singapore family trip may 27-30 2009
This trip deserves a post for remembrance. This holiday was due to the fact that it was MaRey's High School graduation. So it was a treat for her and it was timed to overlap with the Great Singapore Sale so she can go buy some college clothes :-)
So we tried booking online because a lot of friends even our aunt who heads a travel agency said it was cheaper. We booked a Cebu Pacific flight, to maximize our budget trip, us girls got booked as Go-Lite (no check-in luggage Pesos 24735.00) and the boys Dad and ReyMey booked as regular budget travel (Pesos 17290.00). Big mistake, don't believe the website when it said 15kg, that's all the check-in luggage allowed. Cebu Pacific Go Lite customers are only allowed seven 7!!! kg of luggage anything over and you have to pay penalties and additional fares. It's a good thing when we got to the airport to depart Philippines, we only had minimal luggage it all got checked -in with the boys at no added cost. At least we had been forewarned that when we get home we need to fix the bags.
So off to Singapore we went. We have all been there two (2) years before so we saw the real Changi airport. The Budget Terminal at Changi was boring. Only Cebu Pacific and Tiger Airways fly there. We took a free SMRT bus to transfer us to Terminal 2 where it can connect us to the City trains.
Note that this is a budget trip booked online so we had no package ride airport-hotel so off we go take the train. Commuters that was us. First off you need to take train from airport to City Hall Interchange and transfer there. Next we took the Red Line train to get to Novena Station that's where to find HOTEL ROYAL. Our home for the next 4 days. Hotel Royal was great, big rooms, buffet breakfast wonderful and delicious, it had slippers, towels, a weighing scale!!! which made packing very easy. Last 2006, we stayed at the ALLSON hotel. This was a way more beautiful hotel with a bus stop just in front and very near MRT station so once you get the hang of public transport it's great.
It took a while to orient and get acquainted so we arrived at the hotel 1:00pm. Much later than expected. It takes 20mins if taxi from airport to hotel but since we took the bus and had to exchange some money, we shuffled the sched around. That afternoon, it would be the Singapore Flyer, Esplanade and the Mint Toy Museum instead of Science Center and Chinese Garden.
So off we traveled again. We were trying to get Singapore Tourist Passes but you can only buy them at selected main interchanges so we decided to do that for the next two days instead.
First business, Lunch. There was a Hawkers Food Center at Newton Circle so we ate there. Then off to City Hall but we decided to do Toy Mint Museum first instead of Esplanade, Sing Flyer, then Mint. The Toy Mint Museum was fun and enlightening our coupons weren't used because they said their current promo will turn out cheaper so 5 tickets S$47, yup cheaper all right. What a collection! We all were impressed to take a walk down memory lane.
After a long walk from Raffles to Singapore Flyer (S$148.00) 4 adults and 1 child was amazing! a 30-minute ride to see the whole of Singapore from 165 meters high up. We're on top of the world!!
So then we were showed the walkway to Esplanade (BTW from CityHall it's 1.5km to Sing Flyer and .5 to Esplanade) and took photos and shopped and snacked. No more time to take the tour so we just chilled then headed-on back to City Hall via the Underground City Mall back to the Hotel. Short detour to Cold Storage for some grocery, chips, soda and water. Water outside is S$2 for a 1,5 liter but grocery only 1 dollar.
Dinner was a treat. We were taken by a college girlfriend of Hubby who is a permanent resident to eat @Dempseys which used to be a Military Barracks. We ate at Long Beach @Dempseys. Oh wow! Wonderful meal. Crispy Fried Duck, Spare Ribs, Sambal Kangkong, Shanghai Rice, Dumplings, Tofu all wonderful food. Thank you Marilez for the treat.
Now Champions League Finals Barcelona vs Man Utd at 2:45am in the morning-- of course I had to watch on the telly and it seems 2 of my neighbors did too :-) Barca won 2-0 yehey!
The next day, Thursday, we went back to city hall to buy the Singapore tourist Pass good for two days. (A bit glitchy that one, at one point the next day we could no longer ride the bus but MRT was hop on hop off. Still good overall and sulit S$8/ person/day with $S10 deposit )
Breakfast was very good as it was buffet so a very decent start to the day, kids were tired from yesterday's walking already.
Off to Singapore Sciene Center at Jurong East we went. Now because we had passes, we can now take the bus to the Science Museum so no 10-min walk from Jurong East Station. 10:30 am we were there. Extra treat we also bought tickets to the Da Vinci Exhibit. Oh wow. Illuminating.
