It's all in the models
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Legoland gets ready to charm Asia by offering something for every age
Harold Chan pressed his nose to the window of the bus as the Legoland logo appeared on the horizon. “Wow!” the five-year-old boy exclaimed, pointing his finger at a slope of a hill where the logo was perched.
“Look, I have that at home,” he pointed excitedly at a white canopy with a Lego flag on top, which welcomes visitors to the new theme park in Malaysia’s southern state of Johor. With his father in tow, Harold immediately got down from the chartered bus and ran toward the canopy, marvelling as its enormity, much bigger than the Lego he has back home.
Harold and his family were among those invited to a preview of the park before its recent opening. For Harold’s 35-year-old father Clarkson, the whole scene at Legoland took him back to his childhood when he and his brothers would take every opportunity to convince their father to buy them more Lego blocks so they can build bigger and bigger model buildings.
“This is a dream come true,” he said, as he gazed at the models of various Asian heritage sites made of millions of Lego blocks. Siegfried Boerst, the German manager of Legoland Malaysia, said the scale models were made from more than 50 million Lego bricks by Malaysian and European model makers. He said there’s something for everyone in the theme park, young and old alike.
“I have a lot of things I really enjoy here. I like the Dragon coaster because it involves the Lego experience. There’s the dark ride part where you go through Lego scenes all built up with Lego models before you go out to the roller coaster part and my daughter really enjoys that,” he said.
“There are other things like the robotic workshop that’s really fun to do. You will see children together, introduce them to programming robots. So there are so many things to do in Legoland. I think there's something to enjoy for everyone,” he added.
Located in the southern state of Johor, which borders Singapore, Legoland Malaysia is the first Legoland Park in Asia and only the sixth in the world.
Legoland Malaysia, which took nearly three years to build, sits on a generous expanse of land equivalent to 50 full-size football pitches in the township of Nusajaya. Among its attractions is a Build-and-Test Centre where fathers, mothers and children can stay the whole day building anything they can think of with all Lego bricks they can use.
There are also the roller coaster rides with a steep switchback track and The Dragon roller coaster, which takes riders through the twists and turns of the Middle Ages on a fire-breathing dragon.
“I feel like I am a little boy again,” said Mahmood Rahman, 67, who accompanied his two grandchildren to the Dino Island on a daring boat trip to an ancient temple where Lego dinosaurs still roam and there’s only one way down.
Legoland hopes to attract vacationers not only from Malaysia and nearby Singapore but also from other Asian countries. “Our goal is really to provide a first class family experience,” said Boerst.
