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| Cap picked up from the souvenir shop at Sunway Lagoon |
Now, the Sunway Lagoon Theme Park's operating hours were from 10.00am to 6.00pm. Thus, in order to get to our destination early enough to allow us to make the most of the opening hours, the plan was to assemble at the Infineon main guard house at 7.00am to board the buses. Yes, I'm sure we could have planned to assemble earlier at 6.00am to avoid the shift change crowd, but such a plan would likely be challenging, especially since there were many families with kids (including us).
As per the plan, the buses would thus depart at 7.30am. Unfortunately, this time slot coincided with the change of shift - hence we had to wait for the factory buses to leave before our buses could enter the bus park. That didn't set us back too far, so with a mild recovery plan and smooth traffic, we managed to reach our destination as planned!😁
While in the bus, we were informed that absolutely NO food and drinks were allowed to be taken in from the outside. Officially, this was to avoid litigation against the park management in case of food-related ailments. Of course, we pretty much figured out the most likely TRUE reason behind this... (especially since food prices inside were hiked - a 500ml bottle of water is sold for RM4.50). However, at the entrance, we were told that bringing in water (which is apparently not classified as a "drink") was OK. Can anyone out there clarify this point? But alas, we left all our water in the bus, so through the entire day, we ended up spending RM18 on water.😞
As we were in a group, the buses dropped us off at the Surf Beach Entrance, which was next to the Sunway Lagoon Hotel. There was ample space there for the organizing committee to set up a counter for ticket collection and even a group photo.
Our package granted us access to all rides in the park save for a few (which we needed to pay per ride if we were interested). Namely, the Bungy Jump, Go-kart and something called G-force - all of which were in the Extreme park section. From the nature of such rides, I would personally get on them even if I were PAID to ride! 😁
Well, once into the park, we decided to indulge in the wet activities first, as there's a chance the rides would be closed in case of heavy rain. The entire park was built around a large body of water, half of which was shallow for good old family fun, while the other half was for boating. First order of the day, get a locker as it was not allowed / possible to bring bags on board many of the rides. A single locker was RM22 and the larger luggage locker was RM43. The good thing was that they were for multiple entry, so once you've got yourself a locker, its yours to use for the whole day. This meant that the lockers were rather limited, though, so in our case we had to walk to the other side of the park to get an available luggage locker. The lockers were keyless. After registering a locker, it's tied to the barcoded wrist tag. There's a scanner for each bank of lockers, which intelligently pops open the right locker upon scanning. The wrist tag was waterproof and quite durable to withstand the rigours of the theme park, without fading. Though, it did take me several attempt to align my wrist to the scanner.
The wrist band also served as an electronic wallet, so one could practically load up some currency into the wrist band, and leave all the stuff in the locker. A good system, as you can imagine, someone would have to sit out on the fun to keep a hold of all the stuff if there wasn't such a system in place. The refunding can be done at the entrance / exit - the shop is INSIDE the park, so be sure not to go out first before getting your refund. Of course, cash is always acceptable. This made it possible for us to wander the park in our swimming attire (yes, at least here everyone was doing it, so it didn't feel out of place).
At this time, the latest park map is as below. You can get the latest map at their website : https://sunwaylagoon.com/park-map/
Many of the rides were height limited, so for those with kids, need to pay particular attention to the minimum requirement. Once your kids are above 1.2m, then every thing's open game...!😃
Most of the wet rides required us to carry tubes up to the starting position of the ride. The tubes were in shape of a figure "8" and thus required us to go in twos. We settled for kid in front, adult at the back. There was only one ride, the Jungle Fury, which needed a group a exactly 4 - no more, no less. This one had everybody sitting in a large round raft (which sort of resembles an inflatable baby pool). Due to the lack of experience, for this ride I sat at the "front" and was facing backwards all the way down. Not sure if it's less scary or more scary this way...?
As we were going to be very much "interactive", I did not bring any camera with me, so our memories are found only in our minds and not in a memory card.... Besides, I did not have any suitable gear that could withstand bring exposed to the elements on a typical day at a water theme park.
Well, towards noon, we had our lunch at the in-house Burger King shop, which was quite small with just a few tables for patrons. After that's it's back to more fun. There was an attraction called the 5D Waterplex, which was basically a first-person view 3D movie with movable seat platform and fan / water spray / lighting effects in sync with the movie. 3D glasses were provided which just managed to fit over my glasses, so it was watchable. The movement was mild - no need for any seatbelts or safety restraints. My opinion, though, was that the screen was too small and too far away, so it was not a very immersive experience, compared to, say, the Singapore Omnimax Theater.
At roughly 4pm, it started to drizzle, then increased to a full blown downpour. We were lucky to have covered all the main activities by then, so we spent the time getting showered and changed back to regular clothes, and stopping by the Souvenir Shop to make the best of the complementary coupons given as part of our package. As the park closed at 6.00pm, we made it to the exit earlier to avoid the potential crowd at the refund counter. By that time, the rain had receded back to a light drizzle.
We had roughly 2 hours to go till the arrival of our buses, so we walked over to the Sunway Pyramid shopping mall and walked about, taking our dinner there before returning to the Surf Beach Entrance pick up point by 7.30pm. I'd not been to Sunway Pyramid since my college days (which was many, many, many years ago). Glad to see that the ice skating rink is still there, and perhaps someday we could give it a try. Initial reaction from my family is that no one was willing to do so, though, so perhaps this plan would take some time to implement.
We boarded our bus and started the journey home as soon as the last passenger in our bus finally returned (late, but before 8pm). There was a concern that traffic would be heavy. However, the traffic was relatively smooth, even with an unfortunate accident on the North-South highway, so we arrived back at Infineon before 10pm. That was good, as we did not get caught up in the change of shift at 11pm.
Well, in the end, we were tired but happy the way this trip turned out. In spite of the poor weather in the later half of the day, we had managed to make the best of today and really enjoyed ourselves. It was a good event made possible by the organizing committee of Club81 - and to them I offer my sincere gratitude! 🙌
Haha, I just realized that while we brought sunblock, didn't actually remember to put it on. Hence, in the next few days, don't be surprised if you see me with a nasty (and painful) case of sunburn. Keeping fingers crossed and hope for the best!
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