Singapore Sentosa Island Review

[Denverite]

We just returned from our Bangkok to Beijing Princess cruise. Instead of a writing a review of the entire cruise, I thought I would just post some ideas of what we did in each port so you don't have to read through everything if you are not interested. This is the first port and I will, in the upcoming days, write about the other ports.

 

We had visited Singapore on a previous trip and decided this time to just do something fun—visit Sentosa Island. The Princess shuttle drops you off at the DFS Galleria (Duty Free Shops), about a 45 minute or so ride from the container port. The traffic is really congested so be prepared to return timely as you can’t get a cab back to the port—no cabs allowed at the container port where the Diamond Princess docks. The Princess Patter stated that shuttles would start at 10am, but we walked off as soon as the ship was cleared after 9am and caught one of the first shuttles. Once you get off the shuttle, there are cab drivers available if you want to book with them to take a tour. We just wanted a cab to get to Mount Faber to take the cable car across the water to Sentosa Island. We walked in front of the DFS to the street and hailed a cab. We had Singapore dollars from our bank at home so didn’t need to stop to exchange cash, although this particular cab did take credit cards. The cost for a cab from DFS to Mount Faber was about $10 US (I’m quoting in US dollars, but we paid in Singapore dollars). You can either buy just a cable car ticket or buy a package—we opted for a package for $50pp that included cable car, $3 entrance fee to Sentosa Island, Underwater World, 3-D Show/Ride, and one other entrance fee, which we chose Images of Singapore. Underwater World was really good with lots of interesting fish, etc. If you prefer outdoor stuff, I would skip this. The 3-D ride was a Disney-like ride (sort of like IMAX) where you sit in the seats that move and the screen takes you on a log ride that I thought was fun. The Images of Singapore was a very large museum that had dioramas of the history of Singapore that was interesting, but again if you are more interested in the outdoors, I would opt for other attractions.

 

If you split out the costs that we paid for the package, it would come out to about the same if you purchased each ticket individually so you aren’t really saving any money. However, what we discovered once we got to Sentosa Island, this included a guide to show us how to get around. The cost is not cheap to visit the island! The cable car ride was fun because you could see how much construction is going on as the island is being developed into a major entertainment center (hotels, Universal Studios, Hard Rock hotel, etc.)

 

We also did the luge ride and sky ride back up the hill. This was probably the most fun we had on Sentosa (about $7pp). There is a lot to do on the island, including a really nice beach, but just not enough time. We took the monorail (instead of the cable car) back to Singapore (free for the return trip)—if you take the monorail both ways, the cost is about $2 or $3 roundtrip. We left Sentosa about 3pm and the monorail takes about 5 minutes. It drops you off at Vivo City Mall where you can catch a cab to go back to DFS (cost about $10). Again, the traffic was really heavy but we made it back in plenty of time to join the crowds waiting for a shuttle to return to the ship.

 

Highlights: Cable car ride to Sentosa; 3-D show/ride; luge ride; fun relaxing day

Lowlights: Not enough time to enjoy all of Sentosa; heavy traffic; fairly expensive day