Anniversary Trip to Singapore. Part III

On the third day of our trip, we made the call to fly commercial. We were hoping, by some crazy chance, that a flight would pop up on Space-A. None were on the radar and we knew we needed to get on the ball with airlines. With that came the decision to not spend a few nights in "the" hotel in town. Instead, we moved to Furama City Centre near Chinatown.

This photo of Furama City Centre is courtesy of TripAdvisor

We were both really happy that we switched! The room was gorgeous, the air conditioning was cold, and the location was great because it was a little bit closer to what we wanted to do the rest of the week. For example, Universal Studios Singapore and Sentosa Island!

Sentosa Island is a manmade resort island. It sits right off the coast of "maindland" Singapore and is full of resort-style bungalows, water parks, golf courses, Universal Studios, and tons of fun stuff to do outside of the park. I found out about all the goodness of Sentosa when I read another blogger's post about it. It pains me to say that I can't find her blog again!

You have to smash a penny any chance you get while on vacay!

Anyway, Ms. Blogger said that if we were going to do activities on Sentosa, outside of Universal, that we should by play passes. They have different packages and you get to pick from 17 activities. For example, you can go into the Merlion, ziplining, and flying trapeze. We knew we had a full day ahead of ourselves at Universal so we made the decision to hold off on buying a pass and if we went through the park quickly, we'd do extra stuff.

At the top of Mt. Faber epically failing to get the scenery in the background.

Now, bear with me because I'm getting a little ahead of myself. One of the really cool things about going to Sentosa is that there's a cable car that takes you! You ride the cable car from Mt. Faber, through a building and onto the island. Sweet, right?! Also, you can buy your cable car tickets and the tickets to Universal Studios at the same counter. For the Sentosa play pass, you either buy it online or buy it once on island.

Ringing "The Bell of Happiness"

We were both like little kids when we got to Universal. Neither of us had ever been so it was really fun to experience it together. It's smaller than the one in the states, but it was still a blast!

First up was Shrek and Far Far Away. I'm not sure why I was so excited about this particular area, but I was like a tiny child... including giggling! We had a rough start (probably because I was distracted by everything going on) and I kept picking little kid rides or deciding that I didn't want to do something. Finally, we settled on the 3D Shrek Ride. It was the kind where you sat in chairs that moved and had 3D glasses on. Well, let me just say this: about the time spiders fell on the screen and then something started jumping up at my legs... I FREAKED OUT! Mark thought it was absolutely hilarious. They got me good!

Mark was most excited about Jurassic Park. It ended up being a water ride, but he was pretty excited so I didn't fuss (plus I had a poncho). I kept trying to convince him to get a poncho, but he said he was watching the people get off of the ride and they weren't too wet. He opted to chance it. I'm sure you can see where this is going......

We got on the ride and everyone but Mark was wearing a poncho. Throughout the whole thing he only got a few spots of water on him... and then came the very end. We came down a hill, it splashed a little, and Mark thought he was in the clear. Then, literally, the very last tap to the wall sent a wave crashing over his head and his head only. I'm not even kidding! Had the raft been shifted one person he would have been in the clear. Instead, he was the only one that got wet. It was soooo funny!

He took it like a champ and we moved on to the next ride, The Battlestar Galactica: Humans vs Cyclon! It's two roller coasters that weave together through loops, flips, turns, etc. Apparently, roller coasters aren't popular in Singapore because there was NO line. We almost stayed on after we rode the first time because there was no one waiting. It was awesome! We rode three times before we decided that we had had enough.

Picture from US's website

After that, we walked through the rest of the park and did a few more virtual reality rides (the Transformers ride was a blast) and then had a drink in "New York." Mark also took a stroll down Sesame St with his nephews in mind and then we walked through the candy store wanting to buy everything. Did you know there are Hersey's cinnamon chips?!

We hopped on the cable car and skipped the extra activities because we were beat! That night, we ventured into Chinatown for dinner. It was so good: sweet and sour pork and fried rice. We also tried a Chinese beer, Tsingtao. I wasn't really a fan, but Mark liked it.

We got a fancy car on the way back!