I felt guilty that our kids did not go anywhere special during the 3-week school holidays. Healthcare professionals do not get leave easily. In any situation, it is always ‘perkhidmatan diutamakan’ in government service. I know the kids don’t really mind because they are spending time at their grandmother’s house anyway. And like all wonderful grandmothers around the world, the kids were fed and cared for with a lot of love. Even then, as a parent, I still felt like doing something nice for them.
So during the last weekend of the holidays, I made a booking at Klana Resort Seremban. My son preferred a place near his school because he wanted to be early for registration day. He wanted to get the bottom bunk of the bed in his dormitory.
I booked a Triple Family Room with a garden view. The total price was RM 464.70 for a 3D2N stay. The room has a 1 King bed and 1 single bed. Hence, the rooms are located near the pool, not facing the pool. Still, the pool is within walking distance. It took less than 1 minute walk. I like that the pool facilities are mom and kid-friendly. It’s like the Amverton Hotel in Melaka. There is no specific dress code. Thus, I could happily jump in with a comfortable T-shirt and leggings. There is no lifeguard, so do be mindful of your own family members. Clean towels and a place to change are available at the pool. Interestingly, they also serve pool snacks.
I did not include breakfast services because we wanted to buy them from the nearby stalls. We had roti canai on the first morning and nasi lemak with fried chicken on the second morning. The room was spacious and super clean. I loved the bathroom. Most importantly, it has a dryer and a balcony where we can hang our swimming attire to dry. There’s Netflix, and so we watched a few good movies on it.
The area does look a bit eerie at night, but since we spent most of the time indoors, it was not a bother. It felt a bit quiet and dark as we checked in earlier. It is because we arrived near 8PM. Putting that part aside, we had a really great stay. The kids loved the pool eventhough the trip was a short one. Alhamdulilah.
It takes a bit of planning for my dear husband to match the itinerary with our mental and physical capabilities as a family. That is one of the perks of doing DIY Umrah. You can plan your time around your needs. Our flight from Cairo to Jeddah was in the morning. We left the Turquoise Hotel in an Uber and arrived at the airport promptly.
At passport control, we had to fill out a non-Egyptian declaration form first. Once we’d passed that, we had breakfast in the waiting area. My husband changed into his ihram. I put on my mini telekung.
FLYADEAL
Flyadeal is a low-cost Saudi airline. Our journey from Cairo to Jeddah took just over 3 hours. In the plane, we were served a croissant and mineral water. The pilot made an early announcement 30 minutes before reaching miqat. Perhaps other passengers are keen to change into their ihram on the plane. He then broadcast the next information upon arriving at the miqat so that we could make our niyat.
On arrival, my daughter has stomach ache. Alhamdulilah, she made it to the airport toilet on time. I was so worried that her clothes would be soiled. After picking up our luggage, we headed to the lower ground floor to the bus booth. My husband bought 3 bus tickets (2 adults,1 kid) from Northwest. We were relieved that we caught it on its scheduled time. Otherwise, we would have to wait for another hour for the next bus. The total fare was 100SR.
The bus was really comfortable, and the journey took just 1 hour. The bus dropped us at Jabal Kaabah Terminal, and we wheeled our luggage downhill towards Al-Kiswah Hotel. The plan was to check into our room, clean and relieve ourselves a bit before going back uphill for our Umrah.
AL-KISWAH HOTEL
Al-Kiswah Hotel seems to be a favourite among muslims coming from “The Stans”. I hardly saw any Malaysians or Indonesians during our stay there. Husband paid RM 700.00 for a 5D4N stay. I have only come to realise later that I did not take any pictures of the room. Basically, our room has 3 single beds with the usual amenities like FREE WIFI, a fridge and a hot shower. There is no hairdryer in the room. Best bet, bring your own. However, I do have to caution you regarding the use of the public WIFI. My credit card ended up getting hacked as I tried to pay for my CELCOMDIGI roaming pass. I was able to make the initial payments over a very slow-loading page, keying in my CVC number numerous times. My bank must have detected subsequent suspicious activities and blocked the card. Of course, I knew about it only later, upon returning home. In hindsight, I should have paid for my roaming pass before I was in a foreign country. On a different note, the Celcomdigi roaming service is really convenient and fairly priced at RM98 for 14 days.
Al-Kiswah Hotel has a shuttle that brings us back uphill. However, by the time we reached the hotel, it was already past Isyak, and since the shuttle took quite some time to arrive, the 3 of us decided to walk back up to Masjidil Haram for our umrah. We were a bit concerned that our daughter would be able to continue with the plan. Seems that she was in really high spirits and was able to do it. The shuttle was easier to access on subsequent trips to the masjid for prayers and umrahs. Just not that night. Although we had to ‘fight’ for our seats in the bus, Jemaahs from ‘the stans’ are so lovely, nice and courteous towards each other.