That place was so much fun for the kids and Dad that we stayed till 2:00pm and skipped Chinese Garden. Had a quick Lunch and went to Vivo City MRT onto Sentosa. We arrived at Sentosa around 4pm. The booth didn't want to sell us the package because they said it was no longer worth it given the time. It would be better to buy tickets per ride. So we took the Sentosa Express and did Luge and Skyride twice. 8 combo rides for S$48.00 got the tourist trap photos for S$30 (of course we were all so happy there). The Sky Ride was so much fun, a bit scary but it removed the need to take the cable car going home. Turns out the $S3 Sentosa Express was 2-way anyway.
We walked to Palawan Beach to eat snacks and then went to Go Green Segway.
The Segway (S$48 at S$10/head) was surreal. It was unique and fun treat. We should all have one of those to travel around. Just the fun trip round because the eco-trail was too pricey for us.
So back to Vivo for some shopping, and we meandered back to the hotel via the MRT again and some time at the mall. Dinner in a Hawkers Center with "A" rating. Then more grocery, we were trying to find some bubble bath for ReyMey but we can't decide on what to get.
The next day, Friday, was the start of the Great Singapore Sale. Off to Orchard road we went for some shopping. We took the bus to Orchard Road, got off at Tangs and walked our way up, Paragon, Lucky Plaza, Robinsons, John Little, OG . Then we went back to Whelock for Borders and bus to Suntec Plaza for more shopping. It was a toss up if we go back to hotel, dump bags and shop some more but we can't find the bus back to hotel so off to Suntec we went.
After that we went back to the hotel and by 7pm we were off to Clark Quay (this is where the pass didn't work for the bus so we took the MRT). The Ultimate Bungy Ride. Only MaRey and MeyMey did the ride. ReyMey said it was too extreme for him. Again we took the with DVD package as souvenir. The screams from were LOUD, the whole of Singapore must have heard them. Best thrill ever for the girls I think. And it works, after their try, 6 more people tried it out and lots of people were watching from down below.
I didn't want to eat on the restaurants along the riverside because I wanted food, fast, so we could still go to China Town (one MRT stop away from Clark Quay) and we ended up eating at Burger King. Not too bad the burgers and fries were huge for S$6.50 unlike here in Manila.
So Chinatown next, and it was quaint, the kids shopped and we gawked at the architecture. It was a good detour altogether but the closed at 10pm so we headed on back to hotel by 10:30.
Dad and I went out again with Marilez and we went to this place called OOSH. They had live band and I had a Singapore Sling. Not much sense ordering it here in Manila so I ordered it there, hah tourist!! The landscape architecture of the place was beautiful and when I went to the bathroom I had a laugh... women's was called WOOSH and the men's was called MOOSH... get it!
So last day, Saturday, Ed earlier booked a coach to take us all to the airport (S$45) and we gave up one of the rooms so we could have extended checkout at 2:45pm on the other room.
We did a quick stopover at City Hall to refund the Sing Pass Ticket after all that's still S$50.
We went to IKEA -- now Ikea is in front of a mall called Anchorpoint what we should do next time is take train to Queensland and wait for the FREE bus ride to anchorpoint and then just cross over to IKEA building. that saved us S$5 on the way back home. On the trip out we MRT'ed till Redhill and then took a bus S$5 to Ikea.
Now Ikea was so much fun, the children had never been to one and they so enjoyed it. If only they could easily bring home all the stuff being sold there, they would. I wish there was Ikea in the Philippines :-(
Since there was a mall right across the street (Anchorpoint) that's where we ended up having lunch and spending the rest of the time until 1:45 then back to the hotel to checkout we went.
The budget terminal had a duty free after all, not much, but there is. Next time we will try and get the GST refund. We never did it this time. 3 of our luggage with only 7kgs each (go-lite) eventually also had to be checked-in while boarding (was told the plane is full) good thing there was no breakable and fragile items on it -- so moral of the story when booking go-lite just use a light back-pack not those 45 linear bags not worth the weight. Having said that, No more Cebu pacific :-) part of the thrill of flying for us who seldom do is bashing the airport food if it's good or bad and no-frills flight is really boring.
So that's the Singapore trip-- it was just absolutely amazing. ReyMey could live there. He could figure out the public transport system and commute by himself, very negligible crime rate. I wouldn't dream of letting him commute on his own here in Manila.
