Singapore is a wonderful family friendly location; there is so much do, you could easily fill out a week or more holiday.
While Singapore is a rather expensive destination, we found there were some incredible kid friendly, free options available to fill our our two day stopover.
First up, we purchased tickets to the Art Science Museum at Marina Bay Sand where there was a TeamLab exhibition called FutureWorld. The girls absolutely loved TeamLab Planets in Tokyo, it still rates as their most favourite activities so far. Future World has similar digital projected artworks that reacted to the movements of the guests, as well as a large animated artwork where you could design your own plane, bird or butterfly, scan it and see it come to life with in the artwork.
From the outside, the Art Science Museum is a really unique building, its lotus flower inspired design was created by architect Moshe Safdie. It is next to another one of Singapore’s spectacular building, Marina Bay Sand, the iconic three buildings with the boat like platform at stretches across the top of all three.
We walked through the shopping arcade at the base of Marina Bay Sands and were wowed by all the high end designer brands and theatres.
Our next destination was the Keppel Centre for Art Education, located in the National Gallery Singapore. This was a fantastic FREE experience for the kids, with so many hands on, engaging, creative based activities. We easily spent a couple of hours here and girls were kept busy with the multiple different rooms and artistic activities. We were fortuate to be there on a weekday, so we found the crowds quite minimal however, I have read that if you plan to go on a weekend, it’s best to book a time slot in advance as it’s very popular.
We then spent the afternoon at Gardens By The Bay, home to the iconic Supertree Grove. While it’s free to enter the Gardens, there are some paid sections like the Cloud Forest, the Flower Dome, Skyway and the Supertree Observation Deck. We were planning to do at least the Cloud Forest, which is inside one of the gigantic glass domes and has a man made waterfall and foliage covered mountain, however the kids were having so much fun in the Far East’s Organisations Children’s Garden, we simply ran out of time. The Children’s Garden was free and featured a wonderful playground set within the vegetation and a large splash park, which was the perfect way to cool off in the late afternoon sunshine.
Within the Gardens are a few restaurants; we had dinner at Shake Shack before heading to the Supertree Grove for the free nightly ‘Garden Rhapsody’ light show. It was quite spectacular to see the enormous structures lit up at night, in sync to a music soundtrack.
If I were to recommend Gardens By The Bay to another family, I’d say you could easily allocate the majority of the day, but be prepared for a lot of walking and be prepared to spend a bit on admission tickets, especially if you plan to go into the Cloud Forest or Flower Dome. These glass structures are air conditioned so it would be a great option to escape the humidity of Singapore, however we ended up doing a budget friendly version of Gardens By The Bay by sticking to Children’s Garden and free light show.
The second Day in Singapore, we met up with a friend of mine from my university days and his family. Chao and I were in the same film and television degree and have kept in touch via social media. (Its almost been 20 years since we graduated!) Chao and his wife Bonnie visited Australia around 11 years ago, before any of our old uni crew had kids, but it’s been lovely to see their family grow with the addition of their kids.
Chao and Maya met up with us in Chinatown, were they showed us around the Hawker Food centre which was right across the road from our accommodation.
Hawker Food is a big part of Singapore’s culture and history, traditionally it was sold from little trolleys and wagons on the streets, drawing on the culinary influences of the many different cultures that have immigrated to Singapore. In recently years, it has become more regulated and hawker food stalls are now set up in the many large centres throughout Singapore.
Chao, a talented illustrator and comic strip artist, actually illustrated a children’s book about Hawker Food and he graciously gifted us a signed copy. A really lovely gesture considering how much the girls love to draw and create their own comics.
At first the Hawker Food centres feel a bit overwhelming with so many options and so many new, different types of food. But Chao picked out a few dishes which were delicious - the rice jelly like cakes and the mince like vegetable relish was amazing.
Later that afternoon we meet up with Bonnie and Aiden at the National Musuem of Sinagpore where we were pleasantly surprised to discover that the Story of the Forest exhibit was created by TeamLab! The kids loved the animated, projected artworks along the walls of the spiral ramps and inside the domed room.
We all wandered through the history of Singapore section of the museum and girls enjoyed reading some books together. We chatted more over afternoon tea in the museum’s cafe and then headed out to the play area where the kids had a chance to run around. It was such a lovely experience catching up with Chao and Bonnie , reminiscing about film school and hearing about life in Singapore and the kids had a lovely time meeting new friends too. We’re so very grateful that Chao and Bonnie made the time to see us and we’re very blessed to have these connections and travel memories.
A few other things I would recommend families do in Sinagpore:
The Children’s Museum - it had a interactive exhibit called Into The Hawkerverse about Sinagpore’s history of Hawker food.
Museum of Ice Cream Singapore
Science Centre Sinagpore
Mandai Wildlife Reserve - includes Singapore Zoo, Bird Paradise and River Wonders.
LegoLand. - technically this is across in Malayasia but it’s very close and easy to get to from Singapore.
Sentosa Island - this is the resort / tourist hub for Singapore, where you’ll find Universal Studios, along with Adventure Cove Waterpark, KidZania, Madame Tussauds, S.E.A Aquarium, Sentosa Sensoryscape, Hydro Dash and so much more!
I would check out Klook for ideas and tickets for what’s on in Singapore.