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| Toys R us VIVO city |
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| So.much.lego. |
Singapore surprised me. I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I, I wasn't expecting to be so busy, honestly the only thing I had planned to do in Singapore was eat... and yes we ate so much I could probably do a blog on the food alone.
Here are some of the things we enjoyed doing in Singapore:
Shopping for toys
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| The kids loved shopping in Singapore |
It was the week before Christmas, so the kids were allowed to buy a few more toys than they would have if we'd been travelling at a different time (I lie to myself). Staying in Sentosa we made our way over to VIVO city with the intention of catching the MRT to the city to go shopping, but we ended up distracted and spending hours at the set of shops. We also had a taxi driver drop us off at shops near Orchard road, but we never found our way to the road with all the shops we can't afford/the kids aren't allowed in. We just ended up lost in these shopping centres. We probably spent a couple of hours in Toys R Us alone, they had ice cream/popcorn for when you got hungry and entertainers with balloons. I generally avoid going to the shops here the week before Christmas, but I don't think our shops are this extra at Christmas time.
Staying on Sentosa
Our hotel (W hotel) was my sons favourite part of the trip and while I felt like it was a bit far from the CBD, the kids loved Sentosa and everything about it. It felt like a little bit of a tourist trap to me, and next time I would like to stay 'on the mainland'.
So what did they enjoy on Sentosa.
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| A smile from Arch! |
The Cable Cars
They run from the Harbour/VIVO city to Sentosa. The kids enjoyed this as a means of heading back to our hotel.
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| Madagascar the ride |
Immy's favourite place in Singapore was universal studios. 10/10 would recommend. Especially with younger kids, although with our kids being tall, especially Archie, I wouldn't base your judgement on whether your child should go on a ride or not by height alone. He found the Transformers one a little bit intense (it was awesome, definitely go on it), it was like no other ride I've been on. But I've been out of the going-on-rides thing since Immy was born in 2011.
The only thing Arch was too short for was the water rapids in Jurassic park and I felt so much guilt, as I had only checked to make sure he was tall enough for the transformers ride (at the time I booked the holiday Transformers were his thing, but since then he'd developed an obsession with dinosaurs). So of the three rides in the dinosaur area he could only go on one.
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| She made me wait until Australia was in view |
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| We completed Elf training at Universal Studios, and this is one of three attempted Santa photos |
The least "worth it" thing on Sentosa Island, I think, was the
butterfly and insect house. For starters they have a free butterfly house at the airport, which is better and has more butterflies. Holding a Macaw was cool, but it was another $5 on top of an entry fee that was already too high.
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| The butterfly and insect house |
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| The zoo |
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| magic |
Let's leave Sentosa
Singapore Zoo
Was my favourite place by far, but also the most annoyed I got in Singapore.
We wanted to do the Orangutan Breakfast, and so using TripAdvisor I bought what I thought was just zoo tickets, breakfast and transfer
direct from the hotel to the zoo.
The pick up was 30 minutes late, in a nice little shuttle bus, unbeknownst to us this little bus took us to a central point where we had to get into a giant bus (not easy for me)... where we waited for an additional 30 minutes.
DO NOT BOOK TOURS. This has always been my hard and fast rule and I regret it every time I break it.
>I felt a little bad for the "tour" guide (I say "tour" guide because there isn't any tour involved, they pick you up -late- have you wait in a bus - give you a ticket for the zoo and the breakfast and then say 'meet back at the bus in two hours')... by the time we got to the breakfast I'd reach
demanding better seats so I can actually see the orangutans level of annoyed. I'm not usually like that. But I had not had breakfast yet, I get so hangry, and our second set of seats were great. I'd recommend buying the tickets straight from the zoo website (Ri did a search after our day and found that when you looked it up on Google there are at least five tour sites that come up before the zoos site, so I didn't feel completely like a muppet). Get get a taxi there.
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| feeding rhinos! |
The rest of our day was magical, the animals were kept in amazing spaces. As the tour only included two hours at the zoo after the breakfast, we left the tour as soon as breakfast was done. I don't know how anyone could be happy with only two hours at this beautiful zoo.
It's one of those magical zoos were you feel like your children and getting an appreciation of animals. 10/10 would recommend.
I'm getting tired and I still haven't finished Singapore!! Who knows when I'll have 'time' (I didn't really have time to do this now).
Above is Imogen's highlight - a ride in the Mummy section of universal studios that gave her the change to drive a car (along a track) she had an accelerator and a steering wheel. I love how seriously they are taking their mapped out road trip.
