How To Plan Your Next Singapore Trip! April 24-26, 2022

Singapore, where do I even begin. One of the cleanest and safest countries in Asia. Listed below is what I did on my trip, I hope you find it just as useful for yours!

Flight info

I flew out of SFO, nonstop to Singapore via Singapore Airlines. I flew out April 23rd at 11am and arrived in Singapore April 24th at 7pm. I flew in economy, which wasn't too bad. They provided a hygiene kit (face mask, sanitizer wipe, hand sanitizer spray), ear plugs for the tv, a pillow, and a blanket. I felt very safe throughout the flight (covid wise) as Singapore airline itself required face masks to be used at all times except when eating/drinking. The workers were very attentive and had great customer service. During the 16 hour and 40 minute flight (longest nonstop flight I've ever been on), they served two meals, along with snacks upon request. I couldn't complain about the food because it's airplane food, but it was good enough for me to eat about half. Bathrooms were kept clean throughout the flight, (which was very important for me!) and they even restocked it with toothbrushes and toothpaste. Overall, I would definitely love to fly with Singapore air again! Hoping next time to be in business class!

Arriving in Singapore

I was impressed of how fast customs and immigrations went upon arrival! Probably one of the fastest immigrations I have encountered, which was around 20 minutes. It took us another 20-30 minutes to retrieve our luggages. Singapore was more of a layover destination, but since our stay was over 2 days it wasn't technically considered a "layover", soooo we had to collect our check in luggages and re-check them in. Fortunately, the Changi airport had a luggage storage, which the fee is based off of size and duration of storage. So after collecting our bags from the carousel, we went straight to the luggage storage to drop our bags there for another 2 days, so we didn't have to lug them back to our hotel just to bring them back to the airport for check in. All in all, it took us roughly 2-2.5 hours to deboard, pass through immigration, pick up our luggages, drop off our luggages for storage, get to the MRT (transit) and arrive in our hotel- The Marina Bay Sands, which I am not complaining at all!

Requirements for entering Singapore

For fully vaccinated travelers (1st and 2nd dose, did not have to have booster), you need to provide a negative PCR test within 48 hours, have your arrival SG card filled out and download the trace together app for the duration of your stay.

Marina Bay Sands

My mom and I stayed at the famous Marina Bay Sands for our trip and it was incredible! Truly no regrets staying here, although it did cost $$$. It was roughly $400USD /night, which we decided to splurge on because 1. we were halfing it and 2. when was the next time we were both going to visit Signapore? We had an amazing city view from our room with great customer service. Now, if I were to stay in Singapore for more than 2 days, I can't say that I would have stayed at the MBS for the whole trip because that would just be too much spent on accommodations for me. Singapore had a whole lot of other 5 star hotels for a lot cheaper. We spent all nights at the infinity roof top pool, which was A-MA-ZING! The infinity roof top pool is only available to the hotel guests, however you can dine or go to the rooftop bar to enjoy the same view, you just won't be able to swim in the pool. The hotel was huge, it had a mall attached to it and also had an underground walk way directly towards the Gardens By the Bay.

Gardens By The Bay

Gardens By The Bay is. MUST see tourist destination when visiting Singapore! It's one of the world's largest botanical gardens and it will definitely blow you away. The whole garden looks way ahead of its time. The observatories open at 9am, but we got there at 8am to beat the crowd and it was empty when we got there, making it perfect for our pictures! We bought tickets for all the main observatories and I loved every single bit of it. We went to Cloud Forest, Flower Dome, Floral Fantasy, OCBC Skyway, AND was supposed to hit the Supertree Observatory but we didn't make it in time (all for about $55 USD/person).

Out of all of them, my favorites were Floral Fantasy, Cloud Forest, and OCBC skyway- in that order. I would expect to spend about 1-1.5 hours each for Cloud Forest, Flower Done, and Floral Fantasy and about 30-45 minutes in OCBC skyway (including picture times).

Little India

Little India was beautiful and so colorful! We walked around the neighborhood and the architecture was drop dead gorgeous. Our first stop was Mustafe Centre, which is a huge shopping center that basically had everything you can think of. From groceries, souvenirs, department items, jewelry (specifically gold), electronics, and more, they had it there. The only thing is that, it is so EASY to get lost. It literally felt like a damn maze in there, and the crowd didn't make it any easier.

After, we headed to see the Sultan Mosque. Sadly, outside visitors are not allowed inside the mosque, however it does make a cute pic! Around that area had a lot of food joints, street foot on Arab street right next door and a lot of cute boutique/ souvenir stands. Most of the vendors accepted credit cards (not so much of American Express), but there were some places we missed out on because we didn't have carry any cash on us.

There are a lot of beautiful temples that you can see when walking around and I wish I spent more of my time enjoying these beautiful buildings.

China Town

Soooo much great food in China town that I was a little overwhelmed on what to even choose! The street food was delish! We also stopped by the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in china town and let me tell you, pictures would not do any justice for the inside beauty! They don't allow people to enter if you are wearing any revealing clothes (shoulders showing and above the knees) but they provide shawls and skirts to be worn in order to enter, for free! No pictures are allowed inside the temple, but it was breath taking. It was a quick visit, took a little over an hour to see all floors. AND it was free! They do accept donations, and they sell items inside to support maintain this temple!

Sentosa

On the day of our departure, we stopped by Sentosa in the morning. We got there around 9/10am and everything was closed, no stores or food was open at that time and I'm not sure if it's because it was too early or because it was a weekday. Either way, it was nice to not have the beaches crowded so we can enjoy the beauty. We stopped by Palawan beach and walked the strip. I wasn't too impressed by the beach because it was man made and does not really compare to the real thing. It is pretty none the less though. Around this area there is Resorts World hotel and Universal Studios, which we didn't have time to make the trip out since we were short on time that day.

Changi Airport

Hands down one of the best airports I have ever visited. This place deserved more time than I have allowed myself to "explore". We arrived to our flight about 3.5 hours earlier, in hopes that this would give us enough time to go around the airport and I was mistaken. Our terminal to check in was a ways of a walk, so it did make it difficult to come back to the Jewel terminal after checking in (our departure terminal was terminal 3). This airport has the vortex water fall, a shopping mall, restaurants to dine in at, and even a play ground! I would definitely give yourself a good few hours to really go around the airport before the allotted time you have for checking in to your flight.

Merlion Park

Our last stop of the day was Merlion Park! One of the country's well known park, but to me after a long day I literally spent about 30 minutes here to walk around, take some pictures then head back to the hotel.