We had a Combo pass for the day and we’d arrived nice and early to play. By the time we were done with the administrative details of checking in and depositing our luggage at Legoland Malaysia Hotel (click to read our review of the hotel), it was still 10+am so we had the full day ahead to play!
The Legoland experience starts at The Beginning, the entrance area to the Park. We actually took this photo on the second day since we were rushing in to play on the first day!
Right after entering the Park, we went to Lego Technic first. Our kids wanted to take the Technic Twister since it reminded them of the Accelerator ride at Universal Studios Singapore. Unfortunately, unlike the Accelerator ride, there was a greater height/age limit for this ride so only my girl and I took the ride.
The highlight of Lego Technic is Project X. It is the Park’s fastest ride – a roller coaster with a steep switchback track. Each car takes four riders on a wild ride up to 18 metres above the ground. With 15 corners, Project X has more twists and turns that any other ride in the Park! My girl could take this ride but since my cowardly genes apparently were inherited by my children, she decided against taking this ride.
She was however game for Aquazone Wave Racers. The ride offers a thrilling wave surf where those watching trigger the water blasts that riders have to dodge. There are four water guns for spectators to fire at the twelve wave racers whizzing around their circular tracks. Unfortunately when we were there, I think only one was functional; the rest didn’t respond. You might get pretty wet on this ride so be prepared for it. This was again another ride which my boy didn’t qualify for and by now he was very disappointed.
As we walked on in the Park, we came across this giant Lego Einstein and my Physics-breathing hubby just had to pose with him!
Next in our line of path was the Lego Star Wars Miniland Model Display. The attraction features seven scenes from the six Star Wars films and The Clone Wars animated series in great detail. In total, the attraction features more than 2000 Lego models built to a 1:20 scale using 1.5 million Lego bricks. The attraction just recently opened its doors to the public on 6 September 2014.
The seven featured scenes depict planets such as Naboo, Geonosis, Kashyyk, Mustafar, Tatooine, Hoth, Endor and Christophsis. Visitors can take a chronological walk through the Star Wars timeline to marvel at the models, including the 2.65m tall Crystal City, the largest of all the Lego Star Wars models, and the iconic Millennium Falcon made up of 19,200 Lego bricks – reaching 1.8m long and 1.3m wide. There are also interactive buttons that allow visitors to activate the animatronics within each scene and this was a highlight for our kids!
For Star Wars fans, you could easily spend more than an hour exploring this attraction. The best part of it is that you can do so indoors, in a comfortable air-conditioned environment, checking out all the intricate details that form your favourite scenes. There’s also a retail shop carrying the full line of Lego Star Wars play materials in addition to Lego Star Wars keychains, magnets and a variety of caps and T-shirts for the die-hard fans. I particularly like the fact that they have a limit on the number of visitors in the building at any one time, so it never gets so crowded that you can’t have a good view.
At about this point, my camera started malfunctioning with the lens not working and with a message that told me get it fixed at a service centre. Sadly I had to live with the erratic camera all the rest of the day and it thankfully at least managed to work for the day, though with more and more error messages (it was completely not working by the end of the day) and many times I missed ‘the moment’ of capturing a shot due to the camera’s unwillingness to work on my vacation.
This photo below is an example. I had intended to take a photo of the train on the track but in the end after the train going around for a few times around the track, the only time I got my camera to work was when it eventually stopped at the station. Sigh. Anyway, we thought this was finally a ride that our boy could take since it seems like a very small-scale train but surprisingly, we were told only 4 year olds and above are allowed on the train. Needless to say, my boy was devastated and in my bid to calm him down, I never noticed what this ride is called.
After that, we arrived at Lego Kingdoms.
It was scorching hot by this time since it was about noon. Despite the sweltering heat, our kids refused to let us off and insisted on playing at The Forestmen’s Hideout for a long time. I believe that was when we got our sunburn.
While waiting for them to finish playing at the playground, I checked out the signature ride which was just next to where we were. The Dragon roller coaster takes riders deep inside the royal castle on a journey into the Middle Ages. With two fire-breathing dragons to ride, up to 600 visitors each hour can take on its twists and turns.
The Dragon’s Apprentice offers younger guests a taste of what to expect when they are older and brave enough to ride The Dragon. My girl could go for this ride but as I explained, she doesn’t quite like roller coasters so we gave this a miss. She was content to spend more time at The Forestman’s Hideout.
When we were at Legoland, they happened to be celebrating Halloween that day so the entire Castle Stage was decked with Halloween-themed decorations. In fact, there were many activities lined up as well in the afternoon but we wanted to check out the rest of the Park so we didn’t wait around for those.
This giant LEGO® pumpkin was built by Master Model Builders using more than 28,000 bricks!
Next part of the Park was Imagination: Where Lego knows no limits. The Kid’s Power Tower would be the first thing to catch your eye since it’s huge and brightly coloured and looks like gigantic Duplo. My girl and my hubby went for this one because the Power Tower tests the visitors’ strength by pulling their two-seat car up a nine metre rope. My arms kindly declined that sort of workout so I hung around the Build and Test Centre with my boy.
At the Build and Test Centre, there are thousands of Lego bricks for experimenting, testing, and building. Inventors can test their buildings on the earthquake table and construct and race cars.
We then had lunch at this place where the name of the restaurant eludes me at this point. The food was pretty decent and it wasn’t too exorbitant.
