After having such an amazing trip to China and Hong Kong in May 2024, I already knew I needed to plan to return again. I spent some time over the Summer of 2024 thinking about where and when I might like to go – having always had a good experience with seeing cubs on my November China trips, a Winter trip was very appealing. Looking at the timing of Chinese New Year and also my field hockey schedule, I ended up with a ‘sweet spot’ of time in February. I also knew I wanted to see pandas somewhere new, so I focused on Asia so that I would be able to easily get to China as well – and in the end Singapore won^ Let’s get started with the Asia Diaries: February 2025.
So the trip starts in Singapore – it’s a relatively easy route from Edinburgh, a quick flight to Amsterdam before a 12-hour overnight flight to Singapore. It was a full flight, but my seat neighbours were both very pleasant and slept almost the whole flight. Overall it was pretty uneventful and I did manage at least a few hours of decent sleep with several hours of on-off sleep for the rest of the flight. I only ended up with time for one movie (Barbie) that I watched across both of the meal times! And it was easy once arriving in Singapore – you need to complete an online arrival card before getting there, which I did before leaving home, so you can then use automated entry gates – it really couldn’t have been easier and there were plenty of staff on hand to help. I arrived around 4:30PM and it was very quick through passport control, immigration and baggage claim. Then I headed for the e-hailing pick-up point to get my Grab (works just like Uber/Didi) – my driver was so helpful and was giving me all the tips, and I think I entertained her when I said the main reason I’ve travelled to Singapore is to see the giant pandas XD
The journey was quick, and I was at my hotel within 25-30minutes – I stayed at the Hotel Mi Bencoolen which was pretty centrally located, in a walkable spot to get around but also right on a metro line so it’s easy to get all over the place. Staff were lovely and very helpful, I was checked in quickly and headed to my room for a quick freshen up. The rooms are quite small, but I’m travelling alone and for all the amount of time I’ve planned to spend in the room, it’s perfect for me. I had a view of the swimming pool courtyard, so didn’t hear any traffic noises, but I was quite near the lifts/elevators, so did sometimes hear people coming back at night. My requirements for a hotel were somewhere that was easy to get to/from both the airport and the Mandai Wildlife Reserves, but also not too far from some of the main sights. This came up in a pretty good spot, was a good price, and I was really happy with both the hotel itself and the location, I’d definitely stay again for the same purpose.
After a speedy shower I headed off for my first experience in Singapore – with a very short amount of time I really had to narrow down what to do and that I could do in this evening as the rest of my time is filled. Of course the Gardens By The Bay was the absolute must-see for a first trip – there are a number of different attractions here, both free and ticketed. With wanting to see the light show at the Supertree Grove, I had a time-limit so couldn’t see absolutely everything. On my visit the exhibition in Floral Fantasy was Disney Garden Of Wonder, and being a big Disney fan, I was completely swayed over by this idea – so I purchased the combo ticket for both the Cloud Forest and the Floral Fantasy (S$34).
I took the metro from the hotel to Gardens By The Bay, and was brought out at the Floral Fantasy section, but I headed for a walk to see the Supertree Grove in daylight (looks cool, but extra special in the dark when lit up!), then went for my Cloud Forest visit. I used the last of the daylight visiting the Cloud Forest, it really was as impressive or even more than it looks in photos and videos! Beyond the impressive waterfall entrance, I didn’t really know what to expect here, but you work your way up the height of the waterfall on the ‘inside’, there is a garden at the top, then work down on the ‘outside’ of the waterfall by a number of elevated platforms – the engineering of it is quite something. I’ve never been anywhere quite like it, but could compare it somewhat to the dome at ZooParc de Beauval, just without the birds and animals that they have there! I’m not the biggest fan of heights, so some of the walkways were a little daunting – many people stopped for photoshoots but I just kept walking relatively quickly. However, you do get great views of the Supertree Grove and Marina Bay Sands Hotel from here. After coming down, you end up a level below the entrance and I really enjoyed the beautiful displays here, they had miniature orchids with magnifying glasses so that you could view them and some were just amazing feats of nature! For me, this section was the best, but that’s just personal preference.
It was getting dark when I left the Cloud Forest, so I headed on over to Floral Fantasy to see the Disney Garden Of Wonder – it was super quiet here, I think most people were watching the first light show, but I opted for the 8:45PM showing so that I could see something extra. There were only around 15-20 people in the Floral Fantasy, so it was easy to see everything and get photos of all the displays that I wanted, and they had a lot of firm favourite characters! I loved the final displays of Minnie, Daisy, Donald and Stitch in store set-ups, these would be super fun photo ops. The displays were sweet, but online it said average visit time is an hour, and that seemed a bit exaggerated. I did still enjoy the experience though, and you did end up in an excellent gift shop with a lot of Disney items, including some Disney x Singapore exclusives, which is a good way to get people in!
Then I headed back over to the Supertree Grove to get a spot for the lights – it was pretty popular, with a lot of people claiming there space early. I stayed pretty close to the edge, initially I stood, but decided to sit down to enjoy the show. The show is Garden Rhapsody, with different themes across the year – on my visit I saw Opera In The Gardens, and thought it was brilliant, because I love classical and opera music and they played a lot of my favourites. The schedule is available online for 2025 so you can already check out what you might get, May/November’s An Evening Of Musical Theatre and June’s World Of Fantasy sound amazing, and Opera In The Gardens is repeated in October, with of course Christmas featured in December. I did no research on this before going, so I got lucky with getting a show that really fits my musical preferences, but I’m sure whatever the music that the experience is still good. It was a bit tricky to get pictures because of both the dark and also the scale, but I was more focused on taking videos and I’ve been loving rewatching those since I got back!
After the show it was already 9PM, and I had seen Shake Shack back over near the Cloud Forest so I headed there to grab a quick dinner. I didn’t eat a lot on the flight so was pretty hungry by this point, so obviously it was the best meal I’ve ever eaten XD But really, I do love their hot dogs and also the frozen custard^ After eating I made my way back to the metro station and back to the hotel for some sleep before a busy next day.
