Today was a much shorter port day in Singapore as we had a 3pm on board time. The plan for the day was to visit the Rooftop viewing area of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. We reached the Hotel using the subway for $3.20SING RT. We took a blue subway train to Chinatown and transferred to the purple line to the Bayfront station. (The Singapore subway system is thoroughly modern, clean and neat and well signed. There's a multi day tourist pass, but we elected to purchase simple RT tickets.) That viewing area is shaped like the hull of a ship and it's perched 57 stories in the air. It costs $20SING per person for over 65, $23SING otherwise. Unless you are a guest in the hotel, you are restricted to the bow viewing area, but there's more than enough viewing area there. They tried to sell us $50SING pictures taken at the entryway, but we felt that was embarrassingly expensive.
From the tower we made our way to the Gardens of the Bay with is a park area with various themes. We did pay to do a skywalk between some of the 'trees'. Those trees are actually disguised ventilation shafts and they are very well done.
We made it back to the Cruise terminal (probably the nicest we've seen in all the world), bought some more soda pop (way cheaper than on the ship), cleared immigration, and walked the long approach hallways, before once again surrendering our passports to HAL personnel, and reboarded the ship. Since we are "in transit" guests, we didn't have to participate in the muster drill and were able to shower and make our way to the Crow's Nest for primo seats for the sail away.
While the ship was scheduled for a 4pm sail away, there were 40 some guests who didn't turn in their passports and then the Captain announced there were guests in the terminal that needed to board. The new departure time is 4:45pm or 15 minutes from when I am writing this.
The evening schedule is for a re-showing of the movie, That's the Way I Like It, plus another performance of the cast show, Listen to the Music, at 9:30pm.
I'll end this now for today, but leave you with the following. Singapore is a wonderful city to visit and tour. It's clean, neat, and safe. There's more than enough to satisfy anyone's interests. The Harborfront Cruise terminal is huge plus the Vivo City Shopping mall is next door. There's an MRT station here.
Tomorrow is a sea day and I'm hosting a Cruise Critic Meet & Greet. Stay tuned for more cruise reports as we venture into SE Asia on our way to Hong Kong.
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