Swanhunter

I've been 30 odd times.

What I like

* The food
* Everything works
* Changi airport
* The night zoo

What I don't like

* Truly horrid climate - way too humid, no seasons
* The lack of things to do after about 5 visits - how many times can you go to the night zoo
* Overly polished, overly regulated nanny/police state
* Sentosa

I don't ..... and moan if it pops up on my schedule for the next 3 months, but neither would I seek SIN out for a holiday trip. I'd rather stop over in HKG (50+ visits and still enjoy it), BKK (15+ and the same) or NRT on the way to Austrialia, or spend a week or two in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia or Thailand on holiday. All appeal to me more for different reasons.

That said, there are far, far worse places to pass through.

neuf

The airport is definately world class. And the MRT is clean, and efficient. And sterile. Like everything else in Singapore... (except Orchard Road)

Sterile is quite uninteresting, and this is also compounded by the fact that Singapore is small enough that you can conceivably see everything there is to see in Singapore. (Oh, except for shopping malls. Hey, look, they built another shopping mall between two bigger shopping malls so people don't have to go outside to transit! )

uk1

I hate to admit that I haven't been to the night zoo or Sentosa .....

dsgtc0408

That's ok. I haven't been to either in at least 15 years.

theblakefish

Singapore is okay...was my first crack at Asia a few years ago...but hardly a destination. It is like Los Angeles, but more people speak English in Singapore

pilotsnoopy

KL for the casual traveler isn't as easy to check out as Singapore.

Food might be cheaper but better? well you need to know where to look, most of the time not.

I have had to show some friends from Europe looking to set up their regional offices...around KL and Singapore.

They might like KL...but they LOVE Singapore...at least they feel safer...they feel their family will be safer, they can afford to explore on their own be independent...yes Singapore is a more expensive city compared to KL but cost effectiveness?happiness?

to get to good food they need not worry about getting accosted/raped by errant taxi drivers in Singapore unlike in KL...to get to destinations in the region they get more flights both better and cheaper out of Changi than KLIA.

pilotsnoopy

lol... +1

and the thing with malls in Singapore...they pratically have the same tenant mix all around...you don't get a unique mix of shops...and this retail experience...Hong Kong wins hands down...

quarryking

Guess SIN works differently for different folks. Ended up doing 5 trips to SIN in 2009 (not counting flights transiting thru SIN).

Eating out can be super-cheap if one sticks to the food courts that are there pretty much all over the city. And if one wants to further save on local travel, can skip the taxi and take the bus or MRT, and it works out even cheaper...

Malaysia & Thailand could work out much cheaper than SIN, but really depends on what one's looking for..

irongloves

STAY AWAY FROM SINGAPORE DURING HOLIDAYS SEASONS!

We had the idea of passing 3 days during Christmas. It was so full of "bipeds" you couldn't even go around in tourist areas.

Malls, Sentosa, Sentosa Marine park (the worst, maybe 1 million people crawling) made up for a perfect s*hitty Xmas.

Just to mention the Sentosa Marine park (i don't remember the real name of the park, neither i wish to know at this point), there was a total lack of organization (do the Italians manage it?) and no staff or personnel was available around even just to ask where the waiting line for the tickets was starting.

It looked like all the world was there....and by the way, yes, Singapore is expensive. Prices for food are high. I cannot complain for the hotels, as the price is ok considering the offer and "request".

I'm comparing SG with HK. I know HK has dirtier streets and the knowledge of English is "so-so", but on the other points SG is not gonna win. Not even in 100 years!

HawaiiO

Singapore during holiday season can be quite crowded.

Food however is really cheap.
The best food are found at food courts and local food stores.

Public transport cost is ok...taxis can get expensive if that's all you use.
The MRT/Bus system work really well too and those are quite cheap.

HK/BKK has better shopping I think and different kinds of food.
However, I prefer SIN for the food.

