It was Deepavali on Saturday (29th October), which meant I get a day off on Monday. The decision to go to Legoland Malaysia was perhaps one to check off ‘the list’ more than somewhere I would normally go out of the way to visit. After all, who hasn’t heard of Lego, the iconic ‘brick’ that would most certainly jostle my memory a bit given I had my share of playing with it as a boy. Besides I do have a 2 year old son now, which is good enough an excuse for us to all go to check out this theme park! Back then, there was no Legoland anywhere near where I lived (Malaysia). So, now that one showed on merely 45 minutes away over the border, there’s no excuse not to go!
We organised a car as part of the Legoland resort to pick us up at 6:30am on the Saturday, with the intent to avoid the infamous traffic jam at the customs. Turned out to be a wise decision, as we made it there by about 8am (1.5 hours). Legoland hotel reception was even empty with the only smiling kid around the checkin area being Ethan!
Sadly we were denied early checkin due to the hotel being fully booked, so we had to stick around a bit until the resort opens at 9:30am. Didn’t turn out to be an issue given Ethan had plenty of ‘bricks’ to play with until then!
We can categorically say we have never taken so many pictures with bricks!
By the time, it was time to go in, we were probably surprised by the lack of queue at the entrance.
Hotel guests do get half an hourly earlier access (i.e. 9:30am instead of 10am), so the first rides we took were relatively queue free, which was great! Having said that, Ethan is 2 years old, and a lot of rides are simply not allowed for his age and height. Must admit though, I had to lie about Ethan’s age to get onto some rides. Some of the highlights included the electric boat ride..
The musical fountain.. which activates the instrument you are standing in front of.
And so called “Imagination” area especially for kids around Ethan’s age. Frankly he didn’t look like he enjoyed this part much at all!
He prefers ‘grown up’ section including “Build & Test”.. which allowed everyone to build their own Lego ‘car’ and race it down a ramp to see who’s the fastest!
And I think he really liked the “Forestman’s Hideout” where he gets to climb up high and walk across rather scary gaps and shaky crossings..
Then there was “Miniland” which has many Lego replicas of cities around the globe, including a rather realistic replica of Singapore!
How about this replica of a planet out of Star Wars movie?
And the very impressive Ang Kor Wat temple!
Oh, let’s not forget the hotel itself. We didn’t get to checkin to our hotel until half way through the day, just after our lunch when we got a call from the hotel to indicate that our room is ready for checkin. The hotel being just next door, meant that we could simply walk back to our so called “Premium Adventure Themed” room. Here’s some nice pictures of the room itself..
Yes, it’s rather ‘cute’. It’s definitely got “Lego” written over it, complete with a box of Lego for Ethan to play (Not that he did)! Ours also had a view of the theme park itself, which was nice. You start to appreciate the benefits of living right next to the theme park, as we headed straight back for our “evening session” after a bit of rest!
Honestly, there was another “kid” in the family.. being my wife.
Soon it’s quite obvious to me, she enjoyed every bit of the hotel and theme park as Ethan did! The plethora of cute special edition Lego available in every ‘shopping’ corner of the theme park probably didn’t help my credit card. Let’s not worry about that until the end of the month.
For our second day, we visited the water park just next to the main Legoland theme park.
It’s not a massive water park, but for our intents and purposes, it was more than enough. Ethan is too young for majority of the rides, but the ones that he did get on, it was enough to put a massive smile on his face.
And boy does he know how to enjoy and relax, on the “Build A Raft” ride
He absolutely loved the wave pool as well, which I don’t have any photos of. All in all, we only spent 2-3 hours in the water park which was enough to give us all a decent tan. We even had enough time for the rest of the afternoon to pop out of Legoland to pay Aeon Bukit Indah (~8km away) a visit for some shopping therapy. It’s probably more a trip to buy some necessities like Ethan’s nappies and snacks.
Before you know it, it was already time to leave. Our car was scheduled to pick us up at 12:00pm noon exactly, so we did have some time in the morning to pop into the hotel pool for quick dip.
Even that pool was cool fun for Ethan. He doesn’t need a waterpark to put a smile on his face at all!
The trip back home was much much quicker, and we were home in 45 minutes. This is a much much smoother/enjoyable experience than the typical 2-3 hours spent crossing the Malaysian/Singapore border. The trick is in choosing the right time of the day, and it IS the difference between considering coming back to JB or never ever think about coming again. Fortunately, it’s the former for us this time!
