As the end of the year wound down, I found myself with vacation and travel allowance balances I needed to use before the end of the year. I reserved a few days for when we had visiting family, and we booked a four-day weekend in Singapore with the balance.
When we visit Singapore, we typically stay in the city and walk to nearby attractions or take the subway to Universal Studios or Sentosa Island. This time, we decided to stay on Sentosa Island intending to have a relaxing beach vacation. I booked us a suite at Shangri-La’s Rasa Sentosa Resort, right on the beach. Unfortunately, weather did not accommodate our plans.
In my prior post, I related the travel experience. The key lesson there: they will let you travel with an expired passport, but it will be a trying experience. I elaborate on our stay in this post.
We arrived on a Friday and awoke to overcast skies on Saturday. We had our large breakfast buffet then took a walk on the beach before heading to Chinatown for some holiday photos of the kids. That required most of the morning, and it was raining by the time we returned to the hotel. We had lunch, hoping it would stop raining, but it didn’t. We decided our best option was to complete the shopping we needed to do while in town, so that’s what we did. We loaded up on supplies for the kids, and I bought my wife her Christmas present from me (a Macbook Air) and from our kids (a new digital camera because our daughter broke the last one).
After a room service dinner, we passed out from exhaustion of travel and wandering the city all day. We awoke Sunday morning to more rain. We hoped it would clear after breakfast, but it never did. Not knowing what else to do with the kids since all of the activities we had come there for were outdoors, we suggested she try the kids club run by the hotel. She was reluctant, but agreed to try it. We didn’t see her again, except at dinner, for the rest of the trip. She absolutely loved the activities they offered. Thank you Rasa Sentosa!
That left us with the two boys. The baby is easy to entertain. Feed him, change him, hold him and let him observe and he’s happy. Our 2 year-old was a little harder. Sunday, we tried the toddler play area, but that only took up an hour. We tried playing in the room, but that didn’t last long either before he became bored. During a few breaks in the rain we did manage to go for a swim or watch the boats in the ocean, but the day just seemed to coast by in boredom for everyone.
When Monday greeted us with more rain, we knew staying at the hotel was not an option. We dropped our daughter at the Kids Club and took our sons across the street to the Aquarium. It’s small, and the weather shortened the one sea lion/dolphin show they have to a mere fifteen minutes, but the kids enjoyed viewing the big fish and watching daddy pet the sharks in the wade pool. The aquarium only ate up a few hours, but the rain had slowed to a mist when we finished, so we walked further up the street to Fort Siloso and took a tour. It is an interesting tour with good history of the Japanese invasion during WWII, but difficult to do pushing a stroller and under slick conditions. I nearly slipped off the wooden bridge as we maneuvered our way down the hill. The signs warning us to watch for poisonous green tree snakes did not contribute to our enjoyment in the least.
It is unfortunate the weather was so poor. The hotel was great and would have been even better had we been able to enjoy the beach, the sea water activities, the pool and the water slides. The resort is built with families in mind….though I would have preferred a hot tub that was actually hot. Even the stray monkeys jumping from balcony to balcony in search of food and mischief were scarcely seen due to the weather, though we did manage to get pretty close to them when they meandered by our room.
I hope we get an opportunity to go back. I don’t think we obtained the full enjoyment we could have from the experience.
When we visit Singapore, we typically stay in the city and walk to nearby attractions or take the subway to Universal Studios or Sentosa Island. This time, we decided to stay on Sentosa Island intending to have a relaxing beach vacation. I booked us a suite at Shangri-La’s Rasa Sentosa Resort, right on the beach. Unfortunately, weather did not accommodate our plans.
In my prior post, I related the travel experience. The key lesson there: they will let you travel with an expired passport, but it will be a trying experience. I elaborate on our stay in this post.
We arrived on a Friday and awoke to overcast skies on Saturday. We had our large breakfast buffet then took a walk on the beach before heading to Chinatown for some holiday photos of the kids. That required most of the morning, and it was raining by the time we returned to the hotel. We had lunch, hoping it would stop raining, but it didn’t. We decided our best option was to complete the shopping we needed to do while in town, so that’s what we did. We loaded up on supplies for the kids, and I bought my wife her Christmas present from me (a Macbook Air) and from our kids (a new digital camera because our daughter broke the last one).
After a room service dinner, we passed out from exhaustion of travel and wandering the city all day. We awoke Sunday morning to more rain. We hoped it would clear after breakfast, but it never did. Not knowing what else to do with the kids since all of the activities we had come there for were outdoors, we suggested she try the kids club run by the hotel. She was reluctant, but agreed to try it. We didn’t see her again, except at dinner, for the rest of the trip. She absolutely loved the activities they offered. Thank you Rasa Sentosa!
That left us with the two boys. The baby is easy to entertain. Feed him, change him, hold him and let him observe and he’s happy. Our 2 year-old was a little harder. Sunday, we tried the toddler play area, but that only took up an hour. We tried playing in the room, but that didn’t last long either before he became bored. During a few breaks in the rain we did manage to go for a swim or watch the boats in the ocean, but the day just seemed to coast by in boredom for everyone.
When Monday greeted us with more rain, we knew staying at the hotel was not an option. We dropped our daughter at the Kids Club and took our sons across the street to the Aquarium. It’s small, and the weather shortened the one sea lion/dolphin show they have to a mere fifteen minutes, but the kids enjoyed viewing the big fish and watching daddy pet the sharks in the wade pool. The aquarium only ate up a few hours, but the rain had slowed to a mist when we finished, so we walked further up the street to Fort Siloso and took a tour. It is an interesting tour with good history of the Japanese invasion during WWII, but difficult to do pushing a stroller and under slick conditions. I nearly slipped off the wooden bridge as we maneuvered our way down the hill. The signs warning us to watch for poisonous green tree snakes did not contribute to our enjoyment in the least.
It is unfortunate the weather was so poor. The hotel was great and would have been even better had we been able to enjoy the beach, the sea water activities, the pool and the water slides. The resort is built with families in mind….though I would have preferred a hot tub that was actually hot. Even the stray monkeys jumping from balcony to balcony in search of food and mischief were scarcely seen due to the weather, though we did manage to get pretty close to them when they meandered by our room.
I hope we get an opportunity to go back. I don’t think we obtained the full enjoyment we could have from the experience.
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