AIDA Transfer Cruise 2017 · Page 8

Tom went ahead and gave us our tickets right at the cable car. The crowds didn't bode well – and indeed, everyone wanted to take the cable car up the mountain and onto the SkyBridge. The current waiting time was about 3 hours. Luckily everyone in our group had booked the express lane, so we could walk past "all" the waiting people to a separate queue. Less than 5 minutes later the six of us were sitting in the gondola heading up the mountain. An incredible view from up here.

There are two platforms on the mountain, and you should definitely ride through to the 2nd platform, as at the 1st platform you have to wait a very long time to get a free gap again. So we rode straight through to the top platform and admired the view.

To get onto the SkyBridge we had to make a short walk of about 300 metres. That sounds very little at first, but it's 300 metres of stairs, up and down along the rock. After this walk you know exactly where the muscles in your legs are. Once we were back at the foot of the mountain, we enjoyed the area around the cable car.

After 2 hours we took the bus back towards the port. The last tender left at 3.30 p.m., and we reached the pier punctually at 3.29 p.m. – and the queue of AIDA guests stretched right past the port building. As a result AIDAbella sailed more than an hour late, heading for Port Klang. The tours with USD are highly recommended. We paid just 45 euros per person for this excursion, including the bus transfer, the guide, the visit to the village and the cable car ride with express lane. The whole excursion lasted 4 hours.

The next morning we sailed into Port Klang, where we lay in the container port. When we were in Kuala Lumpur with AIDA a few years ago, we visited the KL Tower – but only because the Petronas Towers were already fully booked. So it was clear to us: if we ever came to Kuala Lumpur again, we would definitely visit the Petronas Towers and go up to the platform.

So at 8.30 a.m. we set off on the AIDA excursion to Kuala Lumpur; the buses were already waiting for us. Our local guide Ney spoke very good German and explained a lot about the country. After a 70-minute drive we arrived at the Batu Caves.

This Hindu temple lies in the caves, which can be reached by a short staircase of only 272 steps. The view is spectacular and the caves impressive.

After 1.5 hours we drove on to the Petronas Towers. After a briefing we took the express lift to the 42nd floor. This is where the bridge between the two towers is, and we had the chance to enjoy the view.

After 15 minutes we took the next express lift up to the 83rd floor, then a quick change to a smaller lift that took us to the 86th floor. The view is indescribable.

After 1 hour we were back down and still had 60 minutes to stroll around the shopping mall. It's nice to look at, but mainly only brand names such as Gucci, Prada and so on were to be found. The beautifully decorated Christmas forest looked great.

Our next stop, and also the last one on our excursion, was the Central Market. We had been told beforehand that there was one souvenir shop after another here, which isn't really our thing. But that information was wrong, and we experienced a Chinese market at its finest.