driving school) open at any time since the park started split-shifting rides. The new addition compared to last year's Christmas event was the Ninjago Ride, however rides ran all day last year.

Funny enough, my wife and son by coincidence were actually at a Legoland for Lunar New Year, they were visiting my family back in England while Korean schools are out and visited Windsor. My wife's only experience with Legoland so far has been the Korean one and she was shocked by the difference and how they're run.

 

It also seems the amount of day closures changed at some point, the English site pass holder calendar doesn't match up with the calendar above/Korean sites passholder with the English site only referring to Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

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1. Why are there closed days even after the winter season?

LEGOLAND Korea Resort is localizing the operation method of the global LEGOLAND Resort policies to provide experiences and services that meet the needs and expectations of the local market. LEGOLAND Korea Resort is accumulating Park management know-how to improve guests’ experience at our Resort.

As the LEGO bricks, LEGO models, and structures made of bricks throughout LEGOLAND Korea Resort are exposed in external settings, environment and climate, they require careful management, maintenance, repair and reinforcement. This is scheduled to take place regularly in 2024 during extreme heat, rain and monsoon seasons. Accordingly, we ask for your kind understanding that some Tuesdays and Wednesdays during those season/climate are included in the closed days for such reasons. LEGOLAND will continue to strive to provide the best experience and services to our guests.  

England site calendar.

Korean calendar

[Garet]

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Chuncheon’s representative festival is held in the Legoland parking lot…Tourism revitalization ‘joint hands’

(Chuncheon = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Sang-hak = Chuncheon City, Gangwon-do, and Legoland Korea Resort (Legoland), Korea's only global theme park, have joined hands to promote local festivals.

Chuncheon Mayor Yook Dong-han and Legoland CEO Lee Soon-gyu signed a business agreement on the 28th to ‘revitalize local festivals and tourism.’

The core of the agreement is that Legoland provides 54,000 square meters of land as a festival site free of charge to representative local festivals such as the Chuncheon Makguksu Dakgalbi Festival, starting with the Chuncheon Mime Festival.

It also contains the intention to promote local festivals and develop the tourism industry through various collaborations such as joint promotional marketing and ticket promotions with Chuncheon City.

The site provided is an empty space among the Legoland parking lots currently in use.

In the meantime, Chuncheon City had difficulty securing land when holding large-scale festivals, and there were many concerns about transportation and parking.

The city hopes to solve the problem of securing land by providing a free parking lot for the festival as Legoland is close to the center of the city, making transportation convenient.

In particular, the beautiful nature of Chuncheon, including the Soyang River and Bongui Mountain, around Legoland is expected to enhance the festival atmosphere.

Accordingly, the Chuncheon Mime Festival scheduled for the end of May will first be held at the Legoland parking lot, and the Cultural City Expo and International Conference scheduled during this period will also be held there.

Following this, festivals such as the Makguksu Dakgalbi Festival scheduled for June and the Pet Festival in the second half of the year will also be held at the Legoland parking lot.

Previously, Legoland signed a business agreement with the Chuncheon World Taekwondo Culture Festival in May of last year to cooperate with Chuncheon City, and held events and promotions in line with the Mime Festival in June.

In addition, I participated in a night city tour of Chuncheon City from August to October last year, and participated in the Toy Festival promotion held in Seomyeon, Chuncheon in November.

CEO Lee said, “We have been told that it has been difficult to secure a site when large-scale festivals are held in Chuncheon, so we provided the site as a way to coexist.” He added, “This will be an excellent example of the local community and companies joining forces to achieve synergy effects in the future.” “I will do my best,” he said.

Mayor Yook said, “We expect the global children’s theme park to play a big role in helping Chuncheon City become a ‘10 million tourist city.’”

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Picture from one of my previous TRs of the Legoland car park and land surrounding it.

[Garet]

According to the newly released park map, Legoland will gain a new ride near or in the Ninjago area in 2025 and the area that hosted the water play last year will become a Pirate Party Plaza.

Going by the map (and the picture in the press release this is the area, the space between Ninjago and the pirate area.

Edit: Legoland have now put out a press release with the cost, artwork and the claim it will be a unique ride for the park and not a copy of an existing ride from other Legoland parks.

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Legoland Korea Resort (hereinafter referred to as Legoland), Korea's only global theme park located in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do, presents seasonal themes specialized for the four seasons to mark the opening of the season.

In particular, a new ride (amusement facility) will be installed with the goal of completion in the first half of next year.

Lee Soon-gyu, CEO of Chuncheon Legoland, said at a press conference for the opening of the 2024 season on the 27th, "To mark the spring opening on the 29th, starting with the 'Brickful Spring Festa', summer (Oh Summer Festival), fall (Brick Or Treat), “In line with winter (Merry Briggsmas), we will present theme programs specialized for the four seasons,” he said.

He continued, “Reflecting the needs of Legoland users, we will create a new thrilling ride at Ninjago World in the theme park for the first time among Legolands in the world.”

The groundbreaking ceremony for the new ride was held today in response to the opinion that there is a lack of amusement facilities where teenagers and adults can enjoy thrill rides.

About 20 billion won will be invested and it is scheduled to open as early as the first half of next year.

Additionally, with the opening of this year's season, facilities and services were upgraded or newly launched.

A representative example is 'Water Maze', a summer water play facility that first opened last year and received a positive response.

This facility is operated as a ‘Wet Zone’ in connection with the nearby ‘Pirate Cluster’.

In addition, this year, for the first time among theme parks, all employees completed the Certified Autism Center (CAC) training course, allowing families with disabilities to enjoy the festival more conveniently.

While operating a 'Hero Pass' for families with disabilities, efforts are made to improve prejudice and awareness by placing Lego characters riding wheelchairs or holding canes for the visually impaired throughout the park.

Rather than simply providing lodging, the hotel in Legoland has also prepared events for guests to enjoy, including water play at an indoor water park and Lego performances every evening.

Legoland opened for the 10th time in the world on Children's Day 2022 (May 5).

We operate theme parks and hotels focusing on children aged 2 to 12 and their families.

Although it experienced a series of difficulties such as user complaints due to poor management at the beginning of its opening, since CEO Lee took office, it has been solidifying its position as Korea's first global theme park with differentiated programs that reflect domestic users.

In addition, we will continue to carry out various social contribution activities for the local community.

Legoland explained that last year, the number of community activity days and contribution funds grew by about 200% compared to the previous year, and 77% of all Legoland employees were from Gangwon-do.

CEO Lee said, “We will provide the best enjoyment through differentiated content and innovative programs and services that can only be experienced at Legoland while meeting the needs and lifestyles of domestic users.

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[Garet]

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Tried googling some keywords in Korean such as 'Legoland future' or 'Legoland investment' and this came up. It is an older article but behind the CEO in Korean the bottom two lines in Korean say 'Spinning Coaster' and 'Flying Ninjago' so with the poster on the construction wall it seems an early indicator a spinner of some kind is coming to the park. Considering the audience of the park I assume a family spinner of some kind over something more extreme.