Kamis, 12 Januari 2017

LEGOLAND MALAYSIA

Finally back to blogosphere after a quite long hiatus! Quick update I have been travelling non-stop and will be this entire January I'll barely be in Jakarta this month. Writing this post from my hotel room in Bali, you know how I love blogging and writing so much that if I don't update I feel like I am semi-ignoring my passion and I am not happy about it, it's this totally different this feeling than where you're obligated to do so. I never owe anybody anything or pressured to losing loyal readers, I blog because I love it and I feel updating.

One of the ticked off bucket list: visiting Legoland Malaysia, and did just that last week on my latest Christmas and NY trip to Kuching and KL, well the main reason I went was because two of my cousins were having their wedding reception (I know right two!), one was held on December 31st and there couldn�t be a sweeter �dessert� to end 2016, anyway happy new year!

We booked the Legoland entrance tickets on their website (HERE) and because we went on January 3rd 2017, it was still the peak season and we were charged RM 195 (IDR 600k) per person, normally around RM 145 (IDR 450k) per person.

Photos in this post were taken using mobile phones (mainly Samsung Galaxy S7), compact & mirrorless cameras.
Legoland hotel located just across, such photogenic architecture.
The famous entrance
One of my cousin thought Legoland was in KL WTF and he wasn�t prepared for the long ass road trip to reach Legoland!

So yes, Legoland is NOT located in Kuala Lumpur, but in Johor Baru (JB). I honestly don�t suggest you guys going from KL unless you want to spend extra on flight, I was really okay with flying to JB and pay extra rather than having to sit on the goddamn bus for 4 hours but my other cousins did not want to spend extra so yeah, the return airfare was IDR 600k/person that day and could be way cheaper on good days. So we took the road and rode bus to reach Johor Bahru, now here�s something you should learn from me, if you want to purchase your tickets online, MAKE SURE YOU BOOK YOUR TICKETS AT THE VERY LEAST 24 HOURS BEFORE YOUR DEPARTURE! We failed to book the tickets online because it was 16 hours before our scheduled departure so we had the manually bought the tickets at Terminal Bersepadu Selatan or TBS and that�s not all, the destination to Legoland station was sold out and we had to buy the Larkin drop off and took another 30 minute car ride to Mall of Medini - Legoland.

You can go to the Legoland Malaysia official website and they will link you to the Causeway Link bus ticket purchase page.

To be completely honest I am not a big Lego fan, but all my relatives insist on going and for some time I was highly curious of this, and besides theme park should be fun! The name tells you everything but not EVERYthing, Legoland Malaysia is a well-structured and designed theme park with a lot of Lego creations inside but not everything is made of Lego (and I initially thought it was). Legoland Malaysia is separated to two: Theme Park (dry) and Water Park (wet), both include attractions, galleries, restaurants and shows dedicated mainly for the young but older people can also enjoy. We only went to the Theme Park so this post will feature my experience there which will visually explained through pictures.
The Theme Park was divided into 7 sections: The Beginning, Mini Land, Lego City, Land of Adventure, Imagination, Lego Kingdoms and Lego Technic, the first thing that you should notice not too far after getting in from the entrance should be The Big Shop which is a very large shop where they sell various Lego creations and figures, I suggest keeping that for the ending and you don't have to carry your heavy ass Lego with you, my cousin bought this Ninja figure for RM 1000, it was pretty big and heavy (larger than standard cabin size luggage).

Initially thought the park will be packed for people but on that particular day, I hardly saw people, I never queued for ride, maybe because it's NY and everyone's still having their qtime with their family, then why was the ticket more expensive?!
The moment I went there the newest Star Wars movie was just being released so just in time as the park also had this fascinating Star Wars miniland, not a big Star Wars fan but to be honest the display was GORGEOUS!

