Legoland Johor 2016 Day 1 – Arrival in Legoland, Waterpark and Fireworks

The end of 2016 was a long weekend but we didn’t had any long travel plans since we had only recently came back from Taiwan in late November. However, there was always the feeling of “wastage” of such long weekends and so we decided to just escape to the our neighboring Malaysia, Legoland in Johor for some theme park fun and stayover.

We left our homes pretty late on the last day of the year for 3 reasons. The first being that we were still packing in the morning which was not a surprise for travellers with toddler. Second was that we wanted to skip the queues that would likely clogged up the 2nd link as Malaysians and like-minded travellers might be heading north early in the morning for the long weekend. Lastly, we weren’t expecting to check in early since early check in required additional payment.

With the GPS to Legoland punched in on Google maps, we were off by 11ish heading towards the 2nd link. There wasn’t much of a crowd but still quite a couple of cars but we cleared the immigration pretty quickly. Having borrowed the a Touch n’ Go card from my friend, I drove towards the lane with “Tambah Nilai” to top up another RM40 which should be enough to cover the RM20 for the entry tolls and the round trip tolls for the highway to Legoland. It was a surprising short drive from the 2nd link, and within 15mins, we found ourselves on a relatively quiet road on the way to Legoland after following the obvious signboards and the Google GPS, preloaded while in Singapore. K fell asleep en route before we arrived into Legoland hotel carpark.

Went to the reception to check if early check in was possible and was informed that rooms would only be available at 4pm and any earlier they would contact us. However, I was already given the 2 days combo tickets that we purchased online. Went back to the car and after a while, K woke up. Without any room, we first proceeded to get ourselves some lunch.

We checked the hotel first and there was a main restaurant with buffet and another sushi bar, both we weren’t particularly interested. K was excited to play with the bricks that were readily available at the reception that he sent some time fiddling around with them and running around the Lego castle before we finally convinced him to leave. Outside the hotel room, there was a mall nearby and we walked through to find many eateries. Got into trusty “Old Town” restaurant (seemed very often that we have our meals) and had our lunch there.

After lunch, we walked back to the car to pick up the swimwear and swimming diapers for K and we proceeded to visit the waterpark first. For toddlers 0-2 years old, an additional RM11 had to be paid for entry and receive 2 swimming diapers. Then we climbed the steps to a large changing room with many lockers for rental and changed.

It was a crowded day and although there were quite a lot of lounge seats, those were mostly taken. Fortunately mommy was able to find one to sit and take care of our belongings while I brought K to the waters. Alot of the rides were meant for bigger kids and therefore we only restricted ourselves to the smaller slides. There were some small life jackets available and I got K to strap up in one before going into the pool. Even these few places he was already enjoying himself, either playing in the waters or playing with bricks at the Imagination Station. We also went around floating on a donut float at the build-a-raft river (there are some foam bricks that can allow you to really build a raft with) with K sitting on my tummy.

After about 2 hours at the Waterpark, we changed at the changing room and left for the hotel, as the sky was about to drizzle. The check in counter was quite busy now as guests started to check in. We were given a room on the 5th floor and after we excited the lift with a disco ball (disco music as it brought guests to their rooms), we arrived at a floor totally decorated to the theme of pirates. The rooms were also decorated as expected, with skulls and spiders made from lego bricks complimented with other items associated with pirates. There was even a treasure hunt game to unlock a chest that had a small lego gift by solving questions associated with the room, it was fun for both K and us.

The room was also quite spacious, separated the huge super king bed with the kids double decker and both areas have their own TV. K wasn’t old enough to have his own bed and thus only used the bed for watching TV. There was also a big bucket of lego bricks to play with but we didn’t utilise that.

After taking a bath, in a toddler’s tub that we asked for and was delivered to our room, we got K to take a short nap. By the time we woke up, it was already 7pm. Quickly we got ready and left the room, heading to the main theme park for some fireworks display. As we arrived at the main entrance, staff were handing out 3D glasses for guests who steadily streamed into the park. Since we had 2 day passes, we were also let into the park. We didn’t go around looking at other exhibits as we wanted to get a good spot for the fireworks, but we did manage to catch the miniland exhibits, showing some popular buildings like the Petronas towers, lighted up.

There was supposedly a VIP package for the fireworks, which included getting a drink and confirmed seats. We didn’t get those as we thought that we could just see from afar, and we were glad we didn’t do so. Sure enough guests would be seated exclusively from the crowd and even get a live show of Lego characters dancing up close to them, just before the fireworks, we thought those weren’t really worth the additional RM60 per person. As we stood close to the entrance of the VIP seating area, and got unblock view, we managed to see a great deal of the fireworks. The 3D glasses was a interesting thing as it converted the fireworks into bricks, and therefore we could literally see bricks falling from the skies! After the 5mins or so fireworks with music that wasn’t aligned with it, due to technical glitches, the Lego characters that escorted the VIPs to the park exit, with us following behind as we head back to the hotel.

We went to the Bricks restaurant to have the New Year’s Eve buffet dinner which was pretty expensive but expected. Even so, it was crowded and we had to wait for a table in the large eating area. The tables were covered with colouring paper with lego characters which kids would have a great time colouring them. There were also 2 boxes of parties accessories that could be used. Variety of food was not bad but it wasn’t very delicious. We had our fills and K had his icecream which summed up our dinner.

Just outside the restaurant was a play area with huge foam bricks that kids could use to build a decent size house. Nearby was a projection screen where lego movie was playing. We had a hard time getting K to go back to the room as he sat in the pool of foam bricks, having fun.

We welcomed the New Year, already snoozing in bed as mommy wanted K to stick to his sleep routine. At midnight, we were awoken by further fireworks set off by the Malaysian people nearby, we saw glimpses of these from our windows and then welcome 2017 by jumping back onto the huge king size beds.