Date of visit: 26 May 2023 | Last updated: 19 July 2024
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The Malaysian highlands hold special memories for me. Growing up, I spent two magical summers in Malaysia, and one of my favourite things to do was visit my grandparents' holiday cottage in the Cameron Highlands. The drive up from Ipoh was thrilling, our car hugging the narrow, twisting roads, and always - to my mind - in danger of plunging into the depths of the jungle below. The air was cool and refreshing, and the genteel atmosphere, with mist-covered mountains, tea plantations, strawberry farms and Tudor-style hotels, recalled another world.
That's no accident; the colonial hill stations of South and Southeast Asia were modelled on the quintessential British hamlet. They were places to escape the heat and recover from tropical diseases, while playing golf, growing roses and throwing parties. The British built seven hill stations in Malaya (as it was then known) during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The Malaysians built three more after independence in 1957.
Genting Highlands was the first of the post-independence hill stations, opened in 1971. Its founder - an acquaintance of my grandfather's - was the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong (Tan Sri is the equivalent of 'Sir'). Inspired by a trip to the Cameron Highlands, he saw the business opportunity in a highland holiday destination that was closer to KL. The result - Resorts World Genting - was a rather different proposition to Cameron Highlands, however, with glitzy hotels, casinos, shopping malls, designer outlets and theme parks.
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| Genting Highlands cable cars |
If Las Vegas on a mountain doesn't appeal to you, take heart: Resorts World Genting isn't the only game in town, although it's worth experiencing at least once. There's also a stunning temple complex, which is reason enough to visit - see my post Day out in Genting Highlands Part 2: Chin Swee Caves Temple.
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| Chin Swee Caves Temple |
If you have a car and some time on your hands, there's plenty more to see. Five kilometres below the summit is the town of Gohtong Jaya, a foodie paradise known for its Chinese cuisine. While you're there, check out Genting Strawberry Leisure Farms, where you can pick your own strawberries, visit the lavender and flower gardens, take a tour of a mushroom farm, and buy hydroponic vegetables.
The area around Gohtong Jaya has many more attractions, like Happy Bee Farm & Insect World (including Butterfly Wonderland), SeniKome Péng Hēng East Coast Arts & Cultural Centre, The World of Phalaenopsis Orchid Farm, and the Kuala Gandah Elephant Conservation Centre. Like hiking? Genting Highlands has a number of trails you might like, such as the ones shown in AllTrails.
What's covered in this post:
Where is Genting Highlands
When to visit Genting Highlands
So just how cold is Genting Highlands, and how wet?
March to September are relatively dry, with 10–15 days of rain on average. June, July and August are the driest and also the warmest, with an average high of 25°C and an average low of 18°C. We visited in June and it was perfect.
October to February bring more risk of heavy rain, thunderstorms and fog. The fog is very atmospheric in the highlands, but you might not be able to see more than a few metres ahead! The wettest months are also the coolest, with an average high of 22°C–23°C and average low of 15°C–16°C.
(Note that this information doesn't necessarily align with weather patterns in the rest of West Malaysia - I guess the mountains have something to do with it.)
No matter when you go, it's worth bringing a light jacket or sweater. It gets noticeably cooler when it rains, even in the lowlands, and you can expect air conditioning going full blast in many places.
How to reach Genting Highlands from KL
I visited Genting Highlands with my sister and her friend, who were over from Vancouver, and it was an easy trip to slot into their busy schedule.
We caught an 8 am bus from KL Sentral, buying return tickets in advance from www.redbus.my for just RM20 (£3.34). The bus was clean and comfortable, and we reached our destination before 9 am. For information on how to buy tickets in person, get a bus from other stations in KL, and other transport options, check out Kuala Lumpur to Genting Highlands Bus Guide 2024.
The Awana Bus Terminal in Genting Highlands is located at Level 1 of Awana SkyCentral, a mid-hill transportion hub and shopping mall. It houses Awana Station on Level 4 - where the Awana Skyway cable cars are - plus two floors with more than 20 shops and restaurants.
Genting Highlands Premium Outlets is right next door. Both Awana SkyCentral and Premium Outlets are part of Resorts World Genting, although most of the resort is further up at the summit.
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| Genting Highlands Premium Outlets |
We left the outlets for the end, but before heading to the cable car we decided to check out the golf course at Resorts World Awana - part of the same family as Resorts World Genting. It was a pleasant 20-minute walk away and turned out to be an excuse to lounge around drinking coffee and chewing the fat for well over an hour.
