Sunday, November 3, 2013

Getting to Legoland, Legoland Waterpark and Hello Kitty Land in Malaysia by bus from Singapore

My most read post on this blog, is how to get to Johor Premium Outlets and Legoland Malaysia by bus from Singapore, you can read it here. The information is still fairly accurate, but since there have been new theme parks that have opened in Johor Bahru (JB), I've decided to write another post, with tips on how to make traveling to JB easier, yet still cost effective.

Getting to JB Sentral from Singapore by bus
The easiest way cross the border from the city center of Singapore is still by taking a bus to Queen Street Bus Station (near Bugis). Take the Causeway Link CW2 bus. There is always a bus waiting, once it's filled you're good to go, so you don't need to book in advance or wait long. Cost less than SG$3 per person cheaper for kids. Keep your ticket, you'll need it later.

The bus will drop you off at the Woodlands border (Singapore side). Everyone gets down to clear immigration, then once you exit, just head to where the buses are parked, and take ANY Causeway Link bus. No need to look for CW2 because all the buses will take you to the Malaysian side of the border anyway. The bus driver will just ask to see your ticket to make sure you took a Causeway link bus to get to the border.

Once you get to the Malaysian Border in JB, you just clear immigration again, and then walk to JB Sentral. Just follow the signs, or the people as most people head there. It's the building beside immigration but it's connected by a covered walkway.

The trip from Queen Street to JB Sentral takes a little over an hour end to end depending on how fast you clear immigration.

Getting to Legoland,  Legoland Waterpark and Hello Kitty Land from JB Sentral by bus
The first thing we normally do is check the Bus Schedule for Causeway Link LM1 bus. You need to go to the ground floor for the bus terminal, while the second floor has some food outlets and money changers.
Causeway Link LM1 bus schedule as of Nov 2013

Since JB Sentral is the first stop in the LM1 route, they are fairly accurate for departure times. Just aim to catch the bus 10 minutes before and you can wait on the bus. If we have time to kill, we normally grab lunch from KFC (in Malaysia they serve gravy with the chicken, in Singapore they don't), and get coffee from Starbucks.
We were so happy they had our favorite drink.
We love Asian Dolce Latte.
Sofia and Ninong still have Halloween hangover. 

The bus stops at Larkin Sentral, then it stops at Puteri Harbor, where you have The Little Big Club, Hello Kitty Land and Trader's Hotel (which might be a good place to stay if you're going on a Theme Park holiday because everything would be accessible by the LM1 Causeway Link Bus).


Puteri Harbor

Legoland and Legoland Waterpark is around 5 to 10 minutes from Puteri Harbor.

Hello Legoland,  it's nice to see you again.
We were originally planning to go to the water park first, but the lady at the ticketing counter informed us that the forecast was for thunderstorms and if the rains are strong, they close the water park for safety reasons and No refunds are given, so we decided to go to the water park the next day instead.

The Legoland Water Park is just a little bit further down than the main
Theme Park past the Legoland Hotel that's under construction. 

Right in front of Legoland, there's the Mall of Medini where you have more food options like KFC and BK which the kids may find more familiar than the food Legoland, but no inside food is allowed so you'll have to finish eating before you enter Legoland.

We ate at Pancake House because we were craving for it at the airport,
but it wasn't open yet before the earliest flight.
The Manila menu is so much better,  but it was still good.

Going Back to Singapore
The best thing to do is get the Bus Schedule from the guest services counter of Legoland before your visit so you can plan around it accordingly. Make sure you are waiting for the bus with a lot of time to spare because the buses don't really follow the exact time on the schedule. 

If you want to go back directly to Singapore, take the Causeway Link LM1 bus which will take you back to JB Sentral, where you just need to walk across to clear Malaysian immigration.

If you miss the bus you want to take, or if you don't want to wait for the next bus, you can just go to the end of the Mall of Medini and just take a taxi to JB Sentral (or the hotel you're staying at from there).

There are a lot of metered cabs in front of the Mall of Medini.

The taxi from Legoland to JB Sentral costs around MYR50. From there, you jut need to walk across to clear Malaysian immigration.
Once you've cleared Malaysian immigration, just head to ANY Causeway Link bus and you can either buy a bus ticket to take you back to the Queen Street Bus Station, or you can just pay to cross the border (this will just cost MYR1 per adult, kids go free) and take a taxi from the Woodlands side after you clear Singapore immigration.

We found it easier and more cost efficient to just take a taxi from Woodlands unless you really are planning to go near the Queen Street or Bugis area.

If you would like to go back to Queen Street Bus Station, just look for the queue for the Causeway Link CW2 bus.

Hope you find these tips helpful! We finally got the hang of travelling to JB well enough for us to actually feel like we know what we're doing.  just saying. 

2 comments:

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