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I need to tell you about last weekend when we brought all 4 kids to KL to visit KidZania. I know, all 4 kids!!! Out of the country!! This is called level-up parenting, wherein we attempt a test run somewhere manageable before considering something really crazy.

We’ll talk more about this later, but first, KidZania KL. 

When we first found out about Kidzania 2 years ago during a trip to Bangkok, it was one of those “woah, how do I not know that this place exists??!!” kind of moments. Because how did a place this fun just fly under the radar without me hearing about it?

The concept is great – it’s sort of like a cross between a play area and a real-world experience where kids get to have a go at different occupations. And the place is huge, with 90 different activities to choose from, ranging from popular occupations like doctors, pilots, firemen, to lesser known ones like travel agents and HR consultants.

//I’m jumping the gun here but how adorable is this? I’ll say right now that if this is my courier delivery guy, my online shopping situation is going to be out of control.

Okay, so each kid starts off the day with 50 kidzos, and every station offers an opportunity to earn more cash or to spend it. At the end of the day, they can use their kidzos to shop for memorabilia at the department store. They can also choose to save it for use at a later time (and at any KidZania around the world).

This is great for teaching the kids about economics and wealth accumulation. Now that Truett and Kirsten have a better understanding of how savings work with their pocket money, they were very diligent with how they spent their kidzos.

Here are all the things you need to know for a visit to KidZania:

1. Go during off-peak periods. 

This is one of those places where the kids’ enjoyment is inversely proportional to the number of kids there at the same time because more kids = more time spent queueing = less fun. Unlike theme parks where there are filler shows/parades to spread out the crowd, all the kids will be spending their time queueing for one of the popular activity stations.

2. Not all activities are created equal. 

You’ll soon realise that the some of the stations are far more popular than others and you’ll either want to head straight to the pilot/fireman/paramedic station first thing in the morning or spend an hour in the queue later in the day. These activities all had hour-long queues the 2 days we were there.

Other occupations like mobile phone consultants were consistently empty the entire time. Clearly kids don’t see it as a viable career alternative.

3. Have a strategy.

There’s no right way to tour the place, but depending on your child’s age/preferences, they’ll adopt a different strategy in their activity choices.

Like if they are all for earning the most money, they’ll want to choose the stations that have the highest payout vs time-spent ratio and instead of spending an hour learning to be a pilot, they might do 3 manual labor stations to maximise their earnings.

Or if they’re like Finn, who wasn’t big on the whole kidzo-earning bit, they might choose to spend their kidzos on fun stations like the burger-making or to express their artistic side. While Tru and Kirsten were off working hard for some extra dough, he chose to spend 6 kidzos to be all tortured artist at the paint studio.

Kid knows what he wants in life, that’s for sure.

4. Make your own food and eat it. 

The best way to spend kidzos is at the food-making stations. We usually have to fork out additional cash to buy food during visits to theme parks or playgrounds, but food is already included in the cost of admission to KidZania.

Here, the kids can learn to make food like chicken burgers, wraps and Vitagen, and then eat it so you save on the cost for more overpriced food. Also, you get to see your baby wearing a ridiculous hair net, which FYI, is priceless.

5. Bring the baby!

Even though all the activities are designed for kids aged 3 and above (that’s when they can follow instructions without a parent present), there’s no need to leave the baby at home because there’s an entire area for toddlers to play in while the big kids are off doing their thing.

Theo had a great time at the baby area with all the toys.

There are also some stations that allow for some baby participation, like the courier delivery service.

I couldn’t get a clearer photo of this because my ovaries had spontaneously exploded while watching my 2 little boys delivering packages. True story.

*Bonus tip: You’ll need more than one visit to KidZania.

There’s so much to do that it’s impossible to finish everything in one day. This means that there’s a lot of revisit value before the kids get bored.

And for the best part, KidZania will finally be opening in Singapore come April, so there’s no need to haul the family to KL or Bangkok just for a visit.

Instead of doing our rounds across Bangkok city like we usually do, we spent most of our time exploring the Mandarin Oriental’s hotel grounds and just soaking in the incredible atmosphere. Which turned out to be a good move because the one day we hauled the kids to Chatuchak market, we spent a grand total of 12 whole minutes exploring before the kids delivered their “I’m so tired and it’s so hot, let’s go back to the beautiful hotel” spiel.

But we did at least get to eat the delicious wanton noodles that I’ve been dreaming about so… score!

