Sun, sand and (fake) surf: A weekend trip to Sunway Lagoon

I was in Malaysia again over the weekend. The whole family went to Sunway Lagoon, a resort near Kuala Lumpur, for four days. When I say family, I meant the entire gang. My wife, myself, my three kids, my two helpers, my mom and dad, my younger brother and his two daughters, and my youngest brother and wife.

Needless to say, it was a circus.

Our trip involved getting three cabs to take us to Golden Mile Complex to catch our coach. Golden Mile is part Little Thailand and part Malaysian/Thailand coach central for Singapore. A grubby building, it is nonetheless the go-to place for your overland trips up north.

The coach was old but roomy. The seats were worn but could tilt almost all the way back. There was no individual TV screens or in-flight service or even an onboard toilet, just your seat and decent air-conditioning.

"Are we there yet?"

A luxury ride only in name

There are "Super-VIP" coaches with all those amenities but this was not one of them. This was not even "VIP." It was closer to "Somewhat-VIP."

This meant that we had to be very careful to ensure the kids all visited the loo whenever we could. No onboard toilet means that when my four-year-old Joy says "Papa, I need to shee-shee," and you are on the Malaysian North-South Highway (NSH), you are pretty much screwed.

So when we pulled into the Customs checkpoint at Tuas: compulsory toilet break. Then when we got to the Yong Peng Lucky Garden rest stop along the NSH, compulsory toilet break. Sometimes the kids would protest and say, "But I don't need to go!" but we would have none of it.

The Lucky Garden rest stop is a very common stop for coaches traveling in Malaysia. I suspect the coach drivers get some kind of commission for stopping there. The rest stop is like a little town, complete with a supermarket that sold "Malaysia Special Product", a food court, and tacky fountain.

Snacks from the infamous Yong Peng rest stop.

Food for the Singaporean soul

The food court cuisine is pretty good. For RM6 (US$1.87) you can have a bowl of Uncle Tan's fishball noodles. I know US1.87 sounds like a steal for a meal but by Malaysian standards, RM6 for a bowl of noodles is highway robbery. Oh wait, this IS the highway...

In fact, the prices at the entire rest stop are designed around what a Singaporean can tolerate.

My dad picked up his fave, a bag of hot chestnuts, my wife picked up Malaysian chicken-flavored biscuits for the kids, and I went to the mobile phone shop to buy Malaysian prepaid sim cards for the family.

For the price of Uncle Tan's fishball noodles, yes RM6, you get unlimited 3G broadband on your iPhone for 24 hours. And for RM20 (US$6.23), you get seven full days of glorious unlimited 3G broadband. It is tremendous value from Celcom. Cheaper than the offering in Singapore. The coverage is not always consistent but when it works, it is great. My brother even managed to make Skype calls from his iPhone using the prepaid 3G service.

The coach took eight hours to get us from Singapore to Sunway Lagoon. This was due to the one and a half hours we spent caught in the infamous Customs jam. The kids finally stopped asking "Are we there yet?" when we stepped into the lobby of the Sunway Pyramid Hotel.

A solitary figure at Sunway's skating rink.

The getaway destination of Sunway

Sunway is a self-contained resort in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, 20km from KL city. You can stay at the Sunway Resort Hotel or the cheaper Sunway Pyramid. Connected to the hotels is the Sunway Pyramid Mall, a massive shopping complex, and the Sunway Lagoon theme park. A couple of shops surround the hotel area as well.

The rooms in the Pyramid Hotel were decent though I got a room with the worst possible view, the backside of the pyramid. I had to pull down the blinds so that I didn't feel like an Egyptian slave looking out at my sucky ghetto view. 

We spent a lot of time shopping the mall, which is great when you have a big family to entertain. Logistically, it is impractical to cart 14 people into KL city for food and shopping anyway. We watched countless movies at the cineplex together and ate at the surrounding "restorans". Some of us tried skating at the mall's ice skating rink and the wife even tried her hand at archery. Maid Marion she was not.

The kids also swam every day at the hotel pool. Then on the third day, we made our way to the theme park.

We chose to visit the water theme park on a Monday because we knew it would be zoo on a weekend. You pay RM100 (US$31.14) for full day, with no re-entry. This kind of sucks because you have to make sure you have brought along all the necessary stuff for a full day at the theme park, like towels and spare kids' clothes. Once you are in the park, you can't come out to get stuff and go in again. 

At Universal Studios, Resorts World Sentosa, they at least let you go in and out of the theme park freely throughout the day.

We exchanged our tickets for waterproof RFID Wristbands, which you have to wear the whole time you are there. We also paid RM10 (US$3.11) deposit for each Entry Wristband.

Also, beware of a few things. Outside food and drinks are not allowed (presumably to ensure you buy their overpriced RM13 fried rice and RM3 mineral water). You cannot even take water bottles in. The security counter checks your bags before you enter. We had to collect all the kids' water bottles and I had to take them back to the hotel room. The alternative would be to wrap said water bottles in a towel and hope the Bag Nazis don't find them.

Making a splash with the kids

The water park was quite fun though some rides were not working. The usual rides were there, like riding a tube down flumes. I rented a two-person tube float and took the kids around for rides in the wave pools and "voodoo river", providing the narration myself as I pushed them around through waterfalls and squirting gorillas, inventing my own Oonga Bonga story and monsters. I did this "kiddie tour" eight times.

There is also a "dry" amusement park with a roller coaster ride and a cowboy theme. Again, it looked worn and old but the kids had fun on the carousel and kids coaster.

When you leave the theme park for the day, do beware of one thing. You will be asked if you wish to exchange your Entry Wristband for a souvenir watch "at no charge". What they don't say is that once you do that, you no longer get your RM10 deposit back. Sure it is not a lot of money but it seemed rather sneaky to me.

The kids had fun, and that's all that matters, really. Sure I would have loved to surf at the artificial Surf Beach and tried some of the more extreme rides myself but the entire family was entertained in a rather painless way, and the hotel rooms were clean and the hotel staff polite.

We will probably return but next time, it's my wife's turn to push five kids around in a rubber tube.