Penang Hill Lower Station

It Should be shown that between 2 and 12 Jan the Funicular Railway is closed for maintenance.

I mean it’s definitely an experience and though it’s a short train ride, the funicular train’s mechanism and engineering is truly interesting for young children to learn about. Managing the queues is tough and getting a hold of the express/fastlane tickets is a must else you would be stuck waiting for 2hrs at the very least when it gets crowded.

Penang city can be seen at a glance.
Look at the line and if there are a lot of people, if there is no fast track, buy a regular ticket. The view will be better if you go on a clear day.

Always crowded and the wait for tram was long (>30min). Foreigners pay more for the tram ticket.

It's a new experience to have. For public holidays and weekends, try to make it a bit early. After 10 a.m, it will get crowded, and you may have to wait more than half an hour to get in.

Return normal ticket will cost you RM 12, and one way is only RM 6.
If you are getting there from Georgetown, you can either use Grab (30 mins) or Bus (1 hour).

There are a lot of food options available near to the lower station.

The view is amazing but the waiting time for the train is a little bit too long (up to 30 min), also you have to tell the driver as well that you want to get down on the middle station, or else they won't open the door for you, and you have to wait again. That's too inconvenient.

Touristy but totally worth it! Priceless views at the top.

PARKING: multi-storey available just next to the funicular station. Not too hard to find a spot (on weekday during school holidays).

TICKETS: different pricing for IC holders and tourists. Elderly discount. (Pricing info on their website.) Queue took ~5-10 mins to buy ticket. Fairly straightforward. Supposedly fast pass sold out - wonder where the other folks got it? Ordinary pass was OK though.

WAITING: roughly one-hour wait from purchase of ticket to boarding funicular. Some fast food or casual hawkers The queue is OK because staff manage the queues well and ensure order. There are fans and some air-con to ensure adequate level of comfort. Some interesting displays in the first passageway for queue.

FUNICULAR: staff also manage the boarding process quite well. But every carriage seat will be taken for sure, and standing room fairly full! The ride itself is 4-5 mins. Smooth, rapid, scenic, stable, safe.

PENANG HILL: the coolness hits and there are marvellous views all around. Clear day when we visited. Beautiful! There are some eateries on the top - and, curiously, cendol, drinks, ice-cream, and savoury food at prices not as outrageous as you would expect. Wish we had time to do The Habitat walk but no time. Buggy service seemed popular but we were OK to walk. Can easily spent an hour or more just wandering around.

IN HINDSIGHT: should've had a closer look at available activities on Penang Hill, or how to buy fast-pass. Would have gone 2-3pm when it was a touch quieter.

In short: worth the effort! Great way to engage with Penang while on holiday.

Convenient way to get up the Penang hill but do spare time for the queues. A lot of people go up there during sunset and we arrived just before the massive crowds.the wait time was about 40 mins. After sunset, the queue was longggggg, like very long… so I’d say wait a bit and go down later when the queue has died down a bit. You can take pictures of the city below during the night. That’s pretty too, but dont miss the last train down which leaves at 10pm

Great staff! The biodiversity and the different sceneries made this experience remarkable!

I recommend visiting on a weekday, as the place will mostly be less crowded, so you can see the animals feeding from the flowers around!

Take your time, move around and enjoy this beautiful biosphere!

First batch tram around 6: 30 am. It's cozy in the morning. There are sunrise passes for adults that are cheaper. Foreigners or those without ICs pay RM 30. Remember to show IC when buying tickets. The view is magnificent but a bit jerk by stop a few times as a tram full of people. Come down extremely fast as only 6 people. The shops are open when we come down.

I hold a season pass, using fast lane. My advice to tourists is to use fast lane unless you go up early ie before 7am and come down before 10am. If you visit during school holidays or weekends, expect to wait for hours if you use normal pass, which to me is a waste of time for tourists. So, it's worth taking the fast lane. For those who can climb down/up steps and a bit of slope, take a stroll down using one of the bypaths A, B to upper tunnel road west to avoid the crowd and have a nice stroll, if you find the place too crowded.

Probably a tourist trap but is it worth it? To me yes.

Waiting time to enter the train to get onto the top of Penang hill was insane (went on a Saturday). Really regretted not buying the express ticket. So do get it!

Be prepared to queue for a long time to go up.

The view above is spectacular especially on a good day.

But the experience is only complete with a trip to The Habitat!

Pengalaman yang tak dapat dilupakan. Habis semua memori masa kanak kanak dulu. Tunggu nak naik tram dalam 30-40 min. Beli tiket normal. Kalau beli fast lane tiket kelebihan dia you dapat seat dalam tram sebab naik awal tapi keburukan fast lane ialah kat atas masa nak turun nanti fast lane pun kena queue sebab panjang dan ramai, bazir duit beli fast lane.

Tram dia tak banyak memang kena tunggu tram yang sama turun naik.

Nak turun pun panjang queue last last kitaorang tak larat, ada dengar servis naik Hilux turun ikut jalan belakang bukit. Ni jalan kereta guna untuk bawa barang etc ke atas bukit. Kene caj rm120 kami 5 orang, turun bukit dalam 15 minit sampai bawah. Betul buat duit diaorang ni. Menyesal naik bukit bendera time peak hour.

Pendapat saya, nak naik time weekend or public holiday ialah betul2 trip awal pagi. Kalau tak tersidai la kat atas tu beratur. Kat bawah bersidai, kat atas tersadai.

Sekian.

Didnt go on the hill, we were there on a tuesday but there were to much people in the queue, it would have took us 2 hours to get on the hill, so we went back home. The funicular to the hill is really slow or has a low capacity.

There is parking nearby if you are driving. Quite fast to get ticket bcos it's a Monday.

TOURIST TRAP! DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY! We bought a NOMRAL return ticket for $30RM/person at 5: 30pm. We waited 15mins to enter the first ticket check point, then found ourselves in another LONG line inside for another 40mins before we could get on the funicular train. Once we got to the top of the hill we were very disappointed by the view of the city because no matter which viewing deck we went to, there were trees obstructing the view, not worth the time and money really.
The queue for the train to get down was sure to be at least another 1.5hrs, and there was an obvious sign to upgrade your ticket to EXPRESS LANE ticket for an extra of $20RM/person if you want to get down quickly so we did that.

Overall I think doing the hike would have been much nicer

Spent over 2 hours waiting in the queue, would have rather taken a taxi! Also I went at 4pm on a Sunday not peak apparently! Don't trust the time on the ticket! This is the time they let you join the queue not the time you get the train!

We had take early ride to view sunrise. A lot of people. Multi level parking. Well control crowd system. Timing of the train about 20 min per batch.

At peak times, expect to wait 1 hr for a 5min ride. You can pay extra to jump queue which will then exacerbate the problem for normal ticket holders. If more people jump queue, there will be fewer seats left for normal tickets holders.

Penang Hill Lower Station (now operational after MCO was relaxed from 1st July), is the point where one has to book tickets to board the train to go to the hill top.
There are two types of tickets available - normal and express and as the name suggests, Express tickets help you bypass the long serpentine queues to board the train.
However, noticed that the ticket booking queue is the same for all.

Tickets are priced differently for Malaysian passport holders and foreigners.
Do note, for expats working in West Malaysia on work permit (EP) or for dependent pass holders, tickets would be charged at local Malaysian rates!
Car Parking can become an issue but there are alternate open car parks adjacent to the station at walking distance.