LEGOLAND Florida is bringing Santa to the night sky over Winter Haven this winter. The park announced new additions to its 2026 Christmas Bricktacular celebration, including an all-new nighttime LEGO Santa drone show, the resort's first-ever rap battle show, and a build-a-carrot challenge called Reindeer Refuel.
The drone show announcement came Wednesday via a Facebook video from LEGOLAND Florida, which teased the aerial spectacle as part of this year's holiday lineup. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Christmas Bricktacular will also feature an interactive light trail with building activities, LEGO-centric photo opportunities, and interactions with holiday-themed minifigure characters. The Reindeer Refuel activity invites guests to help build a giant LEGO carrot, while the Holly Hype Dance Party features a LEGO reindeer girl and the Festival of Flurries brings out a LEGO snowman, per the same report.
Christmas Bricktacular runs on select dates between November 21 and January 3, with the Sentinel listing specific dates as November 21, 22, 27, 28 and 29; December 5, 6, 12, 13 and 18 through 21; and January 1, 2 and 3. All of these events are included with regular LEGOLAND admission, and tickets and information are available at legoland.com/florida, the outlet notes.
New Leadership Touts Family-Friendly Fun
Brian Bacica, who serves as president of LEGOLAND Florida, said the event offers playful experiences meant to bring families together, according to the Sentinel's report. Bacica was appointed to lead the resort in late 2025 after previously serving as vice president and general manager of Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, as Hoodline previously reported.
The holiday celebration's centerpiece remains a towering LEGO Christmas tree, which the Sentinel describes as 30 feet tall. Past iterations of the display have drawn significant scale: according to Laughing Place, the tree is built from nearly 365,000 LEGO and DUPLO bricks, weighs approximately 10,000 pounds, and took Master Model Builders more than 2,800 hours to construct.
Drone Shows Becoming a Central Florida Staple
The Santa drone show follows a pattern already visible at LEGOLAND Florida this fall. The park expanded its 2026 Halloween Brick or Treat event to 18 select dates starting September 5, debuting a new Brick or Treat Street walkthrough alongside its Monster Skytacular drone show, Hoodline reported in its coverage of the expanded Halloween lineup.
Synchronized drone fleets have increasingly replaced or supplemented fireworks across the region's major theme parks. Disney Springs' Dreams That Soar utilizes 800 drones, while Universal Orlando's CineSational deploys 660, according to The Unofficial Guides. The technology offers a high-tech visual spectacle with less noise pollution than traditional pyrotechnics, the outlet notes.
Bigger Investments Behind the Bricks
The Christmas Bricktacular expansion arrives on the heels of major capital investment at the Winter Haven park. In February, LEGOLAND Florida launched Galacticoaster, a 30,000-square-foot indoor family coaster in the new LEGO Galaxy land, part of a $90 million multi-park attraction investment by parent company Merlin Entertainments, according to Hoodline's earlier report on the Galacticoaster launch.
Merlin Entertainments, the London-based parent company that owns LEGOLAND Florida, reported welcoming 60.5 million guests across its global attractions in 2025, generating £1.999 billion in revenue across more than 120 properties worldwide, per Merlin Entertainments. The company's global scale underscores the resources behind LEGOLAND Florida's growing seasonal event calendar.
A Local Economic Engine
LEGOLAND Florida's expansions carry weight beyond the park gates. Polk County welcomed over 5.55 million visitors between April 2024 and March 2025, contributing to a total regional tourism economic impact of $4.5 billion in 2024, according to the Central Florida Development Council. That growth has also reshaped surrounding infrastructure, including a $48.3 million widening project the Florida Department of Transportation completed in April 2023 on State Road 542 to handle vehicle congestion driven by the park, as Hoodline reported.
The park sits on the former grounds of Cypress Gardens, Florida's first commercial theme park, which originally opened in 1936 and operated for more than seven decades before closing in 2009. LEGOLAND Florida opened on the site on October 15, 2011, preserving the historic botanical gardens, including a Banyan tree planted in 1939, according to LEGOLAND Florida Resort.
