LEGOLAND Malaysia theme park, the first in Asia, is located in Nusajaya, Johor. Situated on 76 acres of land, the park is the sixth such park to open in the world. Previous parks are located in Billund, Denmark (1968), Windsor, England (1996), California, USA (1999), Germany (2002), Florida, USA (2005). LEGOLAND is built with over 40 interactive rides, shows and attractions. One of the main attractions here is Miniland. More than 30 million LEGO bricks were used in the building of the various monuments here including the Petronas Twin Towers, The Merlion Statue, Taj Mahal and others. These well-known buildings were built to a scale of 1:20 where people, trains and airplanes come to life at the touch of a button. The KL Cluster at LEGOLAND Miniland has recently been upgraded with various new additions to represent the Kuala Lumpur that we are familiar with and love so much. The KL Cluster initially consisted of the Old Kuala Lumpur Railway Station, Sultan Abdul Samad Building, Maybank Tower, KL Monorail, PETRONAS Twin Towers, and KLCC, among others.
Now, using a total of 3,665,220 LEGO bricks assembled by LEGO model builders in 26,594 hours, various additional monuments and buildings that are the very symbols of Kuala Lumpur have been added. The new additions are Bukit Bintang, Tabung Haji Tower, National Monument, Petaling Street Arch, Wau Bulan Arch, Sri Mahamariamman Temple, and Sam Kow Tong Temple. Another latest addition to the Miniland is the Istana Bukit Serene, which is the royal palace and official residence of the Sultan of Johor, located in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. It is certainly mind boggling to imagine the model designers stacking LEGO elements piece by piece and connecting different pieces together to emulate the actual building design. Hence, whether you’re a LEGO fan or not, you’ll be enthralled by the miniatures built with LEGO bricks at the LEGOLAND Miniland, which depict landmarks not just in Malaysia but also in other Asian countries. Visitors from Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines and Vietnam will get to see their iconic national landmarks in miniature.
The Miniland at LEGOLAND Malaysia is the largest ever built for a new park, and the project took more than three years to complete. Many of the models are animated, so visitors can bring LEGO figures, trains and airplanes to life at the touch of a button. Other attractions at the park include LEGO City, Land of Adventure, Imagination, LEGO Kingdom and LEGO Technic. In the theme park, there is also an Observation Tower which is the highest tower in LEGOLAND Malaysia, some 60 meters from the ground. This is also the third LEGOLAND observation tower in the world after Denmark and Germany. LEGOLAND is a fascinating place to visit for children and adults alike! By CarFrom the north via the Kuala Lumpur/Tuas link. From the North-South Highway, take the direction exit 253 to Tuas/Nusajaya/Pontian/Tanjung Pelepas(this exit follows after the Kulaijaya/Kota Tinggi exit). Proceeding further, you will enter the Lima Kedai Toll (you must pay using electronic card) and proceed until you meet the Pulai Interchange.
Proceed straight until you see the exit (312) to Gelang Patah and take the exit showing the way to Kota Iskandar. You should see the signboard to Johor Legoland before reaching Kota Iskandar. Alternatively, from Johor Bahru via the Coastal Highway. If you start from Johor Bahru town, take the new Coastal Highway to Nusajaya/Kota Iskandar from Taman Perling side. Proceed straight after the Toll House and take the exit showing Kota Iskandar. You will reach Johor Legoland before reaching Kota Iskandar. You can also get to Legoland from Singapore via the Tuas second link. Proceed until you see the Gelang Patah interchange and take exit 213 which will lead you to Legoland and Kota Iskandar. Bandar Medini, Iskandar Malaysia Phone: +607-597 8888 (Mon - Sun, 8.30am - 5.30pm)Last month, we drove over the Causeway and checked ourselves into LEGOLAND Hotel. We didn’t tell the kids that we were headed there and once it came into view, they were beside themselves in excitement!
We stayed here in December 2013 and since then, the kids have been asking to come back. While we busied ourselves with checking in, the kids were playing to their hearts’ content in the pirate ship and castle play areas in the lobby. The LEGO play areas are such a good idea because the kids are happily occupied while the parents handle the boring task of getting the room keys. During our last visit, we stayed at the Adventure themed room so we decided to try out the Kingdom themed room this time around. I just love all the themed LEGO features in the room and the kids cannot get enough of their bunk beds and TV and LEGO set to play with. If not for the fact that the theme park is an even bigger draw, we may never be able to get them out of the room! Of course, we adults also appreciate having a huge bed that we don’t need to share with the kids and our own TV. For dinner, after a long day at both the water and theme parks, we ordered room service and chilled out in front of our respective TV sets before having a good night’s sleep.
