{"id":87601,"date":"2026-11-09T22:54:26","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T03:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=87601"},"modified":"2026-11-09T22:54:31","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T03:54:31","slug":"inside-legolands-hidden-florida-shaped-pool-with-a-hollywood-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/11\/09\/inside-legolands-hidden-florida-shaped-pool-with-a-hollywood-secret\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside LEGOLAND&#8217;s Hidden Florida-Shaped Pool With a Hollywood Secret"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NOW it&#8217;s the swamp pool why? Filmed 11\/08\/2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?height=476&#038;href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Freel%2F1137817558963056%2F&#038;show_text=false&#038;width=267&#038;t=0\" width=\"267\" height=\"476\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowFullScreen=\"true\"><\/iframe><left>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the famous Florida Pool at LEGOLAND Florida \u2014 and it&#8217;s a real movie star! <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"16\" width=\"16\" alt=\"\ud83c\udfac\" src=\"https:\/\/static.xx.fbcdn.net\/images\/emoji.php\/v9\/t2d\/1\/16\/1f3ac.png\"><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img data-dominant-color=\"c4a594\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"451\" height=\"679\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 451px) 100vw, 451px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/images-7-1.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-87602 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #c4a594; width:286px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/images-7-1.webp 451w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/images-7-1-199x300.webp 199w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back in 1953, MGM built this pool right on the edge of Lake Eloise as a film set for the movie &#8220;Easy to Love,&#8221; starring America&#8217;s sweetheart swimmer Esther Williams. She even came back in 1960 to film another special right here! The pool was built in the shape of Florida itself \u2014 you can see it stretching out into the lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After filming wrapped, Cypress Gardens founder Dick Pope filled the whole pool with oranges and had the Southern Belles pose around it for a photo \u2014 talk about a Florida postcard! <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"16\" width=\"16\" alt=\"\ud83c\udf4a\" src=\"https:\/\/static.xx.fbcdn.net\/images\/emoji.php\/v9\/t38\/1\/16\/1f34a.png\"><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img data-dominant-color=\"877552\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"724\" height=\"424\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 724px) 100vw, 724px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/images-6-1.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-87603 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #877552; aspect-ratio:1.707597698869272;width:371px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/images-6-1.webp 724w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/images-6-1-300x176.webp 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The pool sat quiet for years after Cypress Gardens closed, but LEGOLAND lovingly restored it in 2014, and now it&#8217;s part of the historic gardens you can still walk through today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-link-color has-x-large-font-size wp-elements-1 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Why is LEGOLAND letting the pool go to hell? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NOW it&#8217;s the swamp pool why? Filmed 11\/08\/2026 This is the famous Florida Pool at LEGOLAND Florida \u2014 and it&#8217;s a real movie star! Back in 1953, MGM built this&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzExXC9pbWFnZXMtNi0xLndlYnAiLCJ0eHQiOiJJbnNpZGUgTEVHT0xBTkQmIzgyMTc7cyBIaWRkZW4gRmxvcmlkYS1TaGFwZWQgUG9vbCBXaXRoIGEgSG9sbHl3b29kIFNlY3JldCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.CZ-hop12HMrK57YUGszO5L7ejFRagXusvxRI07jKVtsMQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[19227,19228,19226,19225,19233,19229,130,19231],"class_list":["post-87601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-cypress-gardens","tag-easy-to-love","tag-esther-williams","tag-florida-pool","tag-historic-gardens","tag-lake-eloise","tag-legoland-florida","tag-movie-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87604,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87601\/revisions\/87604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}