Johor Premium Outlets

i experienced my first outlet shopping in US, when i was on the work & travel program in Cedar Point amusement park, Ohio. still rem the excitement and thrill during our first ever outlet shopping trip. we rented a car and drove for hrs before reaching the outlets. the sheer size of it wowed us and we were dazzled by all the big designer brands! we went from store to store, to hunt for bargains and it was not hard to find! so after one whole day of shopping, everyone of us left the outlets hundreds of dollars poorer, but super satisfied and happy. that was the charm of outlet shopping – in the US. hah.

heard that johor is also opening a premium outlets in iskandar and gt abit excited, hoping to re-create and re-live that wonderful experience i hav had before in US. it finally opened early dec to great fanfare, and yesterday, we decided to go check it out.

xiaowei, jieen, james + gf, dear and i met at jurong east mrt at 11am. we took the causeway link from the bus interchange to the tuas checkpoint and the trip cost us 4 SGD and took abt 30 – 40mins. after clearing the customs, we waited for the shuttle service JPO2 and it came only at 12.30pm (we shld hav checked the shuttle bus schedule first… damn). JPO2 cost RM 4.20 and took almost an hour to reach the outlets.

on our way to johor premium outlets

though it was raining and it was a monday, the outlets were still pretty crowded with both locals and singaporeans. hungry, we first went to settle our lunch at george & dragon cafe. pretty decent set lunch at abt RM 29++. after lunch, it was time to shop! planning to take the 5.10pm shuttle service back to JB sentral, we had abt 3 hrs to shop!

lunch at george & dragon cafe

there were abt 80 brands and many were familiar ones like coach, raoul, burberry, CK, armani, lacoste, adidas, nike, fossil, gap, puma etc. there were also lower-tier brands such as pedro, charles and keith, vincci, bodyshop and others.

shopping

but it turned out to be quite disappointing. discounts were not great (some only 10%!), and since designer goods in malaysia may b more expensive to start with, ultimately it doesnt seem like too great a deal. variety was also pretty limited for some, such that there wasnt even anything that caught my eyes. so after 3 hours, i only managed to get a puma tee shirt which i think is jus a few dollars cheaper than sgp. the rest didnt net any/many gd buys too, with dear, xiaowei and james’ gf leaving empty-handed, jieen getting a puma tee for his bro, and james getting a pedro bag. seriously disppointing and a waste of our time.

we left at 5.10pm and headed over to city square (journey took abt an hour and we got no seats!) for dinner and some shopping before heading home.