LEGOLAND Windsor Resort is about to undergo a multi-year revitalisation, featuring some brand new attractions as well as refurbishments to enhance the guest experience across the estate. In this article, we’ll go through all of the resort’s plans in detail.
With the intention of freshening up the park and moving it into a modern era, a focus is being placed on each of the themed areas to create immersion through the LEGO brand. With £7 million being spent across the resort over an 18 month period, there appears to be a bright future ahead for the Berkshire attraction.
Over the past few years, there has been a focus on large capital expenditure projects in all areas of the business. This included LEGOLAND Adventure Golf, Minifigure Speedway and the opening of the first phase of the Woodland Village. Following these huge new developments which all opened between October 2023 and May 2024, the 2025 season saw a focus on enhancing the guest experience across the park. This came in the form of the new entrance portal, LEGO City Live: Ultimate Stunt Showdown, LEGO Insiders Clubhouse, Miniland London Refurbishment, LEGOLAND Express updates and the return of LEGO City Deep Sea Adventure. During an event hosted by Ramesh Ganeson and Kevin McIlmurray, Vice President and Operations Director of LEGOLAND Windsor respectively, we got brand new insights into the future of the resort.
The park has committed to focusing on the guest experience and being transparent with their guests. In 2026 the focus has been placed on ride availability and throughputs, as well as creating a sense of belonging for staff and guests along with an increase and improvement in communication. Over the past few years, the park has reduced its capacity from 20,000 people down to 14,000 people to improve the guest experience. There is the intention to increase pathway sizes at bottlenecks and to create new things explore and do within areas of lower guest flow in order to attract people to those areas and better spread out crowds. The first areas to receive brand new investment are the two hotels, Pirate Shores, Knights Kingdom, the zig-zag pathway down from The Beginning to Miniland, and the arrival experience.
Arrival Experience
A multi-year project is currently underway to completely re-imagine The Beginning and the park entrance infrastructure. The Beginning area of the park was becoming dated, both in appearance and operation, making it necessary to refresh to provide an up-to-date guest experience. With the brand new entrance portal being unveiled for summer 2025, the next stage of the project is well underway with the whole security checkpoint area receiving a brand new look and overall aesthetic, which will see the removal of the tent structures outside the park. Additionally, outside of the park, the first set of covered solar panel parking is nearing completion and is set to open in March.
Kevin McIlmurray confirmed to us that the rest of the project, which planning permission was granted for, has not been budget cut. As works have commenced on certain aspects of the project, this means that they have the approval and are able to complete the rest of the improvements at a later stage in their ongoing resort plan. While the rest of the development isn’t currently confirmed to be going ahead, there is still intention to make these enhancements and is something which is constantly being reviewed as part of the long term development plan for LEGOLAND Windsor.
The zig-zag pathway which connects The Beginning to Bricktopia and Miniland has seen brand new models added and paint work refreshed with the aim of adding colour and a new lease of life to the walk down the hillside that connects the entrance to the themed areas at the park. £500,000 is being spent on enhancing this aspect of the park experience which is great to see. It has been confirmed that LEGO models in the park have a shelf life which is set by the IP themselves. If a model or LEGO set goes out of production, this means that the model will have to be removed from the park and replaced with something new. After many years of being at the park, this has meant that the Easter Island heads have been removed permanently.
Pirate Shores
Lots of work has been taking place to enhance the Pirate Shores area of the park. The land used to be filled with dark colours, black fencing and run down theming and buildings, therefore the idea of the refresh is to make the area feel alive, fresh, vibrant and immersive even on grey sky and rainy days. Pirate Shores is being fully repainted with new theming and 27 brand new models being added across the area over the course of the year. Since the project was only approved in November, the figures are currently still in development at the workshop in Malaysia and will be installed in sections. The pathways are being widened to better manage guest flow, with all the wooden fencing being removed in favour of new curbs, and brand new themed resin flooring installed throughout the area.
Jolly Rocker shall feature an all new queue line with a shorter layout, a new entrance and a more efficient loading procedure featuring an updated area for bags to be stored. All the new fencing in the area will be metal to reduce wear and tear, making it more presentable for longer. The unused catering units have been removed from the area, the gold wash structure has been fully replaced, and the temporary basketball games unit is being replaced with a new unit which is better themed into the area.
Knights Kingdom
A brand new entrance portal is currently being constructed in between Pirate Shores and Knights Kingdom to better separate both of the themed areas from each other and to convey to guests what lands they are about to enter. The intention is to improve the immersion of the guest journey, with the castle planned to be repainted within the next 12 months. Twelve LEGO models have currently been removed from the Knights Kingdom and will be replaced across this year with 29 new models. This will include a new, more menacing red dragon in front of the castle featuring additional effects.