After recharging, the kids rushed to Duplo Playtown.
Filled with cute fixtures, we were understandably stuck here for a long time.
The highlight of Duplo Playtown is the Duplo Express, a colourful five-carriage train for ten passengers. We had to wait around for at least 15 minutes because they needed to service the train.
After much persuasion, the kids agreed to leave and we went to the Observation Tower. The Observation Tower can lift 1000 visitors each hour to a viewing position 41m above the ground for an aerial view of the Park.
Land of Adventure was next and the very first ride we saw truly explained why this part of the Park is named so.
Dino Island takes visitors on a canoe voyage through a forgotten time – explorers pass rocky outcrops, man-eating plants and a dinosaur lagoon. A 12m high waterfall is the only way down, and there’s no escape without getting wet. With three million litres of water, Dino Island is the Park’s wettest ride. We gave this a miss as we didn’t fancy getting all wet.
Pharaoh’s Revenge is meant for younger kids. Although it sounds extremely exciting, it actually is a very small indoor playground. It’s like a very, very small segment of regular indoor playgrounds in Singapore. This was where my boy hung out with my hubby while my girl and I went for Beetle Bounce.
Beetle Bounce launches visitors up and down a 15 foot tower, nearly touching the gigantic Lego beetles that sit above with every bounce. It was pretty exciting but not overly so. Kinda pleasant actually! Both of us enjoyed it!
Lost Kingdom was a hit with the kids. In Lost Kingdom, you play the role of an adventure hero in a laser-blasting hunt for hidden treasure. There are targets all around for us to shoot and when we hit the target, the red light turns green. You can track your success with your score. Reminds me of the times spent at arcade playing shooting games.
After the Land of Adventure, Miniland was next. The miniature world of Miniland turns children into giants and is the centrepiece of every Legoland Park. Asia’s most famous countries, cities and landmarks are recreated on a scale of 1:20, using more than 30 million Lego bricks.
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. My boy was most fascinated by the sound effects and the mobile models.
Miniland’s 19 highly-detailed clusters pay tribute in Lego to 17 different cities and countries across Asia. Iconic national landmarks in miniature from Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore will certainly amaze you.
We subsequently headed for Lego City, our last stop before we headed over to Legoland Water Park. We had to wait quite long for the Legoland Express because it was crowded and the Lego train carries only 60 people at a time over real level crossings. We were very tempted to give this a miss as it was getting late and we still wanted to finish up the Driving School and Boating School. But the kids insisted on taking the ride so we waited for I think at least 15 minutes for the train.
We finished our visit to Legoland Malaysia Theme park with a bang with the kids having a go at Driving School and Boating School.
There’s a Junior Driving School for younger children so my 3-year-old boy got to have a go too! The Junior Driving School has slower single pedal cars to give younger children a taste of the Driving School experience. It actually looked like the kids were playing bumper cars when we were riding on the Legoland Express.
Driving School offers kids a unique chance to drive on a true-to-life traffic circuit. Before they are allowed to get into the cars, they have to go for ‘training’ in a classroom where they are taught how to handle the car and the traffic rules.
If you like, you can make a driving license for the kids after they’re done. This is applicable for both Driving schools, but this comes at an additional cost (we didn’t make one for the kids).
We squeezed in the Boating School as our last stop. It was not so easy to control the steering and after a while my daughter gave up and asked me to steer instead.
By the time we completed the entire Legoland theme park, we barely had time for Legoland Water Park. In fact, it was about to close in about 30minutes by the time we got there. Hence, we just went in to check it out since we won’t probably get to play much at all after getting everyone changed.
By this time, my erratic camera was just getting worse and worse and most of the time it refused to work at all and I did what I could in the short time that I had. Anyway, this commanding structure would probably catch your attention first. The Joker Soaker, one of the signature attractions at the Water Park, is a fun interactive play structure in the wade pool. The highlight which the kids looked forward to was the majestic splash when the Lego jester model pours 350 gallons of water down on them!
Everyone loves the Wave Pool!
And if I may say, this is probably the signature attraction in Legoland Water Park. I mean most water theme parks would have a wave pool and a play structure but this Build-a-raft attraction where there are foam Lego bricks floating around in the water is unique to Legoland.
There are also some smaller-scale attractions like these for some fascinating water play:
If you’re into slides or have older children who won’t be too interested in the more kiddy parts of the water park, there are really mega slides in the water park. I have claustrophobia so those slides actually look mighty terrifying to me.
If time allows, we might head back one day to play at Legoland Water Park! We were totally exhausted by the end of the day and so we didn’t really feel so bad about not getting to play at the Water Park. My advice is actually to spend an entire day at each Park instead of getting a Combo ticket, which actually looks like better value for money. There’s just so much to play and see at Legoland theme park for the kids so it makes more sense to enjoy each Park in its entirety (considering we started at 10+am and only finished Legoland at 5.30pm and we had to rush through some parts, do consider getting passes for the Parks to be utilised on separate days).
There’s a 2-Day Combo Ticket For the Price Of 1-Day going on now on Legoland Malaysia Hotel’s site and it’s only applicable for Hotel guests. This is a great offer in my opinion so it’s a good opportunity to make use of the promotion!
Disclosure: Our tickets to Legoland Malaysia Theme Park were sponsored by Legoland Malaysia. No monetary compensation was received. All opinions are mine.