Special mention goes to the LEGOLAND Hotel themed lifts. Whenever we take the lifts up or down, the kids start dancing up a storm when the disco lights and music come on. Even the adults can’t help grooving to the beat! Breakfast in the LEGOLAND Hotel Bricks Family Restaurant is a decent affair and there is a good variety of food available from the typical continental breakfast sort of bread, eggs and sausages, to nasi lemak for those who prefer something local. It can get crowded and a queue may form during the busiest period in the morning but the kids will be kept entertained by the large foam bricks in the area just outside the restaurant. It just makes perfect sense to stay at LEGOLAND Hotel when you are visiting the theme park and water park so that the kids can play all afternoon, check into the hotel and have a wee nap, continue playing their heart out, and then have a good night’s rest without anyone having to drive or take the bus all the way back to Singapore after a long tiring day.
Can’t wait to come back again and the next time, we’ll probably book the Pirate themed room! We were in LEGOLAND Malaysia a couple of weekends ago and it was the start of their Halloween Brick-or-Treat Party Nights. Since we were also staying at LEGOLAND hotel, the best part was the extended opening time. Every Friday and Saturday from now to 31 October, the Park will be open until 8.30pm so the kids can play for an even longer time. The Halloween Brick-or-Treat Party Nights take place at LEGO Kingdoms from 4pm to 8.30pm. You can start your Brick-or-Treat journey at Lord Vampyre’s Ballroom with a count-the-bats maze then explore the Brick-or-Treat trail and be rewarded with lots of fun and goodies along the way. At the end of the Brick-or-Treat trail, each participant will be rewarded with a special limited edition Halloween 2015 Commemorative DUPLO Brick. Look out for the LEGO Giant Pumpkin and giant LEGO White Ghost at The Beginning (quite hard to miss!) and grab some scary pictures with the Halloween LEGO mascots, including the newest monster – Frankenstein!
The kids were super excited to see the mascots and we managed to get pictures with Frankenstein, Green Witch and Lord Vampyre. There are live shows at Castle stage at specific show times throughout the day as well as LEGO building activities. The kids loved the face-painting bit and there was a queue of eager children (and some adults) waiting for their turn to get their face or hand painted. Halloween at LEGOLAND Malaysia Resort is happening from 2 – 31 October and the park will open until 8:30 pm on Friday & Saturday, 7 pm on Sunday, and 6 pm from Monday to Thursday. Tickets for entry are priced at RM85 per person. Annual Pass holders can enjoy free entrance and bring a friend for just RM70. Time to head to LEGOLAND for a fun Halloween celebration if the exams are over! I’ve been terribly behind with my travel posts! I haven’t blogged about our Taipei trip in March (!!) and our Perth trip in June (!) but here’s a quick one on our quick getaway to Port Dickson over the National Day long weekend.
You can get more info over at my post for Petite Travellers so I’m just sharing a few photos of the trip in this post. My favourite set of murals are the ones by Ernest Zacharevic at Hin Bus Depot Art Centre. It’s supposed to be open from 12pm to 7pm everyday but when we got there at 12.15pm, it was still locked up and appeared empty! We walked around looking for an alternate entrance (there’s supposed to be a side gate somewhere) but couldn’t find any. We were about to give up after half an hour because it was just SO ridiculously hot (and Anya was very upset because she had hit her head on a car side mirror), but I decided to give it one last shot and managed to find a bit of fence I could peer in from. I saw a guy inside and shouted at him to open up the place. Turns out they are somewhat… ermm… flexible with their opening time so it’s better to go at about 1pm. Beside the Ernest Zacharevic pieces, there are 2 pieces by Louis Gan that are frequently attributed to the former because of the similar styles.
He has one more ‘Nostalgic Meal Order’ piece along Kinta Lane that I didn’t have time to visit. Another series is the 101 Lost Kittens project by a group of artists to create awareness of stray animals. We were in Penang last week for my sister’s wedding so I took the chance to hunt for some street art. There’s a map indicating where the murals are found and this map is available at the airport and also at some hotels. It was unbelievably hot and we were extremely exhausted from walking around. I strongly recommend getting a trishaw for the day or renting a bike for the street art hunt! These are the pieces by Ernest Zacharevic. The one of two kids and a cat in a boat at Chew Jetty is almost completely weathered away but I didn’t know that so I walked all the way there for nothing. If only I’d read this particular blog post before my hunt! We took Anya to Legoland theme park in January but didn’t bring her brother along because he was too tiny then. So while we were staying at Legoland Hotel, we bought the 2-day combo ticket and visited the theme park a few times.
Since there are very few rides that Adam can go on (and even fewer for me!), we split up with Adrian accompanying Anya for the fun stuff while Adam and I went on the tamer rides. We started off with a ride on the Legoland Express before heading to Duplo Play Town to meet up with Anya who had gone for the rides at Lego Kingdoms. Adam managed to get on the Lost Kingdom ride and enjoyed it very much. Then it was lunch at Market Restaurant before we headed to Lego City for Junior Driving School (for Anya), the Boating School (very long queue) and the Rescue Academy (we all got on but only Adrian did any work). After visiting The Big Shop and going for one more ride on the Aquazone Wave Racers (something Anya was too short for the last time), we went back to the hotel to check in. Adam had his nap while the other two went back out for more rides before we all met up together again for the carolling and Christmas tree light-up. I think it’s so great that the park is open until 8pm during the holidays!