Scott Barronton (00:00)
Arriving in Singapore knowing you only have 24 hours creates a very specific mindset You're not trying to do everything because there's no way that you can You're trying to get a feel for the city what it looks like how it moves whether it's somewhere that you would like to come back to and The answer for us was very clear very quickly Singapore is absolutely a wow city
You can experience it as a stopover, but 24 hours really only gives you an overview. It's enough to understand why people love it and why it deserves more time.
Speaker 2 (00:42)
We're Scott and Melissa, The Sunshine Travelers.
Speaker 1 (00:44)
We're all about exploring the world and sharing the journey with you. Whether you're a seasoned traveler, dreaming of your next adventure, or just here for the stories.
Speaker 2 (00:52)
No matter where you are on your travel journey, we've got first-hand experiences, tips, and plenty of inspiration from some of the most amazing places on Earth.
Speaker 1 (01:01)
So buckle up and get ready to travel with us.
Scott Barronton (01:09)
So Scott, it was actually different kind of stopover because we're actually getting off of a cruise and then we would have one night to spend there, about half a day after that. And then we were leaving to go spend some time in Hong Kong.
So they actually had us get off the ship pretty early. So we knew we were literally going to have the entire day. So different from trying to arrive from somewhere like 7, 7.30 early. They were dry docking the ship and so literally they were like, okay, everybody off, I think you could have breakfast or something, but you couldn't like have coffee delivered or anything like that. So we just decided that we would grab something after we into the city. And so we had had to do a...
the electronic travel authorization early and a bunch of people, there were times when we were supposed to do that on the cruise and then they didn't really check and so didn't think people didn't think they were going to check. But we had done it. We really do follow the rules when it comes to that kind of stuff and people were over on the side trying to do it. But one of the things was that they had said very clearly is that these are e-gates once you go.
You are not gonna be able to carry your luggage with you. So only what you can carry. Like you can roll your luggage, I guess I should say. And so we had to have everything out by a certain time the night before. So also know, if you haven't done a lot of cruises that you need to pack some kind of day bag, maybe in addition to like your carry-on or your purse, because you're gonna wanna have things like toiletries if you wanna take a shower the night before you need.
stuff for your pajamas or any of those things, change of clothes, that kind of thing that you're going to need to carry off in addition to, your medicines and laptops and stuff like that. So you may have to have an extra bag. So all that was fun. We had these tags and they were numbered and, we were going to go to the collection area and collect them. And for some reason I had told Scott, I was like, find an air tag extra that you have or take one out of your wallet.
because he also has these air tag cards. I think most people have seen those air tags that you put like on a keychain and the round ones, but they also come in cards now that you can attach to your Apple wallet. I had told Scott put that in your Pelican case just in case. And thank goodness that we did because
Other two bags, they were where they were supposed to be. We could not find that camera case anywhere. And so it was just like that moment of panic, even though we were some of the first people off. Okay, so where is this? You where is your camera gear? And so I had quickly, I went and found the cruise hotel manager and he had a guy and they were looking around for it. So thankfully, I mean, you could see it was there. We just didn't want it to, grow legs and walk away, or anything like that.
We found it pretty quickly, like within 10 minutes. It did have the tag on it still. I don't know why it got put in the wrong place. So was just like that moment of panic. So that was kind of obstacle number one. And then obstacle number two
we were some of the first people off. so, but even by the time we did that and had to wait a few extra minutes, go through the customs process and all that, the taxi line, the Uber line was still pretty short. Unfortunately though, our first Uber per... It was Uber, right? No, it's actually
a regional app called Grab. yeah, that's right. Okay. But your first Grab person dropped it for some reason. Yeah, they got really close. I could see them and they were doing circles. It's almost like they were doing donuts in the parking lot or something. And then all of a sudden they just dropped us. Which is interesting because you would think the cruise terminal is a very...