Little Lego Storm Troopers
Lego Darth Vader
Lego Kingdom entrance
Dragon's Apprentice - a small roller coaster for the kids.
The Kingdom - by far the most challenging, longest roller coaster ride in Legoland, even that was nowhere close to what I expected - I like extreme ones!
Kids Power Tower - for healthy kids with stamina as you have to pull yourself up, I am lazy so I didn't try but my cousin told me that when you reached up you can enjoy view of the Legoland surrounding.
Legoland from above as taken from the moving Observation deck, Legoland seemed pretty spacious from up here, and beautiful with a lot of green surrounding it.
Playtown
Moving observation deck
If you happen to be tired & hungry in the middle of your visit, they also have several restaurants each with different variety of food selections to cater (Western, Chinese, Local), I did not have any big meals to eat here as I ate quite a lot before kicking off my day in Legoland, it�s just that I got thirsty easily and the weather was pretty humid that day.
The Land of Adventure where you'll find Dino Island & Egyptian Kingdom
It was unfortunately closed for maintenance, I think at this point we had spent 3 hours and still didn't find that one site where it's really us as most of the attractions here are made for kids and not adults, so far nothing was adrenaline challenging and we sorta like that, well nothing wrong with that I think it's just the matter of preference.
The Kingdom & The Egyptian - btw you can go and play the laser shooting game at The Egyptian
Ninjago - heard there's a puppet show happening here but unfortunately closed due to technical problems and we had to wait 2 hours. Skipped.
The highlight of my visit had got to be THE MINILAND! I was so glad that they put this towards the end because I was seriously about to be let down and felt like the whole trip and effort did not pay off well, I spent 30 minutes alone paying attention to all the seriously awesome details and AMAZING effort to reenact the architecture. Unfortunately I did not see any Indonesia here hmm.
I spent almost one hour alone admiring the beauty, paying attention to the insanely gorgeous details and shooting around. This was the cherry on top of the that day's visit DO NOT skip this!

From the information that I compiled from various internet sources, the design planning took 2 years to do and the construction took 1,5 years to complete and involved 100 people from various parts of the world to help building it. The Miniland was literally like the mini Malaysia and Asia where they feature wonders of the world, historical and legendary sites, the airport.

...and of course, all made from Lego! Enough yakking pictures!
Airport
Lego yacht where party's always running!
The famous KL tower
Putra mosque
Legoland hotel as seen from here
Buddhist temple
Mini Singapore!

TAJ MAHAL from India, one of the seven wonders of the world and if you see the details with your very eyes it will blow your mind!
Last destination before we ended our trip; shopping!
So my thoughts on Legoland?

To be completely honest it was actually below my expectation but I wouldn't say that I was disappointed, the theme park was overall not spacious but nicely designed, it's just the attractions that I found did not suit adults that well, or at least in this case, me. Most of the attractions were mainly dedicated for kids, so if you happen to be single who currently had no need to please your kids and looking for attractions that are more challenging better go to the Universal studio or Disneyland.

However, the Miniland and the 4D were pretty awesome with the realistic in your face effect while you enjoy the movies.

For arrival, if you take the road I highly recommend you guys going at 7 AM because it will take a 4-5 hour bus ride to Larkin and after everything else you should arrive at Legoland around 1:30 PM! Not to mention Legoland normally closes at 7:30 PM so you have around 6 hours to explore everything. Honestly, 6 hours is actually more than enough, I could finish everything in 4 hours, again the Theme Park was not crazy spacious, just make sure you have enough rest to get through the day.
You haven't seen anything yet as I save some more footage for the YouTube video, when the video's ready I am going to embed it here! In the mean time thank you for reading will see you on the next post kthxbye!

Legoland Malaysia
79100 Iskandar Puteri
7 Jalan Legoland, Medini
Nusajaya, Johor Bahru
Opening hours: 10 AM-7:30 PM
Ticketing -> HERE

FIND ME HERE
SNAPCHAT: STANISLAUSHANS

Map for Legoland Malaysia