Here’s what we did in Singapore!
Downtown Singapore, Cool Architecture
Travel Dates: 2-5 December, 2013
Since we arrived by noon on the 2nd and left at 1935 on the 5th, we had almost 4 days. We thought it was way too much time. 2 days would have been plenty!
Airline: Air Asia from Phuket to Singapore, $99 per person via Expedia
JetStar from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, $62 per person via JetStar
Visa: Not required as of our travel dates. Check online to make sure this hasn’t changed before you travel to any country.
Exchanging Money: We just did it at the airport before leaving the terminal.
Hotel: Marrison, 3 star, $258 for 3 nights
Not recommended. It had decent reviews, but we were disappointed. Hotels in Singapore tend to be expensive, so I looked at 3-5 star hotels. This hotel is in a great location, just 1 block from the metro and a large mall; however, it felt like a jail cell. Breakfast was included, but it was just a spam sandwich on white bread. The rooms were tiny, just large enough for the bed and a small, tiny desk. There were ants crawling up the cracks of the wall, even though we were on the top floor (7th). The hotel staff was very nice and immediately came to clean up and put out ant traps, but that wasn’t good enough. The bathroom was small, and the shower was literally over the toilet. Just shut the bathroom door and the whole room becomes the shower. No amenities. No exercise room. Small lobby. Wifi not included, and even if you pay, it doesn’t reach the hotel rooms. There’s a Starbucks down the street with free wifi. If this all sounds okay to you, then sure, it has a good location, but you can probably do better.
Transportation: Metro! You don’t need a taxi from the airport. Originally I emailed the hotel to ask the best way to get there and they said taxi. Glad we didn’t listen, a taxi is definitely not needed. The metro goes from the airport to downtown, so you can probably get to most hotels without a taxi.
Itinerary: Day 1/arrival – Walk around China Town and the Buddha Tooth Museum
Day 2 – Singapore Zoo … Great reviews, but we have a good zoo back home too, so this is geared more towards children. Some fun attractions though. Check out the Zoo website for details. It was hard to get to the zoo and took up almost 1/2 the day. The metro only takes you half way, then you have to get on a bus. It took about 2 hours one way.
After returning, we walked along Orchid Road, the famous shopping street. Feels very western. Beautiful street. At the time there were lots of Christmas decorations. Clean. I felt like I was in the USA though.
Day 3 – Universal Studios: We realized we had too much time in Singapore so we thought it would be fun to check out Universal Studios. There’s a military discount at the gate. It’s located on a fun theme park island called Sentosa Island. You can access it via metro. It was okay, but again, probably better for kids. It was not as big as the Florida location. We went on all of the roller coasters, some multiple times, and were done within 4-5 hours.
In the late afternoon we took a run outside, explored Little India, and had dinner.
Day 4 – Way too much time in Singapore. We tried to get an earlier flight but it didn’t work. We found out if we would have called 24 hours in advance we would have been able to.
Traveling Tips:
Very pretty city with nice architecture, but we didn’t find it too interesting. Very westernized. Drastically different from Thailand, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
You can take the metro/bus everywhere, no need for a taxi. Walking doesn’t even take too long. We walked from China Town to the hotel.