commonplace. Yeah, that's what you would think. they did. So we had to find another one. And we were looking for one that was handicap accessible. Right, because I had my knee scooter and the crutches and then all of our luggage. we were thinking we would choose the handicap and then that would have the most room. That's not true in Singapore. Yeah, it was still a very small
Very small car trying to cram. Prius. Yeah, so trying to cram all that in there, but we made it work. We got to the hotel, so it still very early, but it was just like, okay, obstacle, obstacle. We want to get to Singapore and we want to start seeing everything, but we ⁓ got to the hotel and the room wasn't quite ready. They had upgraded us and so they could downgrade us to another room. ⁓
back to the original room, but we were anxious to get into the city. So we were like, no, we'd like to keep the upgrade and just take our bags and we'll come back for that. So like I mentioned before, we had not had breakfast or coffee. So we asked the doorman or the bellhop, I guess he was, for a recommendation that wasn't the hotel. And so he sent us to a place called Yacun Kaya Toast. Now,
All right, so what I heard out of what he told us where to go was kaya toast. And so I knew what that was. We had had kaya toast a couple of times, both in KL and in Penang, and it is so good. It is a rich, sweet, Southern Asian jam, custard almost, that's made from coconut milk, eggs, and sugar. They just put it on plain white bread toast, right, and press it like a panini. Yeah, it was really, really good. We had had it...
The first time in Kuala Lumpur, Nish had ordered it at that restaurant that we went to and ⁓
I don't remember what he called it. I don't remember him calling it kaya toast. He called it roti. Well, which makes sense, right? Roti is typically, could be a bread that usually doesn't even have something on it. So, yeah. But that was the first time that we had had it. And so when we saw it being made there in Singapore, we were like, okay, we know what this is. And...
It was really exciting. think Melissa got super excited because she ordered like 50 orders of it or something. I really do not know what happened. So first of all, I do want to say, talk about why we ended up with so much, but I want to say the Yakun Kaya Toast is a chain that is very popular in Singapore. There was actually a line, very long, very long line and the guy, and it was at the mall. It was almost like a food court.
But he had said, this is where you need to go. Like this is a local place. And they were like, they were, they have this, I don't know what you call it, but it was kind of like a fancy way that you make the coffee. was something about the coffee and they had to hold it up and it's a certain process, but it's a whole thing. had like, even on the walls, even though was in the middle of the mall, they had like, here's the history of this place. Here's kind of the history of the coffee that you could.
you know, that you could read and stuff like that too. So yes, but they also serve that kaya toast with a very soft boiled egg. And I think what happened was like, that was kind of like, okay, here's the meal. comes with a coffee and the toast and the egg. Well, you didn't want the soft boiled egg. And so then I was trying to order you just the coffee and the toast. Well, somehow I ended up with like four of these toast sandwiches. So basically it's like, it's like a sandwich and the kaya.
spread and then the bread. I ended up like four of those two coffees and the egg. even the lady looked at me like, watched Melissa. She went up to the counter to pick up the order. And, uh, I watched her because she's looking at this tray and she's like pointing to one of the trays and like, is this mine? And the lady shook her head. Well, she started to take that and the ladies like, and then points to the other one as well.
And it wasn't the thing is it was would have been a very inexpensive breakfast. It really wasn't still expensive. It was still only like 21 US dollars for all of that We did take what we didn't need and I put it in my bag and we ate it as a snack later But I'm not really sure what happened, but I guess I should have known when the person before me paid and it was like
way less than that. But I don't know, sometimes you don't ever know. And then you're trying to convert in your head. So anyway, but we had a snack for later, but it is absolutely delicious. They actually sell the bottles or the jars with it. I would have loved to have brought some home. I know my sister Stephanie was like, Oh, have you had kaya toast yet? At one point in our trip. So it would have been cool, but we just didn't have room to carry anything else home.
Well, so now we're off to our main event for the day and we're going to go to Gardens by the Bay. you're short on time in Singapore, Gardens by the Bay is a great place to focus on.
We started at the OCBC Skyway and you're trying to figure out what OCBC stands for. I haven't got a clue. I don't know, but this is the bridge that's connected between those super trees that you've seen on Instagram. So there are these metal structures that are made to look like trees there at the gardens. And we did that first. It is a fascinating view.
of the gardens and of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. If you are scared of heights, this is probably going to be a bit of a struggle for you because I will say that the bridge kind of flexed a little bit with people walking on it and you're really high up. so,
Just something to think about if you have that fear of
So just a note on tickets. You are going to need a ticket for each separate thing, or you can buy different combos. They aren't timed, but you have to choose a day. And so that was easy for us. We had one day to spend there. The OCBC Skyway, the cloud forest and the flower dome. We did not do the super tree observatory.
