One of the main draws is the Johor Zoo, a destination popular among parents with young children. Some visitors even arrive an hour early, eager to enter before the zoo officially opens at 9am.
Nurul Nadira Ismail, 29, a teacher at Sekolah Agama Desa Pulada, shared that her visit to the zoo with her husband, Muhd Irfan Zekri, 28, had been planned for the past two weeks.
“We had to plan ahead as my husband, who works in a factory, and I used to have different weekend schedules. While I had my weekend on Friday and Saturday, his was on Saturday and Sunday,” she explained.
“Previously, we had to plan ahead if we wanted to go anywhere, and sometimes one of us would have to take a day off,” said Nurul Nadira, who is from Kota Tinggi, when met at Zoo Johor yesterday.
“Now that we share the same weekend holiday, it will be much easier for us to go anywhere without any restrictions.”
Meanwhile, Daniel Nanang, 36, a supervisor in a private company in the oil and gas sector, shared that in the past, many family vacations had to be postponed because of the weekend mismatch.
Originally from Miri, Sarawak and a Johor resident since 2005, the father of two expressed relief and praised the positive steps taken by the state government to allow families to spend more time together.
“As someone who works in the private sector, my weekends were always on Saturdays and Sundays, but my children’s school holidays were on Friday and Saturday,” he shared.
“We, as parents, are pleased with the adjustment to the weekend holiday, as it encourages families to spend more time together and strengthens family bonds.”
In October, the Regent of Johor Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim announced that the official weekend in the state would revert to Saturdays and Sundays from Jan 1.
The decision came 10 years after Sultan Ibrahim had changed the state’s weekend to Friday and Saturday as a mark of respect for Friday’s importance to Muslims, and as recognition of Islam as the state’s official religion.
Other states that currently observe the weekend holiday on Fridays and Saturdays are Terengganu, Kelantan and Kedah.