Years later, the park was bought by; Anheuser-Busch in 1989. Busch (owners of; Sea World, Busch Gardens, etc) continued to operate Cypress Gardens until April 1, 1995.
On January 15, 2010, Merlin Entertainments bought Cypress Gardens and transformed the park into "Legoland Florida."
𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭...in the 1950's Walt Disney sent people to look around other parks for inspiration for his own park? So Walt Disney sent his Cousin, Roy E. Disney, and Roy went to see Cypress Gardens. At the New York World's Fair 1964 - 1965 where Disney presented the 'Carousel of Progress.' At the same World's Fair, Dick Pope Sr. organized a series of highly successful water-ski show exhibitions.
Both Disney and Cypress Gardens competed with each other, Cypress Gardens gave extra credits to Disney and Disney gave extra credits more to Cypress Gardens. At the time, they were the only major market players in Florida within the parks. But Cypress Gardens started as the first Theme Park in Florida, followed by; Walt Disney!
𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐨 ...Even Elvis Presley has visited Cypress Gardens and even participated in their water-ski show.
In Legoland Florida, you can still visit the nostalgic part of Cypress Gardens. That part is still called Cypress Gardens.
Also, I had previously made a post here on FennParks about Vekoma 'Flying Islands' one of which was in Cypress Gardens. "Island in the Sky." The same model as in the Netherlands, which we know as the 'Pagode' in the Efteling.
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