I don't think that we missed anything because basically you're just going up into one of those trees, maybe a little bit higher than we were on the OCBC skyway. And you've got a view from there. So don't know that we missed anything. Don't know that I would say, add that on as a, as a ticket, unless it's just included in a combo or do that instead of the skyway, one or the other.
Yeah, and also the Gardens by the Bay, you can go and just walk around for free. So that's the other thing. If you don't want to go up in these places or go inside of the botanical gardens that we're about to talk about in a second, you can just go walk around.
And typically the Super Tree Grove is free at night while they have the light show. It wasn't free the night while we were there. And we're gonna talk about that in a second. So we actually could have bought tickets there the day of, or there online, but I went ahead and got them in advance just in case. You just hate to, it'd be like your...
one day there and then ⁓ we're sold out or I don't know something crazy like that so I just wanted to have them in advance and so that's what I did.
So where we really spent most of our time, once we did the Skyway, they were also setting up for the Christmas market that was in that Supertree Grove as well. And so then we went inside. So the first one, and we could have done this again in any order. So we had the ticket for the Cloud Forest and we had the ticket for the Flower Dome and it really didn't matter. I think the Cloud Forest was probably the highlight.
for me. We love botanical gardens and there was something special about the Flower Dome, but it was, the Cloud Forest is just really incredible. Right now they have a Jurassic Park exhibit, which is really cool, but just you get to go up on all these different walkways and then there's mist and this huge waterfall. I think it's actually the largest indoor waterfall in the world.
And so, and because it was warm outside, it was just, I don't know, it was just a very neat place. I talked to one of the guys about the Jurassic Park exhibit. he was super excited about that. I think he was just in the age group, like he would have been a kid when that came out and he just thought it was just really cool. They had like a Jeep there that was, I don't know if it was from the movie or just a replica, but he was just really excited. So that's just a really neat place to go.
You basically just go up and up and up and keep going. There's a place where they have some Chihuly glass at the top. What did you think about the cloud forest? I really enjoyed it. think my favorite was they had this Tyrannosaurus Rex that was breaking out of its cage or whatever.
And so you had lots of kids and families who were kind of camped out around that watching it like every few minutes it would start over again. so that was really neat. You had lots of dinosaurs throughout the exhibit on the different levels. what you're doing is kind of
working your way up towards the top and then you take the elevator back down and see some of the other levels that you missed as you were going up on the outside. But 100 % accessible. You had your knee scooter and so 100 % like they pointed you in the direction of elevators because there were a few places with stairs and
So that was it was 100 % accessible. And so then we finished that up and we went to the flower dome
Now the Flower Dome is probably more like a traditional botanical garden, but it was neat because the way that they had this split up different areas of the world and different kinds of plants. But we were definitely mostly excited at this time for that holiday train show. So let me kind of set this up for you. I had been to the New York Botanical Garden
which is in New York City during the holiday train show once. Absolutely fantastic. So I was excited to share this with you, Scott, because you were actually working. This is one of those times when you're working in New York and I went off to find something to do. But we would be especially surprised once we saw this. So first of all, they had a whole section where the trains and the towns were Legos, Legos are like the thing again right now. And so that was really neat. But then they had an exhibit of old model trains.
and not just generic scenes. Most of them are US destinations that we recognized. For example, the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, an elaborate display of the because of course they have a huge botanical garden there, of like the greenhouse, and then lots of other famous US buildings. But what was so cool about this is that these exhibits were on loan from the company
that typically does the models for the New York Botanical Garden Train Show. So some of these could have been the very same ones I've saw before because these were years ago and they put them all here. So it's like all these different US scenes. For this particular one, everything is made out of natural materials.
⁓ so sticks and moss and all this stuff. So it's absolutely beautiful. And then the old trains. ⁓ so I was really excited for you get to see that because I think that was our favorite part of this particular train show.
Yeah, no, that was really cool. And I enjoyed taking some pictures of the trains and catching them like as they were coming around the turn and, getting them pretty close up So it was neat capturing that on both video and in the pictures. And we'll have to share some of those. Yeah. And I mean, it was definitely crowded, right? So was, was definitely crowded around that. This was right after Thanksgiving.
like November 29th, I think on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. everybody, probably everywhere starting to get into some of the holiday, modes. I'm not sure when this particularly opened. I think it had been open for several days, but that was definitely a highlight I think we were excited about that too, right? To kind of starting to get into some Christmas type things. Not that they had just celebrated Thanksgiving. No, no, no, that we had celebrated Thanksgiving. You're right. But we were excited
from here we were gonna do some things that were kinda getting us into Christmas from here on out. Well, so I wanna take us back for just a minute because
forest and the flower dome, we decided that we would take a little short break and get something to drink, maybe a little snack or refreshment. And we went to the stand and in that stand they had ice cream. And if you guys don't know, Melissa is just a sucker for ice cream.