10millionmiler

Seriously, for a change of pace, we visited SIN for an exotic, but not too exotic family holiday that my 91 year old New England mom could enjoy and found ourselves there mid-February during the Chinese New Year and just about everything, shopping, museums, even most restaurants were closed tight as a drum, with the opposite of your Christmas experience, no cars on the roads at all, almost a ghost town, but all of the beautifully illuminated downtown buildings and empty streets made for great photos and easy getting around on the MRT.
Not that we would have booked it on purpose, the Singapore Air trip advisor said there would be great shopping, but forgot to tell us the holiday schedule!

Even so as cities go it is a great town, best perhaps beyond the Botanical Garden and the Zoo already mentioned, is the Straits-born cuisine, harder and harder to find, but still available along the Singapore River quays, best a block away from the now so gentrified docksides.

And if you get a chance to make friends with the locals, they really know the best places, but you really need a car. Folks here say SIN is small, but really it is built up, to me it is vast and nearly endless once you venture into the neighborhoods where the majority of folks live with, for example, some of the best overseas Indian food anywhere, found served on banana leaves in tucked away hole-in-the-wall style eateries, all adhering to the strict local health codes.

The city has a flair and though it may not be the best city in the world for tourism, one can easily see that it is among the most livable cities and with KL and the Malaysia highlands just outside of town, there's plenty for everyone within a stone's throw -- not to mention that plane fares from there in every direction from India to Manila and beyond are among the most reasonable, like BKK for exploring Asia.

There's no doubt that from the cross-section provided by this Thread, one gets a pretty solid accurate view of SIN as it appeals to different traveler's tastes and interests. Finest kind!

jpatokal

Meh.

I've been watching this thread for a while now, started a reply a couple of times, and then gave up halfway through. Third time's the charm?

So, I lived in Singapore for seven years and even wrote a book about the place. As a society, it's a hell of lot more complex -- in both good and bad ways -- than you'd think from a stroll down Orchard Road or Sentosa, and after those seven years I still left with an list of places I never had a chance of visit. Now, are you going to find the restaurant in the middle of a jungle with its own organic farm, the Burmese temple of the LED-haloed technicolor Buddha or the dumpling shop with cheap San Miguel, rowdy sailors and the Thai ladyboys who love them from the Singapore Tourism Board's brochures? No, but they're still there, just a few bits making up Singapore's complex palette.

And believe it or not, having lived in the US and Europe and having recently moved to Australia, I find myself missing the freewheeling spirit of Singapore when dealing with government bureaucracy or faceless corporate behemoths tangled in oodles of red tape.

Here's a simple example: renting a house. In Singapore, you tell an agent what you want, they take you around in their own car until you find a place you like, you give the landlord a deposit, the agent their commission and you're done. In Melbourne, agents are not permitted to drive clients (insurance liability), may not charge them commission (thus effectively legislating that they serve purely the landlord's interests) and, since the law is tilted so far in the tenant's favor, convincing the landlord to allow you in requires providing reams of personal data -- so what was a one-day exercise in Singapore took us the better part of four weeks. And it's the same for credit cards, bank accounts, visas, internet access, yadda yadda.

And as for the climate, I grew up in a country where the mercury regularly hits -35 C in the winter, and with the Australian winter creeping up, I'm already starting to wistfully reminisce about a city-state where I could wear T-shirts all year long.

To each his own... but if you really find Singapore sterile, boring and uninteresting on every visit, I humbly suggest you try a little harder next time. This forum is not a bad place to find suggestions

eltonang

12345

Sachdev

Lets compare Singapore with Dubai,same type of weather,tight controls,expensive,artifical tourist sites,stripped down cultural shows convienently packaged for dumb tourist.
Thats why they call it instant Asia

uk1

Let's compare it with the Balls Pond Road as well. Makes as much sense as comparing it with Dubai.

Balls Pond Road has great donner kebabs which I haven't seen in Singapore. I guess that makes Balls Pond Road a better destination. Let's compare cheesecake with Firestone tyres. My car runs better on Firestone. I guess that makes Firestone tyres better than cheesecake. Just as much sense.

Who'se "they"? You?

Not really clear about your point ..... but I guess that it must be something along the lines that Singapore isn't as good (in your view) as some other place that you haven't mentioned?

No probs! You're welcome ....

The welcome I receive every time I visit justified an effort ...... and the food ......