This is what I said on Google Reviews. Mr Husband booked a room here during the Deepavali holidays. Coincidentally, school is also out so we get to go for a staycation at Johor Bahru.
My daughter was really looking forward to our stay here. She said it’s been a while since we went for a holiday. Although I believe we’ve just had a weekend stay at The Everly Putrajaya a few weeks ago.
Kids waiting at the lobby while Mr Husband checked us in.
Little fashionista going up the lift with her new hat and Anya
The moment I stepped into our Premier Suite, I immediately loved it. It was a lovely room that had a kitchenette equipped with a microwave, a fridge and a kettle, a dining space, a living area and a separate bedroom. There were two writing desks which is great. I could continue doing my assignments in the room and he could do his work in the living area. My daughter enjoyed the bath tub of course and the son just loved being in an air-conditioned room. Staying in a dorm means that he is deprived of life luxuries. This room probably cost us roughly between RM250 – RM270 per night through Agoda.
Free WIFI is available but only 4 gadgets are granted access. There’s an ironing board with iron as well. The pool is on the 7th floor. We wanted to have a look but then we got stuck in the lift. Hence, the mission was aborted.
Breakfast for 2 adults is included in our room rate. So we paid extra for the kids. The breakfast menu was top-notch for a 4-star hotel. As mentioned, I loved their nasi lemak paru. The restaurant is also not overly crowded making it a pleasant experience in the morning. If you prefer having breakfast outside, either order a GRAB and have it sent to the lobby or walk across to the R&F Mall.
During our stay there, we were out and about mostly until after lunch. We would just order our dinner through GRAB but that is when an unfortunate incident happened. Our Kacang Pool and rice meals were stolen by a fellow hotel visitor. The hotel cooperated by giving access to their CCTV. Mr Husband had a good look of the culprit’s face, requested a refund from GRAB and was hoping to confront this guy during breakfast time. We didn’t see him. Most likely he enjoyed our meal as breakfast. HA HA HA.
Since this hotel is near the main road, we could hear motorcars honking almost every 30 mins during rush hour. It’s almost normal to see some shameless car owners cutting the queue. I understand the frustration.
Overall, it was a very comfortable stay. I would definitely repeat a stay here although I’d be more likely be trying out other hotels if we are ever going to JB again. It would be nice though if the big windows were cleaned as the view seems amazing at night. Minus the smudge.
Zoo Johor had a makeover. The first time I went there was when I was heavily pregnant with my daughter in 2017 and the second time around was when she turned 3 years old. Now, the zoo looks more modern although it is way smaller than Zoo Negara and Zoo Melaka. Of course, the fees have gone up but it was still a great place to spend the day out with the kids. Tickets can be bought online or at the premises using the kiosk. The zoo will be closed every Tuesday starting November 1st.
I liked the part where we hovered over the Gladiator-like rings to see the lions, tigers and bears.
Another great feature is that visitors get to snap photos with the birds and snakes (in a glass box) without concerns about paying extra or being in a queue. I would say it is a minimalistic zoo that is equally entertaining. As it doesn’t have the ritual photography sessions at the front gate or the ‘come here buy your fridge magnet‘ salesperson at the zoo exit. It’s just a place where the family could hang out and get excited over the animals at a small cost. I like that. Animals should be accessible to all classes of citizens. Rakyat Johor sangat bertuah.
We spent roughly an hour at the zoo and managed to put in about 5K steps into our daily walk routine. Afterwards, we made a quick stop at Mid Valley South Key Mall for lunch. We had Nandos and even ordered the bottomless drinks and yoghurts. The vanilla yoghurt had a smooth taste and not too sour. My husband loved it. He also shopped for new work bags and a luggage bag for his sister. I didn’t get anything. I am being very mindful of my spending lately because I have a bigger financial goal in a few months to come.
The beautiful posh mall
Thankfully with Deepavali decor instead of Halloween
Our bottomless yoghurt
During this staycation in Johor Bahru, we stayed at The GBW Hotel. I will blog about it in another post.
This place reminds me of Universal Studios Singapore. The layout is elaborate and very magical.
We drove to Genting Highland from our hotel in chow kit, East Riverine Boutique Hotel and parked at the space at Genting Premium Outlet. Bought tickets for the Awana SkyWay at the booth and enjoyed the view from the cable car. The ‘air gondola’ operates from 7am-11pm daily. Oh, please remember to wear a face mask in the cable car – it is compulsory since you are in a closed area with other people. It is still the rainy season at this time of the year and the fog was really thick in the morning even though it was already 10am ish. Our family was a bit underdressed and not prepared for the cold and rain.
Mr Husband bought the tickets from one of the self-service machines. I downloaded the Genting Skyworld App because it is said that you could cut down your waiting times at the rides by making a booking there. You could set it up as a group booking and such. However, since there was not much of a crowd that day I did not use the app. We went there on the Thaipusam long weekend.
