When I was a kid, going on a holiday overseas meant going to Genting (Johor was too close to count). Apart from rare trips to Hong Kong and once, Dubai, my family always chose to take a five hour drive up north for our holidays. We were in Genting so often we were members.

But sometime during my secondary school years, we stopped. When I started studying overseas, family holidays became trips to Japan to visit me, and then to the UK to visit my sister. And we just lost the habit of going.

However, my little brother recently remembered our old family vacations and requested that we make a year-end trip to Genting. Truth be told, I was a bit nervous because I heard that the place had changed a lot. For example, the outdoor theme park closed in 2013 for renovations and has not yet opened. I spent a lot of time in the theme park, so the fact that it wasn’t there made me wonder what else there was left to do.

Plus, my sister went to Genting earlier this year and came back to tell us that there was nothing to do besides shopping (and I wasn’t impressed with what the shopping was back then). With less than lukewarm recommendations, I half-expected to be so bored on this trip that we would either spend most of our time in our hotel room or we would go down to KL for a day.

However, I was pleasantly proved wrong.

While the outdoor theme park still isn’t ready, there are plenty of things to do in Genting. In particular, my brother and I enjoyed all the VR-related games.

There are two main VR attractions in Genting: SkyVR and The Void. SkyVR consists of several VR games such as VirtuGlobe (step into a globe and be transported to outer space where you get to shoot aliens), a robot coaster, a VR glider, and a VR maze. Each ride costs 20 credits, which works out to be RM22. You can top up a playing card with credits and use them for SkyVR and the Bigtop Video Game Arcade.

The Void, which is probably my favourite attraction, is a mission-based VR game. You have two options per day, with the choices changing daily. We ended up going for Avengers: Damage Control on the first day and Ghostbusters on the second day. I really enjoyed Avengers – we got to see Shuri, Spiderman, Ant-Man, the Wasp, Dr Strange, and many more Marvel heroes. It is a truly immersive experience and we enjoyed the game very much. I almost hate to admit it, but this is what Huis ten Bosch should have done when they started introducing VR games – the selection at HTB is so limited compared to the VR selection at Genting!

The indoor theme park might be worth visiting if all the thrill rides are open. When we were there, there were two thrill rides that were not yet open and another two were closed for maintenance, leaving us with five rides (plus all the family ones and kid rides that we weren’t planning to go on). Given that the prices for an all-day pass go up during peak periods, it may not be worth your money to buy an all-day pass if there are only one or two rides that you intend to go on.

Food choices at Genting have also improved. There are so many restaurants now and we were spoilt for choice. (Dal.komm fans – the strawberry cube there is slightly cheaper there!).

As for shopping, I didn’t get to shop as much as I wanted but I heard that the choices are much better. Sadly, there’s still no bookshop (you’d think people will be looking for holiday reads) but there are plenty of clothing shops, from Uniqlo to Love, Bonito. There’s also Genting Highlands Premium Outlets, which you can access via cable car or car. It was about a 10-minute drive down for us.

By the way, does anyone know where premium outlets all have the same look? I caught a glimpse of the Johor Premium Outlets and it looks the same as Genting Highlands Premium Outlet, which in turn is similar to Tosu Premium Outlets. Are they all run by the same company or is there some sort of shopping psychology that says that this particular colour scheme makes people buy more?

We had a great time this past weekend. I managed to leave my phone alone for most of the day, which made for a good internet detox and turned this into a ‘real’ vacation. I am no longer pessimistic about my old childhood haunt and I look forward to going back soon.