Back at Awana SkyCentral, we took the escalators up to Awana Station and bought tickets to SkyAvenue Station near the summit. It's a 2.8 km (1.7 mi) journey that takes 10 minutes. We took the Standard Gondola, which was RM18 return (£3), including a free stop at Chin Swee Caves Temple.
There are also other options, like the Glass Floor Gondola (RM50/£8.36 return for adults) - not for the faint-hearted! You can buy tickets in advance online, which apparently gives you benefits like cashback and discounts. Operating hours are 7 am–11 pm.
Resorts World Genting
The resort is huge. There are directories everywhere, and apps for different attractions, but it's still easy to get lost, and there isn't a single overview map (as far as I know) that you can call up on your phone.
Looking for information about the various attractions online is also an exercise in confusion. Many of the sites have been rebranded - sometimes multiple times - over the years, but people often still call them by the old names or something generic like 'Genting Highlands Theme Park'. Resorts World Genting itself was originally called Genting Highlands Resort. So it's best to start with the
official website.
In a nutshell, here's what's at the resort:
- Shopping malls - besides Awana SkyCentral and Genting Highlands Premium Outlets further down the mountain, there are three more malls, at the summit:
- Theme parks - there are two amusement parks (though Resorts World Genting classes other attractions, like Ripley's Adventureland, as theme parks):
- Arena of Stars - venue for shows and events
- Casinos - there are three casinos on site, but in February 2024, Resorts World Genting issued a notice responding to media speculation about the closure of the two Genting Casinos, saying they were temporarily shut for renovation (with no mention of when they would reopen). Oddly, there's no mention of SkyCasino on the website either, even though it wasn't closed.
- Genting Casino 1 (Circus Palace)
- Genting Casino 2 (Hollywood)
- SkyCasino
- Hotels
We got off the cable car at SkyAvenue Station, which is on Level 4 of
SkyAvenue Complex. Billed as "
high street on top of a mountain", the mall was massive and full-on.
Over a hundred brands and shops spread over five floors, with bright pink and blue balls bouncing up and down lava lamp-style in the atrium, to the backdrop of peppy pop songs. After the serenity of Chin Swee Caves Temple and the cable car ride over the rainforest, this was a whole other world.
The atrium, as I later learned, is actually called
SkySymphony. It's a platform for storytelling through the "dynamic transformation of 1,001 winch balls...accompanied by larger-than-life cinematic visuals and original music mix".
There are a ton of restaurant options at SkyAvenue, mostly on Levels 1 and 4. We had lunch at JR Curry House on Level 4, a self-service buffet-style Indian restaurant. A little pricey by Malaysian standards - which we expected - but it had a good selection and the food was decent. If you can't decide what you want, there are a couple of food courts on the fourth floor, Malaysian Food Street and Jom Makan Street Food.
Also on Level 4 is
Ripley's Adventureland, if you want to keep the kids - or yourself - entertained, with curiosities and oddities (Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!), dinosaurs (Jurassic Research Center), zombies (Zombie Outbreak), 4D art (4D Trick Art Museum), optical illusions (Infinity Room), go-karts (GP Meta Kart) and ziplines across the mall (Eagle Landing Zipline). There's also a playground targeted at kids in the 4–12 age range (
Jungle Gym).
If gambling's more your thing, this is the place to do it, as Resorts World Genting
holds the only casino licence in Malaysia. The one at SkyAvenue is
SkyCasino, located on Levels 1 and 2.
Opened in 2017, it was the third casino at the resort, and apparently swankier and more modern than the decades-old Genting Casinos (currently being upgraded, as of 2024).
I don't know how SkyCasino compares with the venues in Vegas - it's been years since I visited - but I do remember punters being plied with free drinks there, which I didn't see here. We kept away from the tables and even the slot machines, but if you decide to try your luck, be sure to register for a Genting Rewards card first, otherwise you can't get your winnings. Apparently
the queues to get the card are really long, but I've also read that you can save a lot of time by using a machine.
If you hit the jackpot at SkyCasino, you could splash out on a room at
Crockfords, located on the other side of SkyAvenue. It's "the only hotel in Malaysia to receive the prestigious 5-star rating by the Forbes Travel Guide for six consecutive years (2019 – 2024)".
Our next stop was the cavernous, neon-lit
Skytropolis Indoor Theme Park. I thought it was part of SkyAvenue, but it's actually at the adjoining First World Complex shopping mall.
Covering 400,000 sq ft, on Levels 1–3, Skytropolis has more than 20 rides, as well as carnival games.
