The final park of my Singapore trip, something totally different, it’s Night Safari! I’m not sure if many, or if any, other locations have a park like this – the opening hours are 7:15PM until midnight and you can see nocturnal animals in their natural routine. I was surprised to hear that Night Safari has been open since 1994, I really thought it had only opened more recently than that and I think it certainly attracts visitors for being incredibly unique. I will preface this by saying that I’m not great at twilight or night-time photography, so I didn’t get a lot of photos (or actually see a lot of animals) but I still think it was worth experiencing! Night Safari is located right next to both Singapore Zoo and River Wonders, so you can easily walk between the sites – with the entrance area shops and restaurants opening at 5:30PM so an option is to finish up at one of these parks then stroll on over for dinner before the Night Safari.

I searched online before going about the best way to visit, and found a Youtube video recommending to go as soon as it opens, do the trails first, watch the 8:30PM Creatures of the Night show, and then go on the tram ride. So I did just that and I think it worked out well! Starting with the trails mean you can use the last daylight on them to hopefully see some animals. These are set out in a loop, so you start with the Pangolin Trail, then Leopard, East Lodge and finally Tasmanian Devil. I lost the light while I was still on the Pangolin Trail, so pretty much anything after the fishing cat (which was almost the first animal I saw and I stayed at for a while) wasn’t going to get any decent photos. I’ve really wanted to get a good view and good photos of a fishing cat for a long time so I was really happy with the experience here. I didn’t end up seeing any pangolins, but I did see a leopard on the Leopard Trail and that was cool, it was very active and tricky to see – I certainly wouldn’t want to come across one in the dark in the wild, I’d have no chance! By the time I got to the East Lodge Trail, I was pretty much seeing nothing beyond outline shapes of animals – I have really bad eyesight during the day, it’s awful at night (e.g. when I’m playing hockey I can’t play an evening match because I just can’t see the ball and that’s on a lit pitch! XD) so while I like the idea of seeing the animals at night, the reality isn’t as good for me. However I did have some more success on the Tasmanian Devil Trail, and saw some tasmanian devils, these guys have a huge space with lots of different areas to explore – I’ve been lucky enough to see these before at other zoos (albeit during the day). And I also saw some of the Australian animals towards the end of the trail, there were some cute fluffy little guys that I have no idea what they were. I was definitely a bit rushed at the end to make it to my Creatures of the Night show at 8:30PM – this you must book a free reservation for in advance, and I did this at the start of the evening while I was waiting for the trails to open. I got in in the last 5mins before the show started and there were still plenty of good spots, I was maybe 1/3rd back from the front but took a spot with more of a side view. It was still a good view and most of the animals were presented across the whole stage area. I very much enjoyed seeing the binturong, porcupine and fennec fox. After this I headed over to the tram, by this time there was no line at all (unlike before opening when there was a huge line) so I hardly had to wait. With hindsight, I probably should have skipped this and just headed back to the hotel to sleep – I was clearly still jetlagged, and that day had already been at both Singapore Zoo and Bird Paradise, so I was tired, and ended up keeping nodding off during the tram ride! And because it was even darker, I really didn’t see a lot – but I did it because there are some animals you can only see while taking the tram ride, and I did see some elephants, but not good enough of a view to make it worth it.

After this I headed for the exit and caught the bus back to the metro station and took the metro back to the hotel – everything was still very frequent so it didn’t take too long to get back which was great after such a long day.

Overall I would say definitely go if there’s something specific you want to see and focus on seeing that, especially if you already have the multi-park ticket. I’m not sure how much I’d recommend it for kids. I’d say also don’t go with it being the third park of the day, I’m used to long days when I travel, but even I think this was too much to try and squeeze in. I don’t think I would return, but I’m happy to have experienced it.