If you’re heading to Genting Highlands in Malaysia and you’re looking for a hotel that’s family-friendly, theme park themed, accessible, sustainable, and within walking distance from the malls and top tourist spots, then Genting SkyWorlds Hotel in Resorts World Genting is your best bet. Here’s a review from someone who’s been there twice.

I’ve been to Genting Highlands twice—last year for a press junket (I repped Spot.ph) and this year for a vacation with my family. For my 2023 Malaysia trip, I took off my #KateWasHere backpacker cap for a week and adapted to the family-friendly travel style.

I spent weeks browsing through Agoda and other booking sites to see which hotel is best for my family of three adults, one senior, and one kid. All green flags pointed to Genting SkyWorlds Hotel. I found the best deal through Agoda and booked the Sixers room three months ahead.

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For last year’s press trip, we had only a quick tour of Genting Highlands, but for this year’s family trip, I had a more immersive experience of this hill station in Malaysia, including the hotel. My review below.

Pros:

1. It’s right next to Genting SkyWorlds Theme Park, where the attractions and rides are based on 20th Century Fox kiddie films such as Ice Age, Rio, Robots, and Night at the Museum. After our nightmare Causeway bus ride to Legoland Malaysia (blog post coming soon), it was such a relief to know that our target theme park is just a stone’s throw away from our hotel.

2. It’s the official theme park hotel of Genting SkyWorlds, so that came with a few perks. There’s a special theme park fast entrance lane for hotel guests, but that hardly made a difference because the theme park doesn’t get as crowded as Disneyland.

3. It’s kid-friendly. When you first enter the hotel, an indoor treehouse playground lets the kids know it’s going to be a fun, interactive stay. The hotel’s colorful, theme-park-like interiors will hype you up for your upcoming visit to Genting SkyWorlds Theme Park. The family rooms are designed like a kid’s playhouse but with the amenities that adults need, such as ample storage areas, a bathroom with maximized space, and a safe tucked under one of the beds. The kiddie-designed toiletries were cute. I spotted accessible toilets but wasn’t able to confirm if they have accessible rooms.

 
4. It’s sustainable. Because Genting Highlands is located on Mount Ulu Kali in the Titiwangsa Mountains (it reached 18°C during our stay in November), all hotel rooms in the area have no air-conditioning. Just open the windows and let the natural cool breeze through. Through the self-check-in kiosk, you pay an extra RM3 sustainability fee (cukai kelestarian) per room per day.

5. It’s near Genting Highlands’ top tourist spots. The hotel is right beside the Talking Garden and Genting SkyWorlds Theme Park. You can just walk through the interconnected walkways and buildings to get to Arena of Stars, First World Plaza, First World Mall, First World Hotel (the biggest hotel in the world with 7,351 rooms), and SkyAvenue Mall.

For those who can’t resist the slot machines, the nearby Resorts World Genting is the only legal gambling venue in Malaysia. They have several gaming spaces spread in different hotels around the area.

SkyAvenue Mall, just a five-minute walk from the hotel, was our second home base, where we had most of our meals and shopping. Here you’ll also find the Awana Skyway station, where you can book a cable car ride to take you to other stops such as the Chin Swee Temple and Genting Highlands Premium Outlets, where my family ran amok with all the shopping.

Cons:

1. The prices on Agoda and Booking are non-refundable and non-rebookable, so you need to be 100% sure about your vacation dates.

2. There’s no breakfast, nor are there any restaurants inside the hotel. For an additional fee, you can get a buffet breakfast at their partner First World Hotel, which is a 15-minute walk away. We said no and opted to get breakfast at the cafés in SkyAvenue Mall just across from our hotel.

3. Theme park music wakes you up at 10am. The park opens at 11am, but they start playing the music at around 9:30 or 10:00am. If you’re the type who likes to sleep in, you’re a light sleeper, or you partied all night, this might bother you a bit. I was fine with it because it was Disney-like, lyric-free music.

4. The hotel is a bit hard to track via Grab taxi. The spots in Genting Highlands aren’t accurately pinned on Google Maps, so the driver ended up dropping us off at First World Hotel, which was serendipitous because I needed to see what my backup hotel choice was like.

Quick Side Note and First World Hotel review:

The Guinness World Records dubbed the First World Hotel as the largest hotel in the world with 7,351 rooms spread across two giant colorful towers in the Genting Highlands resort complex. But if I could describe this hotel in one world, it’s CHAOS. The lobby was full of gamblers, families, and groups (entering in droves) struggling to figure out their way around the lobby full of self-check-in kiosks and scammers (yes, scammers!). I felt like I was in a dodgy flea market, where scammers would approach me every few minutes, pretending to help or ask for help. They were pretending to be travel agents with better hotel rates, but they had to do the self check-in for you. There were signs plastered all over the hotel, warning guests about fake travel agents selling hotel bookings under another person’s name, which will be rejected by the hotel.

Flustered, I asked one hotel receptionist if he was aware of the scammers right in front of us, to which he just shrugged and sighed. I could sense his frustration. That said a lot about this hotel. I was so glad to realize we were in the wrong hotel. We hopped on a new Grab taxi that took us away from this madness. I breathed a sigh of relief when we finally entered the fairytale-like lobby of Genting SkyWorlds Hotel.

Overall Travel Tip:

You’ll find other great hotel options around Genting Highlands, such as Resorts World Awana and Swiss Garden Hotel and Residences. But they’re far—meaning you’ll need to take 10- to 20-minute cab rides to get around. Think of SkyWorlds Theme Park as the central marker, the spot that’s a walking distance or cable car ride from most of the best commercial establishments in Genting Highlands, such as SkyAvenue Mall and the Premium Outlets.

If, like my family, you’ve decided to focus on that area, your hotel options are First World Hotel (They started with huge potential, but now it’s a big no for me), Crockfords (swankier and more for adults), and the kid-friendly Genting SkyWorlds. When traveling to Genting Highlands for the first time with family and kids, Genting SkyWorlds is the top choice. I hope this Genting Skyworlds Hotel review helped you decide!

Genting SkyWorlds Hotel is located at Resorts World, 69000 Genting Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia. Book through my trusted booking site, Agoda.