Disney World is about to get some serious competition as Florida’s premier theme park, as Florida may soon be home to the second Legoland theme park in the US.

Legoland Model Builder

Legoland Model Builder

Merlin Entertainment Group Inc., the company that designs Legoland, is said to be doing research on building an entire new theme park in central Florida.

The latest round of chatter was triggered by Screamscape, which reported that one of it’s readers was asked to participate in a survey where the questions “were all about building Legoland Florida, which would be based on the basic design and layout of the Legoland California park, and feature about 50 different rides and attractions.”

The location mentioned for the park was in Winter Haven near Cypress Gardens, about an hour’s drive south of Disney. Some mainstream news organizations followed up on the chatter, and a local NBC affiliate WESH TV got confirmation from a Legoland Spokesperson that Merlin Entertainment was indeed looking into a theme park in central Florida.

And now a few other locations are also being bandied about now, including near Old Town in Kissimee and another spot on the grounds of a failed amusement park, Splendid China, which is located just a few minutes off Disney.

Legoland California

Legoland California

Legoland has three parks in Europe and only one theme park in the US, in Carlsbad, California, just off San Diego, where it charges $63 for an adult ticket and $53 for children.

They’re trying to change the focus of Legoland California from a theme park for day-trips into an attraction where visitors can stay overnight. And to this end, they recently got permission from Carlsbad’s planning commission to build a 250 room Lego-themed hotel within the grounds.

Stands to reason that if they go ahead with the plans for Legoland Florida, it will be the full package – with a Legoland theme park and a hotel and other resort facilities.

That pits them in direct competition with Disney World, and has the potential to trigger some big changes in Orlando’s theme park landscape, including possibly a major price war which would likely spread out to include the companies’ parks in California.