Oh well that's that. Photos in the girls multiply account probably. I just wrote a post to remember it by because it was a great vacation. Thank you hubby for letting us have it.
Cheers!
So we tried booking online because a lot of friends even our aunt who heads a travel agency said it was cheaper. We booked a Cebu Pacific flight, to maximize our budget trip, us girls got booked as Go-Lite (no check-in luggage Pesos 24735.00) and the boys Dad and ReyMey booked as regular budget travel (Pesos 17290.00). Big mistake, don't believe the website when it said 15kg, that's all the check-in luggage allowed. Cebu Pacific Go Lite customers are only allowed seven 7!!! kg of luggage anything over and you have to pay penalties and additional fares. It's a good thing when we got to the airport to depart Philippines, we only had minimal luggage it all got checked -in with the boys at no added cost. At least we had been forewarned that when we get home we need to fix the bags.
So off to Singapore we went. We have all been there two (2) years before so we saw the real Changi airport. The Budget Terminal at Changi was boring. Only Cebu Pacific and Tiger Airways fly there. We took a free SMRT bus to transfer us to Terminal 2 where it can connect us to the City trains.
Note that this is a budget trip booked online so we had no package ride airport-hotel so off we go take the train. Commuters that was us. First off you need to take train from airport to City Hall Interchange and transfer there. Next we took the Red Line train to get to Novena Station that's where to find HOTEL ROYAL. Our home for the next 4 days. Hotel Royal was great, big rooms, buffet breakfast wonderful and delicious, it had slippers, towels, a weighing scale!!! which made packing very easy. Last 2006, we stayed at the ALLSON hotel. This was a way more beautiful hotel with a bus stop just in front and very near MRT station so once you get the hang of public transport it's great.
It took a while to orient and get acquainted so we arrived at the hotel 1:00pm. Much later than expected. It takes 20mins if taxi from airport to hotel but since we took the bus and had to exchange some money, we shuffled the sched around. That afternoon, it would be the Singapore Flyer, Esplanade and the Mint Toy Museum instead of Science Center and Chinese Garden.
So off we traveled again. We were trying to get Singapore Tourist Passes but you can only buy them at selected main interchanges so we decided to do that for the next two days instead.
First business, Lunch. There was a Hawkers Food Center at Newton Circle so we ate there. Then off to City Hall but we decided to do Toy Mint Museum first instead of Esplanade, Sing Flyer, then Mint. The Toy Mint Museum was fun and enlightening our coupons weren't used because they said their current promo will turn out cheaper so 5 tickets S$47, yup cheaper all right. What a collection! We all were impressed to take a walk down memory lane.
After a long walk from Raffles to Singapore Flyer (S$148.00) 4 adults and 1 child was amazing! a 30-minute ride to see the whole of Singapore from 165 meters high up. We're on top of the world!!
So then we were showed the walkway to Esplanade (BTW from CityHall it's 1.5km to Sing Flyer and .5 to Esplanade) and took photos and shopped and snacked. No more time to take the tour so we just chilled then headed-on back to City Hall via the Underground City Mall back to the Hotel. Short detour to Cold Storage for some grocery, chips, soda and water. Water outside is S$2 for a 1,5 liter but grocery only 1 dollar.
Dinner was a treat. We were taken by a college girlfriend of Hubby who is a permanent resident to eat @Dempseys which used to be a Military Barracks. We ate at Long Beach @Dempseys. Oh wow! Wonderful meal. Crispy Fried Duck, Spare Ribs, Sambal Kangkong, Shanghai Rice, Dumplings, Tofu all wonderful food. Thank you Marilez for the treat.
Now Champions League Finals Barcelona vs Man Utd at 2:45am in the morning-- of course I had to watch on the telly and it seems 2 of my neighbors did too :-) Barca won 2-0 yehey!
The next day, Thursday, we went back to city hall to buy the Singapore tourist Pass good for two days. (A bit glitchy that one, at one point the next day we could no longer ride the bus but MRT was hop on hop off. Still good overall and sulit S$8/ person/day with $S10 deposit )
Breakfast was very good as it was buffet so a very decent start to the day, kids were tired from yesterday's walking already.
Off to Singapore Sciene Center at Jurong East we went. Now because we had passes, we can now take the bus to the Science Museum so no 10-min walk from Jurong East Station. 10:30 am we were there. Extra treat we also bought tickets to the Da Vinci Exhibit. Oh wow. Illuminating.