Not just ice cream, one of the flavors of ice cream that they had was the durian fruit. So we've heard so much up to this point about durian fruit. We had yet to try it. Now I was familiar with durian because I worked in an office one time where people would occasionally bring durian in. They were from Southeast Asia and they bring it in and the smell of it was just...
horrendous. But Melissa said she wanted to try this durian flavored ice cream. So she got that and tell me Melissa, how was that durian flavored ice cream? Well, let me back up for a second because as soon as you you went up there and got it and as soon as you brought it back over and I was like, I don't think I'd even opened it yet. People were at that time there had been a group of people sitting there and then they kind of like got up and some other people sat down and I
somebody smells really bad. Well, it was the ice cream because I had not ever, I mean, I'd heard about it, but I had not ever smelled it before. I will say that Paul, our food tour guide that we had in Penang, she said that durian ice cream is kind of like almost the gateway, right? To try.
that before you like try durian. Cause she like does durian tours and takes people to durian festival, all kinds of stuff she had told us. So she said that was kind of like do this first, right? Well, yeah. I mean, I tried it. I wouldn't say it was like horrible. I think it smells worse than the ice cream tastes, but I think Scott has a different opinion about that.
Yeah, let me be very clear about this. It was the absolute worst thing that I have ever tasted in my life. Hands down, worse than anything. Like, I would rather eat rotted chicken before I would eat this ice cream. What about cilantro? I would rather, like, just chew on cilantro. Wow. know if you know.
You probably do because we've talked about it, but cilantro tastes like soap to Scott. So you may have seen, I posted a video because I've filmed him tasting this and I posted that video and yeah. So I was still eating it, but he was like, you don't have to finish that. And unfortunately the problem is after I think both of us were like, we're burping this up for a long time. So just beware if you, I mean, try it.
I wouldn't say not try it, That was probably worse than the smell and the like to me the taste wasn't that bad, but burping it up later was not good. And we videoed us trying this ice cream. So you can go out to our Instagram account and find those videos watching us try the durian ice cream.
Melissa, when you did post those though, you got a lot of comments from our listeners and followers that watch those videos. They loved your reaction. They were just like, Scott's face. We have the video of me doing it. I never posted that. I probably need to do that. But yeah, they were cracking up. People were just like, I'm dying over Scott's face. that was...
That was real. Like that was his first taste. That was real unscripted. And you had not ever tried it before, right? No. You said you'd smelled it before, but not tried it. So that was fun. ⁓ It's good to try different foods and new foods. And for whatever reason, we hadn't had the opportunity to do that. So I'm glad we did. I wouldn't order it again. Well, for lunch, we decided that we would take a break from the gardens. We caught a grab over to this famous hawker center called Lao Pao Sat.
And this is where we really noticed the huge difference between having a local guide and not having one.
So after our experience in Penang with Paul, I mean, she walked us through what to order, know, maybe probably what was the best stall to go to. This was very overwhelming because they had shops and then I don't know, they probably had what, 40 at least different stands. Now, the good thing was, is this was a little bit later. we had had breakfast, we had had our little snack.
So this was like, would be on the the later end of lunch. So it wasn't super crowded. So not overwhelming as far as crowds, but just not knowing like which one would be good and not, having a lot of time to maybe then research it while we were there. But this is a great one. The La Pasta is a very good one to go to. It's very well like.
organized and then you have these other cute little shops and things like that. So I think it's a really great one to go to. It's just not knowing. Okay. And then I guess also kind of, if you're not like, okay, well, I definitely know I'm here for this, right? Because there's also so many different, like you could have curries and Indian food. You could have had the satay. You could have had, I don't know. I don't even know. Like just anything that you wanted, right? Chinese food. Yeah. So, you know, like I said,
This is where not having the local with you is a little bit of a, of a downfall because, in these hawker saw centers, we shared with you is like each, each little, stall inside there is probably known for a certain food. Like they make this food and it is the best of that particular food, like maybe an olive Singapore.