Hotels
Over at the LEGOLAND Resort Hotel and Castle Hotel, enhancements are underway in each of the bedrooms within. This includes the introduction of new 20 inch TV screens, new soap and shampoo dispensers, new mattresses, the addition of USB A and USB C options within the electrical sockets, along with new bedding and cushion covers for the rooms.
Food and Beverage
A new menu has recently debuted within Bricks Restaurant in the LEGOLAND Resort Hotel, and was great to be able to try some of these dishes including the roast duck with beetroot mash – it is fantastic to see the quality of food and beverage being increased across the park. There will also be a focus on making the food on offer bespoke to LEGOLAND Windsor such as popsicles, ice moulds and printing onto burger buns.
Other Park Enhancements
There are so many different projects happening across the resort this year, including the return of the bubble effects over at LEGO City Deep Sea Adventure, which adds to the immersion of entering and exiting the sea environment. £200,000 has been budgeted on refreshing the boats at Coastguard HQ and another £200,000 has been spent repainting the models and replacing the floor at Drench Towers, the outdoor water play area. £100,000 has been budgeted for adding three new picnic areas to the park in Pirate Shores, next to Autumn’s Riding Adventure and adding covered seating outside of Farmer Joe’s Chicken Company. A smoke effect has been added on both Fire Academy and Minifigure Speedway, to add an additional wow factor, and £500,000 has been spent upgrading staff facilities across the park.
Brand New 4D Cinema and Bricktopia area refresh
Planned for 2027 is a new 4D Cinema attraction which will replace the current Imagination Theatre with a new modern attraction of the same nature. Known as Project Prism, this will also see the former Sky Rider station and current 4D cinema building demolished. Ramesh Ganeson hopes this development will be a part of a larger vision to create a new themed area based around ‘speed’ which would also tie in with Minifigure Speedway and the Ferrari Build and Race Experience.
New Attraction on the site of Viking River Splash
As an attraction in the wider Merlin Entertainments group, LEGOLAND Windsor’s investment cycle is determined by Merlin head office, so as to distribute capital expenditure throughout the group year-on-year according to expansion and investment needs. In 2026, the largest capex allocation has been given to Chessington World of Adventures with the World of PAW Patrol, Alton Towers with Bluey the Ride: Here Come the Grannies!, as well as Galacticoaster at both LEGOLAND California and Florida. Therefore, LEGOLAND Windsor currently has a smaller pot of money which is being used for all these enhancements. Nonetheless, the next major development for LEGOLAND Windsor is expected to open in 2028 on the former site of Viking River Splash.
LEGOLAND Windsor recently submitted a prior notification application for the demolition of Viking River Splash to take place between March and November 2026, with work set to begin on Monday 9th March. A separate planning application is expected to be submitted later this year for a brand new roller coaster on this site. It has been confirmed that it will not be Galacticoaster or a brand new themed area, but instead will be an expansion of an existing land. While nothing more has been confirmed at this stage, it is likely that we could be seeing an expansion to LEGO NINJAGO World as the show building for LEGO NINJAGO The Ride is located in the middle of Viking River Splash. It is interesting to note that LEGOLAND Korea expanded their NINAGO area in 2025 with the addition of a Family Spinning Coaster from Mack Rides called Masters of Spinjitzu. With another installation of this ride coming to LEGOLAND Japan in 2027, could we also see something similar added to LEGOLAND Windsor? It would certainly give Storm Chaser at Paultons Park a run for its money – especially as it could benefit from utilising the hillside terrain.
The Bright Future of LEGOLAND Windsor
There is so much to look forward to in the coming years at LEGOLAND Windsor – it doesn’t stop here! There is an approved planning application which outlines phase two and three of the Woodland Village. These latter two phases consist of a further 300 units, to be located on what are currently fields to the west / north-west of the first phase of the development. This is set to include lodges themed to NINJAGO, along with a new central hub and expansion to the car park.
There is also an approved planning application for the demolition and replacement of Duplo Valley Theatre, which would see it modernised and expanded. While this will not be happening in the near future, it is something which is still in the plans for later down the line. The space is currently being used as Hopsy’s Hideaway, a character meet and greet. Kevin McIlmurray confirmed that this is only a temporary use of the space while they build and find new locations around for character based entertainment.
It is clear that the management team are extremely passionate about what they do and want to make sure that LEGOLAND Windsor is the best that it can be for all its guests, with plenty to look forward to at the Resort. What’s more, these are only the projects which they can currently talk about, with reportedly more to be announced in the future when plans are finalised. This includes the potential opening of a new IP area after the 2028 coaster, to bring the resort up to 2.5 million visitors a year in time for the opening of Universal United Kingdom Resort in 2031. A special thank you to Ramesh Ganeson and Kevin McIlmurray for hosting the event and taking the time to show all the new exciting projects happening at LEGOLAND Windsor both this year and beyond
Are you happy with the level of investment at LEGOLAND Windsor? What do you think about their future plans? Let us know via our social media channels.
