We have heard how great Singapore is for a while, especially how kids friendly is. So this year, after some misfortune with Taiwan visa, we quickly decided to visit Singapore. We had 8 nights in total so I thought Singapore alone would be too long, so we combined it with 4 nights in Malaysia. I will share our itinerary and tips for Singapore stay in this post.
Flight:
We took Singapore flight from Manila and it was the most comfortable economy class flight ever. My husband didn’t want to get off. The seat was comfortable, enough space for all of us. Entertainment selection was plenty and very up to date which was crucial to entertain the girls and the husband. π In flight meal was not spectacular but above average for economy class. 3.5 hrs flight passed by without our notice.
Stay:
We stayed at the Orchard area, at royal plaza hotel on Scott. Very nice hotel, clean, conveniently located near all the big malls, 2 blocks from orchard station, comfortable beds and pillows (very important for me and Tony as we often can’t sleep well outside our beds because of the pillows). We had two full size beds for four of us, and we all slept very soundly. Breakfast buffet has a large selection of western, indian, noodle station, fruits and bread. Although we were not very impressed with the food, we stuffed ourselves everyday. π
Transport:
We moved around mainly by taxi since we are 4 and most of the times taxi is just few Singapore dollars more than taking metro. However, metro is very easy to take, although tickets are not particularly cheap (1.5-1.8 Singapore dollar one way), and many attractions could not be reached by metro. Grab costs the same as taxi but cars are not as new and clean as the taxis. So I’d recommend to just go with the taxi, even booking it through grab but choose taxi.
Singapore for being such a small city, it offers a large variety of things to do. Our itinerary was built to accommodate our kids (7 and 3.5) mainly and few must-visit places.
Day 1: we arrived around noon. Check in at the hotel, took a nap and went out. We went to the Garden by the Bay area. First we went up to the Marina Bay Sands SkyPark to get the overview of Singapore
it looks so futuristic!
then we went to the Garden by the Bay
Usually there is light show every night but we went on Christmas Eve and you have to pay to get to the inside of the show, so we just took a pic and left as everyone was getting tired.
Day 2: 10 hours at Universal studio
There are so many people that day that we thought we wouldn’t be able to do much, but we did all we wanted/could do. The longest line was probably 1 hour and it was organised so it didn’t bother us much.
After we finished all the rides, we saw there was Santa for picture taking and we were super happy. It has been two Christmas that we didn’t have a picture with Santa
and some other attraction to take selfies
Overall, we loved Universal Studio. Clean, organised, easy to move around.
Day 3: S.E.A Aquarium and Waterpark
the aquarium was smaller than we expected. We finished in 1.5 hrs of leisurely walking. Then we went to the waterpark and it was also small, we spent 3 hrs there.
the kids had fun, Tony and I were not very impressed.
The bay area is really nice though, very walkable and clean.
Day 4: Science Centre and more Bay area
Science centre was fun
specially the typhoon simulator
In the afternoon we met with Tony’s friend who took us to a national museum to see Chinas (Tony’s hobby), the Bay area
and the beach, where we had dinner at the local hawker food stands.
Day 5: Our bus to Malaysia departs at 1pm so we quickly went to check out chinatown and little India
Overall we all like Singapore. It is a very clean city, people are nice, english and chinese are well spoken, organised and well design city (over 50% greens). To me, it is like a utopia city in Asia, almost too perfect to be true. π