Johor Archives - Escapes From The Little Red Dot

A brief summary on the itinerary

Escape Plan to Desaru Coast:

Total duration 3D2N
Singapore is in the same timezone as Malaysia.

Desaru Coast can be reached by car.

Day 1 – Drive into Johor and Firefly leisure park
Day 2 – Fruit Farm visit and Adventure Waterpark Desaru Coast
Day 3 – Home Sweet Home

This escape plan was the another attempt of visiting our neighbouring country Malaysia for a long weekend getaway on Vesak day 2019. This was after swearing not to drive in ever again. I still hated wasting my life in a traffic jam but what changed? We tried to avoid the jam by getting across late and getting back early!

Budget nature: Not too bad since it was still soft launch

Singapore high exchange rate coupled with a soft launch of the Desaru Coast area meant that we it wasn’t too expensive to do this trip.

Complexity: Medium

The only complexity I thought was navigating the jam at the crossing and checking on the latest fees which might be confusing if not following the news. There was supposedly VEP implementation in Q3 2019 so we weren’t really impacted.

A brief summary on the itinerary

Escape Plan to Rawa Island 2018:

Total duration 3D2N
Rawa Island is in the same timezone as Singapore. Transfer to Mersing takes about 2hrs and ferry time is 30mins on private transfer ferry from Mersing to Rawa Island. Return is the same in reverse, time depending on jam at crossing.

Ferry from Mersing to Rawa Island at 1130am, arriving at 12noon in Rawa Island. Return ferry from Rawa Island to Mersing is at 1230pm and arriving in Mersing at 1pm.

Day 1 – Arrival in Rawa Island, Beach fun and water slide
Day 2 – Cactus garden and a walk to the owl habitat
Day 3 – Aeon Mall and Home Sweet Home

This trip was planned as a getaway birthday trip for me. It was planned closer to my birthday in November but we pushed it earlier as we had hijacked 1st week of November with a USA trip.

Budget – Affordable by standard of private island.

Total package of accommodation plus ferries and full board for 2 adults came up to RM3000 which in my opinion was affordable. We didn’t go for the water activities such as diving though.

Complexity – Easy except the jam

Travelling was pretty easy with a car. Driving to Mersing followed by private carpark and thereafter a short ferry to the island was simple enough! I am often confused about how much to pay while crossing the borders and thankfully with 2 Touch N Go cards, I didn’t have to figure out where to top up (since the Touch N Go was in Singapore). But the jam was horrendous on the way back and I swore never to go back into Malaysia via car ever again.

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Escape Plan to Desaru Coast May 2019