It was fun just hanging out at the hotel though. One of my favourite sections was the Author’s Lounge, which forms the Author’s Wing, the original wing of the hotel. We hear it’s THE place to get married in Bangkok and I can totally see why. I stood at the top of the stairs and had a little Titanic moment – I have a thing for grand staircases, even though there’s a 42% chance I’ll trip and fall on my face in heels.

The Author’s Wing is made up of a handful of suites named after the authors who’ve stayed at the Mandarin Oriental. Not too sound too uppity but it’s true – famous celebrities are great and all but authors, they lend an air of class and refinement. Writers like Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham wrote some of their books sitting in their suites and looking out over the Chao Phraya River.

We were taken on a tour of the different suites and each of the author’s suites are designed to reflect the personalities of the various authors, some very regal, some elegant and understated, some flamboyant. I can’t decide which one I like best.

On one of the evenings, we had a BBQ buffet dinner at the Riverside Terrace and the experience was exceptional, both in food quality and attentive service. The selection of fresh seafood, roasted cuts and even sushi was divine. We don’t do a lot of fancy sit down dinners with the kids in tow because they’re volatile in confined spaces and there’s usually a lot of frantic food shovelling required.

But this time, they were on such good behaviour that we were a little surprised. They ate their food promptly, asked for seconds and thirds, made polite conversation, it was all very enjoyable.

Maybe it’s a sign of age but this new way of experiencing Bangkok has trumped all the other Bangkok trips combined. Then again, the kids had an equally fabulous time.

Truett summed it up best when he sat back at the pool with his hands crossed behind his head and said, “ahhh, this is the life.”

Why yes, yes it is.

While we were in Bangkok, we were introduced to this gem of a place called Kidzania. It was SO MUCH FUN (with double exclamation points!!) that I was a little surprised I haven’t heard about it before.

At first, we were expecting one of those regular run-of-the-mill sort of indoor kid playgrounds that are so popular back home. Some jumpy things, a couple of slides, lots of soft padding, maybe a handful of interactive play sections, you know the sort.

This was not that at all.

If you ever head to Bangkok with kids, trust me, you have to go to Kidzania. It will rock your socks right off.

First of all, the theming is brilliant. It’s an entire world of exploratory play for kids aged 4-12 and the coolest part is that they are meant to do everything on their own. Parents can hang around to give encouraging pep talks, throw some hi-fives and cheer a little bit but the kids are the ones who really run the show.

So the moment they enter, each kid given a credit note for $50, which they have to exchange for cash at the bank.

They were a little nervous at first because we had to wait outside while they did their thing but they came out looking very pleased with their first solo bank transaction.

Armed with their wad of cash, they could then decide on which activities they wanted to do. The place is made up of like 80 different activity stations, each with a customised training activity for kids. Some activities were like work activities, and they’d earn money at the end of it.

Like this fire station activity, where they got to practice being little firefighters and then take a ride on a fire engine to put out a pretend fire. It was all organised really well and THEY WERE SO THRILLED to be doing grown up stuff like it was real.

Watching them, I almost died from too much cuteness.

Turns out that Truett’s dream job was to be a car mechanic (I had no idea!). He had like the best time changing a car tire, so much so that the husband decided to let him do it the next time we have a flat.

While Tru was having his Greased Lightnin’ moment, Kirsten decided that she wanted to be a petrol pumper person instead. Is this the most enthusiastic petrol pumper you’ve ever seen or what? And let me tell you, girl can work a petrol pump like a pro.

I mean, till this day, I still don’t know how to pump my own petrol (I usually just smile and say “Uncle, 95 full tank 谢谢!”) so that’s one skill she’s got over me.

And hello there, Mr Postman (and little postlady).

These 2 courier delivery guys were given a task to deliver packages to various locations and they did a super fine job of it. Seriously, I’ve never seen finer courier service in all my years of signing for delivery packages. If these were my courier guys, I’d be shopping online ALL. DAY.

Besides the various jobs to earn more dough, there were also spending activities, where they’d have to spend their money to learn new skills. As a rule of thumb, the spending activities came with a reward that they could enjoy, like their very own handmade sushi or burger.

At the sushi station, there was a sushi master to guide them through each step and after 15 minutes, voila! They each had a beautifully rolled sushi for lunch. I don’t even know how to make my own sushi and there I was, eating sushi that my kids made, which by they way, was delicious.

The Meiji milk bottling plant was another really cool spending activity. They were like little scientists, learning how milk is made, bottled and kept fresh for drinking.

We spent 5 hours there and it was barely enough to cover 30% of the whole place. There were so many other activities that we didn’t have time to try, like the recording studio, the performing arts class, the CSI lab, the courthouse and tons of other cool stuff.

In a nutshell, awesome, awesome place to visit with kids.