That place was so much fun for the kids and Dad that we stayed till 2:00pm and skipped Chinese Garden. Had a quick Lunch and went to Vivo City MRT onto Sentosa. We arrived at Sentosa around 4pm. The booth didn't want to sell us the package because they said it was no longer worth it given the time. It would be better to buy tickets per ride. So we took the Sentosa Express and did Luge and Skyride twice. 8 combo rides for S$48.00 got the tourist trap photos for S$30 (of course we were all so happy there). The Sky Ride was so much fun, a bit scary but it removed the need to take the cable car going home. Turns out the $S3 Sentosa Express was 2-way anyway.
We walked to Palawan Beach to eat snacks and then went to Go Green Segway.
The Segway (S$48 at S$10/head) was surreal. It was unique and fun treat. We should all have one of those to travel around. Just the fun trip round because the eco-trail was too pricey for us.
So back to Vivo for some shopping, and we meandered back to the hotel via the MRT again and some time at the mall. Dinner in a Hawkers Center with "A" rating. Then more grocery, we were trying to find some bubble bath for ReyMey but we can't decide on what to get.
The next day, Friday, was the start of the Great Singapore Sale. Off to Orchard road we went for some shopping. We took the bus to Orchard Road, got off at Tangs and walked our way up, Paragon, Lucky Plaza, Robinsons, John Little, OG . Then we went back to Whelock for Borders and bus to Suntec Plaza for more shopping. It was a toss up if we go back to hotel, dump bags and shop some more but we can't find the bus back to hotel so off to Suntec we went.
After that we went back to the hotel and by 7pm we were off to Clark Quay (this is where the pass didn't work for the bus so we took the MRT). The Ultimate Bungy Ride. Only MaRey and MeyMey did the ride. ReyMey said it was too extreme for him. Again we took the with DVD package as souvenir. The screams from were LOUD, the whole of Singapore must have heard them. Best thrill ever for the girls I think. And it works, after their try, 6 more people tried it out and lots of people were watching from down below.
I didn't want to eat on the restaurants along the riverside because I wanted food, fast, so we could still go to China Town (one MRT stop away from Clark Quay) and we ended up eating at Burger King. Not too bad the burgers and fries were huge for S$6.50 unlike here in Manila.
So Chinatown next, and it was quaint, the kids shopped and we gawked at the architecture. It was a good detour altogether but the closed at 10pm so we headed on back to hotel by 10:30.
Dad and I went out again with Marilez and we went to this place called OOSH. They had live band and I had a Singapore Sling. Not much sense ordering it here in Manila so I ordered it there, hah tourist!! The landscape architecture of the place was beautiful and when I went to the bathroom I had a laugh... women's was called WOOSH and the men's was called MOOSH... get it!
So last day, Saturday, Ed earlier booked a coach to take us all to the airport (S$45) and we gave up one of the rooms so we could have extended checkout at 2:45pm on the other room.
We did a quick stopover at City Hall to refund the Sing Pass Ticket after all that's still S$50.
We went to IKEA -- now Ikea is in front of a mall called Anchorpoint what we should do next time is take train to Queensland and wait for the FREE bus ride to anchorpoint and then just cross over to IKEA building. that saved us S$5 on the way back home. On the trip out we MRT'ed till Redhill and then took a bus S$5 to Ikea.
Now Ikea was so much fun, the children had never been to one and they so enjoyed it. If only they could easily bring home all the stuff being sold there, they would. I wish there was Ikea in the Philippines :-(
Since there was a mall right across the street (Anchorpoint) that's where we ended up having lunch and spending the rest of the time until 1:45 then back to the hotel to checkout we went.
The budget terminal had a duty free after all, not much, but there is. Next time we will try and get the GST refund. We never did it this time. 3 of our luggage with only 7kgs each (go-lite) eventually also had to be checked-in while boarding (was told the plane is full) good thing there was no breakable and fragile items on it -- so moral of the story when booking go-lite just use a light back-pack not those 45 linear bags not worth the weight. Having said that, No more Cebu pacific :-) part of the thrill of flying for us who seldom do is bashing the airport food if it's good or bad and no-frills flight is really boring.
So that's the Singapore trip-- it was just absolutely amazing. ReyMey could live there. He could figure out the public transport system and commute by himself, very negligible crime rate. I wouldn't dream of letting him commute on his own here in Manila.
Oh well that's that. Photos in the girls multiply account probably. I just wrote a post to remember it by because it was a great vacation. Thank you hubby for letting us have it.
Cheers!
posted by natterandramblings @ 4:34 PM
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