But you got to know what it is that they're known for and you have to know which one of the stalls to go to. And we were just really overwhelmed by how many and then, they had different after we've gone through several of these tours and we've tried all these different foods,
And we didn't necessarily go back and write down the names of the different things that we tried and liked. And so you're not sure like, Hey, is this what we ordered before? And, it was not like we're going to talk about in Hong Kong, Disney, where they had the little, plate set out to show you what everything looked like. And so. Well, I think we got good food.
I definitely don't think that we had the best food there in that hawker center. So they do have the pictures. That is one thing. But I will say, what we got was good. But they have pictures of some of the foods that they have because the things we ordered didn't look like any of the pictures. Yeah, that's true. And so it's also, so then it comes and then you're used to having
some kind of like spicy, you whether it's a sambal or something spicy. And so I go back up there and it's like, some of that's kind of lost in translation because it's like, do you have a sambal? No. Okay. Do you have like a sauce? and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're around the corner, And, and so just, you know, not knowing that, ⁓ as well. And then, but I will say that what the, the place that we went to ended up being fairly inexpensive. I felt like for what we got, it was a very good value.
But then we didn't get drinks from that place. I went to another little place that looked cute that had some kind of like I guess like the cream, is it called the cream tea? But then they had some ice versions and some different things. And the two of those drinks cost like as much as the food, Which, if you're used to going to Starbucks, you know how that is, but it's just like, okay. So just a variety, but I will say.
that yeah, I'm sure that they have some kind of food tours in a place like that. And that would have probably been really fantastic. But this was also a place too where like you could stay here a week or a month and not have the same thing twice. I think one of the problems though, and Paul had said this to us, is that you just go and you get a few different things and try them all. And we didn't. We just ordered a dish.
from the one place. And so I think that would be my advice is go order a few different things from a few different stalls. And then that way, if you don't like one of them, no big loss, right? You just push it to the side and then keep eating something that you do like. The other thing that we didn't do was have the satay and I'm not really sure why. Yeah, because they're actually known for their satay there.
The other thing I wanted to point out was there were signs that said, clean up after yourself. Like basically go throw your stuff away and put the trays away or you will be fined. So I just thought that was very interesting and people did it. it fine or you're banned? I thought it said fine, but maybe it said you're banned. And remember this is Singapore. So Singapore, no chewing gum, no smoking and no vaping either.
So very big on clueless. So either one, find a band, whatever, but they were just like, there were signs and people cleaned up.
Well, after lunch, we went back to the hotel just for a quick rest, because we had gotten up early that morning. We wanted to check into our room, check it out, see what it was like. And then we knew we were going to go back there for night. And so we knew we probably wanted to take like sleeves with us for the nighttime. So I do want to point out one thing that we said. So we had had that.
inside cabin and of course it's a cruise ship. So we get to this hotel and literally the entry where the closet is and the bathroom alone was the same size as what our or probably maybe a little bit bigger as what our cabin on the cruise had been. So then we had the whole bedroom too. We were like what is this? This is amazing.
So just wanted to point out that out because that was one of the things that we commented on. So that evening, we of course wanted to go to one of the light things that they have. So they have a couple of options. One of them is the lights at the Supertree Grove. The other one is the lights and water in front of the Marina Bay Sands. We chose because we have one night, right? We need to pick one of these things. So we chose to do the Supertree Grove.
They were starting the Christmas market and the Christmas Wonderland that night. So thankfully I had seen our friends on Instagram, Dan and Alex of Travel with DNA post this, after we had already left on our trip, they had posted about it happening last year. And I realized that it was gonna be the first night, was the night that we were there. And thankfully the tickets had not gone on to sale yet.
⁓ And so I was able to go on and get those. Now they were super inexpensive. I think for the two of us it was like $13 US. But just being able to get those because I really did want to be kind of in that Super Tree Grove and see the light show. So it was definitely like a huge walkthrough experience. So they had that that happened at a couple of different times. They had this big thing that almost looked like a... Castle or something. Yeah, that was all lit up.
and we had seen some of this in the day. They had a couple of places where I would have lots of places where you could get food. they had, you know, a bar and then they had all these walkthrough type things with like poinsettias and different things. So there was artificial snow and of course the Christmas market stalls and crafts and music playing throughout the park. Oh, and the other big thing was like a snow, like every once in a while they would have like the snow happen.
So that was neat. So if you're over there, like right after Thanksgiving through the holidays, just know that to do the Supertree Grove at, for the light show, you would have to have a ticket to this. But we really enjoyed that. That was, again, that was, cause this here was kind of like our second little thing that was, starting to get us into Christmas. And we're kind of used to having warmer weather at Christmas time. So.
having Christmas music, Christmas lights, Christmas, everything with warm weather, wasn't, very different for us. but if you're used to having a white Christmas or snow or really cold weather at Christmas time, this would be a major difference for you. And, it does take a little bit of time to get used to for it feeling like Christmas.
Yeah, I agree. And so I think that was why we were really excited for, some of these things that we were going to do before we headed back home. So we left from there. So we had seen that area of the gardens by the bay a couple of times, so we actually went out another entrance that took us over a bridge closer to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. We could get some different
pictures of also like the Ferris wheel, the thing that they have ⁓ So Marina Bay Sands Hotel, we had seen it on Amazing Hotels. You may have seen it. It's the hotel that like looks like a, like almost looks like a boat, right? Or a surfboard or something like that. And it has a- surfboard on these three pillars. Yeah. And we could actually see it. So several days before we'd actually passed Singapore.
to get to Kuala Lumpur on the cruise and you could see it when our boat passed. So it's kind of like a, I would say it's the iconic landmark, wouldn't you say, of Singapore these days? Yeah, definitely so. I think between that and the Supertree Gardens.
So we left ⁓ from there, walked over to the hotel and we had the opportunity to go into the lobby of the hotel. what we decided is that we would just walk into the lobby and then go down and catch our Uber from there that are a taxi either one, that that would probably be the easiest thing for us.
it was neat to go in there. We really had wanted to go upstairs to the outdoor area and because they have this fantastic infinity pool up there, they've got a bar that you can go to. We were tired. We just didn't have time to do that. And so we went on to the lobby and caught our Grab.
and went back to our hotel, but it was interesting, Melissa, because you said you were so glad that we stayed where we stayed rather than that Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Yeah, so I definitely looked at this. So if you've heard us talk about the Lanesboro in London that we did earlier in the year last year, that was also an amazing hotel. This one was an amazing hotel. So I definitely looked at staying here and it just,
kind of didn't make sense. But the reason I was glad is this is one of those massive hotels with these massive check-in desk and then it's just like so far to the room from the check-in. It was also, we didn't know this, there was also a very big concert in town. A Korean artist. And so that was just like consumed like what most people were in town for. The traffic
people going and coming back from that concert was crazy. But so I'm glad we went in, but I'm definitely glad that we stayed where we stayed. ⁓ Just it was just like, even though it was a big hotel, we're gonna talk about it in a second, but it wasn't anything like this.
and we wouldn't have had time to go to the rooftop pool because we had other things that we wanted to do in Singapore. So I think that's one of them, would be one of the main draws of staying there, is that the only way to access that and be able to swim in that or sit by it or whatever is to stay there. Yeah. It almost reminded me of like some big, huge Disney hotel or something like that. I was thinking like a Gaylord Palms
one of those Gaylord hotels where it's just like miles to get from the check-in to your room or a big convention center. But yeah, or one of the spread out Disney hotels. Yeah, I agree. Or a casino. You just don't have to walk through the casino to get there. Now, since we've gotten back, we were watching a show and I learned about the Raffles Hotel and I think that might be
a really, really nice place to go and stay. and we had actually, I had mentioned to you this several times because a couple of people had said to me, go to the Raffles Hotel and have the Singapore Sling. That's what they're known for. You can just go in and order that drink. And I'd mentioned to you a couple of times, again, it was one of those things where we really wanted to see the things in Singapore. I think we had had our fill of drinks on the cruise for sure.
which is funny because then we kind of skipped out on the bar at the Marina Bay Sands. We kind of skipped out on that. But I agree with you after watching that.
So we have a few things then on our list. So, which is always good. It leaves us a list for next time. I think that we will cruise out of Singapore again. I think it's a great gateway to, get to a lot of places on the cruise. So let's talk about where we did stay. Before we do that, I would just say there's a lot of Southeast Asia cruises.
that you can get to from Singapore. You can go to Japan from Singapore. You can go back to the reverse of what we did.
So do you want to talk about where we stayed? Okay, because I chose it. So when we were, trying to book the hotels, which we didn't have a lot for this trip, but we were trying to book those. I chose the Conrad Singapore. It looked like it was in a great location, close to where we were going. And I was also looking, you have gotten the Hilton Diamond status from one of the Hilton branded credit cards.
and we had some points, had some free nights, that kind of thing that we were, trying to use. But we really enjoyed it. I had never stayed at a Conrad before, but this, you said you had stayed at some. We actually ended up paying cash for this one because the points redemption versus the cash wasn't that great. And honestly, it was less than 300 US dollars, which after staying there, like, wow.
That was really a great place, but it didn't make sense to use points. It didn't make sense to use the free night. It made sense to pay for it and then, you know, get the redemption on that. And let me just say that, that Hilton American Express card, We're Marriott people. and so, at first I was like, ⁓ I don't know if we want to,
diverged to the Hilton properties and stuff like that. Oh my god what a great card because
The upgrades that we got in Singapore and Hong Kong at those Conrad hotels, they were just absolutely fabulous. And, we've got a couple of trips coming up and I was like, let's look for Conrad. and I looked for a Conrad in London, but, wow, that's an expensive hotel. Well, and then also with that you get.
free breakfast So it really gives us some options. It gives us the options both at the Marriott properties and now at the Hilton properties. that one has a very low annual fee and you get a free night every year. So it really, you can't beat that. So that was my first experience. Like I said, they upgraded this We had a room that you could see like all of the city. You could see the Marina Bay Sands. You could see out to, I mean, so was just, it was phenomenal.
It was like four times larger than the cruise cabin that we had just left. So we really enjoy that. So shout out to the Conrad Singapore. They had a fantastic breakfast. we also could have had the lounge, but we didn't even had time to go to the lounge. Yeah. But I would also say the bellhop that, pointed us to the Kaya Toast place. great job. Yeah. The hotel is century located, and easy to get.
the grabs or Ubers or whatever you choose to use from that. And then it's close by some of the other hotels and malls and, and things like that. You could, we could have even walked to where they, where you could see the night show in front of the Marina Bay Sands as well. So solid choice on that. So really, really enjoyed that and felt like that was a really great value. one of the things that we wanted to do while we were in Singapore,
was go to the jewel at the Changi airport. And if you're not familiar with the jewel, it's the indoor waterfall that comes down from the ceiling. I think they've got like some botanical gardens around it and a few other things. And Melissa had said, I want to make sure that we're giving ourselves enough time to be able to go to the jewel to see that before we get on to our flight.
So what we did is that we planned to go and get to the airport a few hours early. And we had read that there is the ability to check your luggage or check in early with your luggage. And so what we were going to do is go there, check our luggage in, let it go ahead and be heading off to our plane. And then we would spend some time.
wandering around, checking out the jewel, taking some pictures, before we got onto our plane. But it didn't work that way. Yeah, and so the jewel is also like a huge shopping mall. There's, know, movie theaters and tons of places to eat. Like we didn't even make it around to all the places because then, you know, like Scott mentioned, we had our luggage. Well, our hiccup was this,
we had intentionally booked our flight to Hong Kong a little bit later so that we would have time not to have to get up at the crack of dawn, we would have time to spend. Well, our hiccup was actually a couple of things. To use that baggage drop at the jewel, you had to drop it three hours before your flight.
But the problem was the desk only opened like two hours before our flight. we were flying on Cathay Pacific and the Cathay Pacific
⁓ early check-in desk at the Jewel didn't open until like 11 AM or something like that. Well, that was only two hours before our flight, which isn't enough time to get your luggage from the Jewel over to where our terminal was, because it just so happened that our terminal wasn't attached to the Jewel.
you had to get on a bus and go somewhere else. And so we didn't have time to go and take our luggage over to the check-in desk at ⁓ Cathay Pacific and then come back to the jewel. But we did find that you could just take your luggage into the jewel with you. Now you can only go into where that waterfall area is. You can't take your luggage into all of the areas.
but it was good enough for us to get to see and we also learned that the waterfall doesn't start till like 10 a.m. Yeah, so it basically had literally when we walked in it wasn't going and then it just started. So I'm glad we didn't get there even earlier than that. I will add that there is a place that you can pay to have them hold your baggage. So if you had like
whole bunch of hours. So let's say you were just arriving, you had your bags, you wanted to spend time there and then go into Singapore. You could pay money to have them hold it. I would only do this if you had several hours because it was not cheap. Like it was expensive. if you had like multiple bags. Like $60 per bag or something like that. Yeah. Well, I think it was like $30 per bag. So it was going be $60 total. Well, maybe more than that for us, but we were
Like we literally then at that point only would have had like one hour. And so it's not worth paying that for one hour. So we did get to see the waterfall. So, and then the other thing was we also learned and some of these things you just don't, you you learn it after you're there. So there's like Scott mentioned, there's three terminals. It's attached to the jewels. Some of those things that are also known for this particular airport, the butterfly garden and stuff like that.
are in, I think it's in terminal three, which you can go in any of those like after you pass security. Well, of course, as we would have it, our flight to Hong Kong was out of terminal four. So we had taken a taxi from the airport, to come to this jewel. And then they were like, well, you can take a bus to this, like, because the rest of it's connected by some other kind of system. But for this particular one, you have to get on the bus. And Scott's like, well, we have the knee scooter, we have the crutches, we have all these bags.
It's like, okay, no. So then we had to take another taxi, which was fine because we did get to see and we, and we learned a lot, that at least we can share with you. but unfortunately we were out of that terminal four. And so we just were like, okay, we're ready. We can just go on over there, as well. But we did have an interesting encounter. Yeah. We met this couple from Alabama who were heading out on a cruise that kind of mirrored our itinerary, but just kind of in reverse. And,
We met them because he had on a Georgia Bulldog hat. And, that was the day after Georgia and Georgia tech had played in, Georgia tech lost at the last minute. And so, I was heartbroken and I told him how horrible that hat was.
That is super offensive. But we ended up talking to them like 45 minutes and they were a great couple. Yeah. And so they had questions for us about, Singapore and just some, cruise things and in general, that they were about to get on the cruise. And so we just had a nice little chat. So that's of course something you can't plan for unexpected. one of those chance encounters that obviously that makes a travel memory. So although it didn't work out like it was supposed to.
But then we ended up having more time in Terminal 4. So Terminal 4 doesn't have, the waterfall and the butterfly garden, the slide and all these things. It's beautiful and it's huge and that felt like there was like almost nobody there. They have all these luxury shops and so it was a thing to see on its own. one thing you might want to consider doing is staying the night before you leave at an airport hotel and then
just have some time to explore because there really are a lot of things that you can do there at the jewel. And maybe you even want to think about having the whole day and leave at night so that you can check in your bags and then spend as much time as you want to in the jewel. Like there was a lot of bridges. I've seen some excellent pictures that people took from up high looking down with the waterfall. we didn't get a chance to do all of that, but
you know, if you've got time, you can wander around and maybe find some of those really good spots to get some pictures. I guess, the biggest question is besides just, okay, leaving out of Singapore on a cruise or something like that, would you return to Singapore and then how many days would you want to spend there? ⁓ absolutely. I would go back to Singapore in a heartbeat. Matter of fact, we've even said that,
catching a cruise to Southeast Asia from there is a good option. It's a great airport to fly into. If I was going to guess at how much time that you would need, I would say three to four days in Singapore would let you slow down enough, let you get a chance to try the different food because Singapore is also known for its food.
And then really explore just beyond the highlights. You can catch all the different light shows. You can go to raffles and try the Singapore sling. You can go up and have a drink on top of the Marina Bay Sands. There's so much more that you can check out in Singapore if you had the time. Food tour for sure. the other thing I would add is, I don't know if it was the time of the year that we were there.
but not as expensive as I would have thought. know, Singapore is known as probably one of the richest places in the world, but I would say as far as most expensive. We stayed in a really nice hotel. We had great food. Of course, we didn't, like have reservations or go to a Michelin star or anything like that, but definitely couldn't be done affordably.
Well, a short stay in Singapore can be very magical, but if you have the flexibility that three to four day range is probably the sweet spot. Once again, kind of let you slow down, eat a little bit better and
see beyond just those highlights. And if Singapore is on your list, whether it's a stopover or a longer stay, we would love to help you plan that in a way that fits how you actually like to travel. Because one of our goals isn't just to see more places, it's to actually experience them better. And we would like to help you do that. So feel free to reach out to us.
Scott at sunshinetravelers.com or Melissa at sunshinetravelers.com and we can help you with that.
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