From Skytropolis you can exit to Genting Bowl, the bowling alley on Level 3 of First World Plaza (part of First World Complex).
We didn't venture into the rest of the First World mall, which seems to be much smaller than SkyAvenue. It includes
First World Plaza and some outlets at First World Hotel - which holds the Guinness World Record as the largest hotel in the world, with a whopping 7,351 rooms. They're housed in two huge, colourful buildings - which you can see from the cable car - and offer the best-value accommodation at the resort.
At the other side of Skytropolis from the bowling alley is Vision City Video Games Park, a retro arcade in the Lower Lobby of Genting Grand Hotel.
If you're there, you may want to pop into
Genting Grand Complex, a shopping mall billed as a "retail experience with your 5-star stay". It includes shops, restaurants and service outlets at three hotels:
Genting Grand Hotel, "a verified 4-star luxury property by the prestigious Forbes Travel Guide";
Highland Hotel,
"exclusive to casino guests and Genting Rewards members (Gold & above)"; and
Resort Hotel, which combines affordability and luxury.
Genting Casino 1 (Circus Palace) and Genting Casino 2 (Hollywood) - which were closed for renovation in February 2024 - are located at Genting Grand Hotel and Highland Hotel. They were the original casinos at the resort. I often see the name 'Casino de Genting' bandied about online, but it's not clear whether it refers to the original casinos or SkyCasino.
Back at Skytropolis, the exit to
Genting SkyWorlds Theme Park is next to the arcade exit. We wandered over to SkyWorlds but didn't go in. For the price, we felt it would only be worth it if we could spend more time there. As of July 2024, buying
a peak standard one-day ticket online costs RM164–RM198 (£27–£33), depending on the day of the week. But it could be a lot more, based on other sources I've seen - it probably depends on how and when you buy it.
We did get an overview of the park, however, from the cable car. It's a
26-acre site featuring nine themed 'worlds':
- Studio Plaza, an art-deco space celebrating the golden age of cinema
- Eagle Mountain, a hangout for bikers, featuring a roller coaster motorbike ride
- Central Park, a town square featuring events, rides and a garden
- Rio, a Latin-themed neighbourhood with a carnival atmosphere
- Andromeda Base, a galactic world offering various challenges
- Liberty Lane, a San Francisco-themed neighbourhood with a Planet of the Apes ride
- Epic, a miniature magical world with rides
- Robots Rivet Town, a robot-themed city with rides
- Ice Age, an attraction inspired by the eponymous movie, with rides and playground
Arena of Stars is next to SkyWorlds and is the venue for
concerts and other events. Also near SkyWorlds is
Genting SkyWorlds Hotel, which is, not surprisingly, oriented for families and large groups, with "fun and spacious rooms". There's a link bridge connecting the hotel with the theme park and with SkyAvenue mall.
As you might imagine, there's no shortage of after-dark options at Resorts World Genting. The online restaurant directory doesn't contain everything, by a long shot, but you can check the webpages for the different malls and hotels. For nightlife, Genting Grand Hotel has the upscale Genting Club, with 360 Bar and L’TITUDE;
the more casual Cloud 9 bar; and the Be A Star Karaoke establishment. SkyAvenue, meanwhile, has two nightclubs, the 5,000-square-foot Believe the Hype and 35,000-square-foot
Zouk;
Red Tail Genting, a social gaming lounge; Red Tail Karaoke; and many outdoor bars at the High Line hub.
Last, but definitely not least, is Genting Nature Adventures, which conducts daily guided tours on Awana Trail. You'll be able to
explore the biodiversity of the rainforest and see endangered species like the siamang - a type of gibbon - and highland pitcher plant. There's also a programme for kids called Nature's Little Planters, which includes a hydroponics farm tour and seed-planting exercise.
Genting Highlands Premium Outlets
Back down the hill, our final stop was at
Premium Outlets. There are more than 150 outlet stores here, spread over three levels, covering fashion, accessories, homewares, travel gear and gifts, with up to 65% savings.
I didn't find the prices here particularly cheap, compared with outlets in the UK. But my sister's friend went nuts at the Triumph outlet, which was apparently much cheaper than in Canada.
Like Vegas, World Resorts Genting would not be my first pick for a holiday destination, but it was worth the experience, especially given how easy the journey from KL was. Chin Swee Caves Temple was without doubt the highlight of our trip - but the very contrast between the tranquility of the temple and the ritz of the resort made for a great day out. There aren't many places where you can immerse yourself in Chinese culture and religion followed by theme parks, casinos and retail therapy!
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