NEW for 2016: Nickelodeon’s Lost Lagoon

Adding movies and cartoons to theme parks seems to be the latest trend in Malaysia – 20th Century Fox, MAPS… At Sunway Lagoon, the Nickelodeon zone includes a children’s play area and seven. Yes, no kidding, seven water slides. Thats the same number as Adventure Cove Waterpark!!!

The River Rapids ride is not too bad, given the really hot Malaysian climate. The length is a little too short, though, and there is little to see (unlike, say, Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure). There is no big drop in this ride, so you will not get too wet. There is also a raft slide called Colorado Splash, but you will not get wet.

Sunway Lagoon has several flat rides that are by far the most intense rides of the park. Pirate’s Revenge is a 360 degree pirate ship, which means the ship will rock all the way to the point when it is  completely upside down. The other, Tomahawk, is even worse as it spins you head over heels continuously for over a minute. As I do not like going upside down, I did not go on the flat rides.

There are a few kiddy rides as well, such as a Carousel near the entrance and a spinning teacups ride Apache Pots near the escalators. Personally, though, I find this park not very kid friendly as the proportion of kids attractions is too low and they are very widely dispersed. There is a small playground for kids as well, and when I say small, I really mean it. Finally, the area is connected to Extreme Park by a large suspension bridge.

If you think 1 haunted house is bad enough, try having 4 of them back to back. That’s what Scream Park is all about. Located underneath the lift hill of the roller coaster, I actually went an extra round on the coaster instead of going inside.

From what I heard, there are actually some special elements like 3D based scare effects. However, the haunted house as a whole is rather uneventful and there are very few actors or props to bring up the fear factor (the darkness and background music was doing most of the scaring).

Extreme Park

For me, this is the area that makes Sunway Lagoon special. The activities offered here are more reminiscent of a sports park or a campsite based resort, yet they were able to squeeze them into the confines of a theme park. The most popular attraction is by fat the Flying Fox, which spans over the massive wave pool. Even though the landing is in the wave pool, there is no splashdown so it is possible to participate without getting the upper body wet (you still need to wade out of the wave pool) I did not ride simply because the wait time was over 1 hour when I arrived.

The park also offers archery, though the targets are way too close to be any fun. Paintball target shooting and ATV rides are also included in the admission. Surprisingly, I find the trampoline to be one of the more exciting complimentary activities there, though it is quite physically tiring. For a little relaxation, there are also swan Pedal Boats.

However, the most exciting attractions here all requires additional payment. The bungee jump will drop you off from the middle of the suspended bridge, but your wallet will also drop by RM130. The go-kart is another pay per ride attraction costing RM20, though I must admit the circuit is quite short. The karts top about 50kph, from my visual reference. Large scale paintball matches and the G-Force X are the final rides that need extra payment. However, I can assure you that given the number and variety of attractions at Sunway Lagoon, you can have an enjoyable day without ever participating in one of these pay-per-ride attractions.

 

The other new attraction is WaterPlexx 5D. The park claims it is the first in the world and I must say the quality of 3D images is actually quite decent for Malaysian standards. However, I think there is too much water splashing around and it frequently hits the 3D glasses so I spent half the ride wiping water off the glasses.

Other water slide include the mat racer Congo Challenge, twister slides African Pythons and a weird mini-boomerang like slide called Cameroon Climb. There is a lazy river called Zambezi River, and the theming is actually not too bad. However, there are too many splash elements, in my opinion. There are also 2 kids play areas, the main one for the kids up to 12 years old and a smaller one near to Congo Challenge for the little kids. Note that if you are an adult, you are not allowed to go on the slides in the playground area.

 

The highlight of the waterpark, though, has got to be the 2 wave pools. The smaller one is typical, with a small pirate themed slide at the shallow end. However, the Surf Beach wave pool is really stunning. For one, the landscaping and atmosphere is almost as good as most of the top tropical themed wave pools like Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon and Aquatica Orlando. It also boasts a sand beach with several islets and nice mushroom fountains in the shallow areas. There is even a Flowrider there. However, be warned: the waves there are really, really huge, up to 2m (6ft) high. Stay within the sand bottomed area unless you are a good swimmer or is willing to rent a float.

[tip]After certain hours, there will be no more big waves. It is the perfect time for non-swimmers or weak swimmers to go to the deeper areas of the wave pool. Do ask the staff members for the schedule of big waves.

Dining

 As mentioned before, the dining experience here is different from the typical theme park. There are fast food chains like Marrybrown and Burger King in the park, and most of the vendors sell light finger food rather than full meals. Prices for fast food are similar to outside.

However, seating is really at a premium here. There are far too few seats and some of the dining outlets (especially those a the locker area) do not even have any seats for customers. This is something I hope Sunway Lagoon can look upon. I also feel that the park is overkill in its food and drink policy – it is almost like an airline, anything other than water and baby formula is not allowed. There aren’t many water coolers in the park, so happy hunting.

Queue lines

The longest queue lines for this park is at the ticket purchasing counter and the lockers. While you can bypass the former by buying online tickets, you cannot avoid the latter. My advice is to either rush to the lockers first thing in the morning or to wait till past 1pm before purchasing them (note that some rides don’t allow you to bring your belongings on board, but Sunway Lagoon is quite lenient about letting people put stuff on the loading platforms).

There are very limited queues for most of the theme park rides, perhaps with the exception of the Roller Coaster as there is only 1 train in operation and the lift hill is so slow. The haunted house queue appears long, but this is because guests are dispatched in batches once the critical mass is hit (or the minimum time interval) the entire group will be dispatched into the attraction. At extreme park, all attractions have short or no queue except ATV ride and Flying Fox, which exceeds 1 hour in the afternoon.

For the water slides, be careful of Cameroon Climb and African Pythons. In addition to the queue for the floats, there is a queue for the slides themselves. This means you are queuing twice. The same is true for Congo Challenge, but that one usually no queue. Vuvuzela moves at almost 600 people per hour, so even it extends all the way down the 10 story slide tower the queue will not be more than 45mins. Waterplexx 5D also has long lines, as the theater is really small (120 seater, as far as I remembered)

[tip] Avoid going to the water park in the hottest time of the day (1pm-3pm), the queues are the worse then. If you want, use the wave pool or lazy river.

Overall

As a theme park: