Legoland California will mark its 25th anniversary in Carlsbad next year with a new land dedicated exclusively to dinosaurs that will include a dino-themed safari and river expedition tailored to kids.
Opening in the spring, Dino Valley will be located near the entrance to the park, occupying what is now Explorer Island, a 1.3-acre area that will be entirely re-themed to recreate a prehistoric land. What will remain unchanged is the area’s popular Coastersaurus ride, which has been at the park since 2004.
It is one of the older lands in the park and doesn’t have the kind of consistent theming that Dino Valley will have, said Legoland California Park President Kurt Stocks.
“It was an area of the park that had largely been in place 20 years, and we had a nice opportunity to create that fully immersive land,” he said. “Any time we launch a brand new land it’s a significant moment because we don’t have a lot of land in the park so when you get a chance to create that fully immersive experience on an epic scale it’s significant. And dinosaurs are such a winning theme so it was a simple decision to make.”
In addition to a reimagined Dino Dig area, there will be two new rides that will be refashioned from the Fairy Tale Brook and Safari Trek attractions that were in Explorer Island where work on the new land already has begun. Coastersaurus is still operational.
Lego World Parade
(Courtesy of Legoland California)
But that’s not all, says Stocks. A new World Parade, the first for a Legoland park in North America, will begin next summer and will be somewhat similar to the parade that debuted last year at the Legoland Deutschland Resort in Germany. Featured floats for the Carlsbad version will include a Lego City fire truck, a pirate ship, and designs inspired by such Lego brands as Ninjago, Friends and City Deep Sea Adventure. Costumed entertainers will be part of the parade, dancing and singing their way through the west side of the park.
The new Dino Valley, which will be one of nine themed lands in the park, was inspired by research and surveys, said park spokesperson Christina Fillippis.
“We used data-driven insight on what theming stands out for our demographic at Legoland, which is kids from ages 2 to 12, and dinosaurs kept coming up,” she said.
When the new land opens next spring, visitors can expect:
Explorer River Quest
(Courtesy of Legoland California)
- Duplo Little Dino Trail where four-passenger vehicles will replace the two-seaters in Safari Trek. Passengers will be taken on a hide-and-seek journey on a new track where they will be able to interact with seven-foot-tall dinosaur models made of fiberglass. Cameras will be in each of the cars that will allow kids and their parents to trigger movements, voices, and sound effects in each of the models. That is a new feature that was not part of the previous Safari Trek, Fillippis said.
- Explorer River Quest, a river expedition where the star attraction will be a giant T-Rex. The former Fairy Tale Brook will be transformed into a jungle adventure with dinosaurs and prehistoric elements, Fillippis said. Guests, she said, will feel as though “they’re going into a jungle and exploring the river and seeing all these scenes and dinosaurs coming to life.”
- Interactive Dino Area where kids can do some digging of their own to reveal fossils and also meet and greet new characters. There will also be a build-and-play area.
- Coastersaurus, which will be unchanged, features a 1,100-pound Brachiosaurus and a 10-foot tall Parasaurolophus scavenging for food.
“This was a nice opportunity to create three sets of rides that cater to the entire family,” Stocks said, “and launch a Duplo ride for our preschool market who we think will be excited about this compared to what that area of the park was.”
The last new land to come online at Legoland was The Lego Movie World, which opened in 2021.