Ticket price:
Awana SkyWay – Standard return ticket RM18 x 4 = RMRM72. Only kids less than 90cm get to travel for free.
Genting Skyworld – I supposed it will be cheaper to get the tickets online plus there are various packages for the trip there. Our total was roughly RM620 ish for 4 pax (2 adult + 2 kids).
Genting Skyworld has 9 exciting themed worlds. Each world has its own attractions, entertainment shows, merchandise stores and F&B to enjoy. There are height restrictions for some attractions but my girl who is just above 110cm could get on most rides. It is a very ‘family-gastro and bladder-friendly’ place. Bring a water bottle to fill up at the water stations. We went our way through the theme park using the map provided so we wouldn’t miss anything.
STUDIO PLAZA
This is the main entrance which has a very golden and lavish setup. Since we were there at the opening times, we get to enjoy a mini Las Vegas-ish show for a few minutes before everyone entered the park. They had the best-smelling popcorn.
EPIC
This place is based on the animated movie of Epic.
The one where the girl shrunk and become friends with woodland creatures and then began fighting with evil forces. There are two rides here – Epic voyage to Moonhaven and Epic Hummingbird Flyers. The earlier ride is like those lazy river rides BUT you will get wet as your boat passes through a particular splash. So your options are to go on this last or go ahead with a raincoat/ extra pair of clothing. We barged ahead and got wet.
RIO
Adapted from the Rio animations – this place is super colourful with tropical colours. My brave girl went up the Samba Gliders! They had to take off their slippers cause they were hanging on the gliders but she said she was not scared at all. My son went afterwards, with the dad of course. I was not that keen to go because of the height and because I had to keep my bag in the lockers. It was too much trouble for me.
There was also their version of the teacup – Rio Carnival of Chaos and the very short ride on the merry-go-round. The Blue Sky Carousel was a double-decker, super pretty but only went around about three times! It was that quick.
ICE AGE
We watched an interactive entertainment show here. Kids love it. As an adult, I was like,“cepatlah habis.. tak habis2 nyanyi.. ha ha ha”. My girl was thrilled to know there was (fake) snow there. There were four attractions here but we only went to 2 which are the vertigo-inducing Sid’s Rock ‘N’ Slide and the Mammoth Fun Zone. The Mammoth place is like a playground. We had our lunch here at Buck’s Cafe. It was of course theme park price but thankfully delicious. We ordered two sets of rice meals, an onigiri, a strawberry sando and a few drinks. I just realized that I didn’t take any photos of the food. Probably because we were cold and hungry.
ANDROMEDA BASE
This is where the most adventurous people would enjoy rides that have thrill scores of 1.
We did not go on any rides. I did encourage Mr Husband to go but since we’ve just had lunch, being turned upside down and twirled around vigorously doesn’t sound that good. I personally am not a fan of crazy roller coasters either. We are somewhat of a very introvert couple. LOL. We did get to see the performance by Caucasian space men which was sturdy and acrobatic in nature.
ROBOTS RIVET TOWN
This town is made for little kids. Slow, comfortable, colourful rides – love it. We get to squeeze into one car at the Bigweld’s Zeppelin. The description of the ride in the pamphlet made it sound like we would fly very high. Kids would though!
LIBERTY LANE
The highlight of this place was the 3D hovercraft ride with characters from Planet of the Apes. The entranceway setup reminded me of The Mummy place at USS. It was convincing and in a way as visitors, we were immersed in our character to save the ape leader. Gosh, what was it’s name again?
At first, we thought it would be a mundane visual thing with the 3D glasses but as we got on the hovercraft, it was so real and thrilling. We wanted to get on it the second time after we’ve finished the 1st round of everything but it was temporarily closed – maybe for rest or sanitation.
CENTRAL PARK
‘Night at the Museum’ was also closed when we got there. But we did get on the Independence Day: Defiance spaceship. Our legs were hanging off the spacecraft and we were swooshing in space fighting off imaginary aliens. I would caution those who have epilepsy or vertigo to be careful on this ride because of the flashing lights and fast-motion swings. I was nauseous but I survived the ride uneventfully. Obviously, the seats were manipulated to make us feel that we are in mid-air but it was believable and exciting.
I imagined the place would be very pretty at night with the lights from the fountains. It also has a very spacious, beautifully decorated park.
EAGLE MOUNTAIN
The attraction is not open yet but they have a pretty burger eatery there to try. This place marks the end of the 9 themes and is near the entry/exit door.
Overall, it was a fun experience for me as an adult and of course even more for the kids. I am glad the fog cleared up afterwards so we could take better pictures. That is one thing off my bucket list for places to go in Malaysia. Until next time… taraaa
Minci Moss 