Kiwi Flyer

I wouldnt do it. Very little time to do or see anything. There's a very good chance you will delay your onward flight due to late boarding, thus inconveniencing fellow pax; or may even get bumped from the onward flight as a no show.

roberto99

By cutting things close you risk losing your seat on your next flight due to late gate arrival. And remember that security must occur at the outgoing gate.

About the only thing that is really safe on this connection is entering the country and then leaving it just to collect 2 new passport stamps.

WildRice

I think OP would have already done this... seeing that he posted this message on Mar26th and a month from then would have been late April?

Then again.. back to the OP's original intention... it's kinda dumb for me to see that people want to 'see' Singapore in 2/5 hours? See what? See that we don't live in coconut trees or wear grass skirts? Sometimes a lot can b learned just by staying at the airport. Especially Changi Airport.

dordal

Well, the trip is over now... I suppose I should report on how it went.

So I was flying through SIN twice, with a 2 hr layover the first time and a 2.5 hr layover the second time. First time through I decided to do a 'dry run'... go through immigration, figure out where the taxi stand was, etc. That went fine, except for the fact that the departure control wouldn't let me through when I got back... I had a boarding pass from London to Sydney, and Singapore wasn't a stop! BA couldn't print another boarding pass because I had already checked in, so they got someone to escort me to the gate (and gave me a stern lecture about how I should have stayed in the transit area)

Second time through I made sure to get two boarding passes, and off I went. It was about 11pm at night, so no trouble getting a cab and no trouble with traffic. My cab driver was really great... he barely spoke english, but was SO excited to be showing somebody his city (rather than just driving point to point) that he talked non-stop. I only understood about a third of it, but thats OK. :-)

All in all, a great two-hour stop. MUCH better than sitting in the lounge.

D

MovieMan

I'm glad to hear you were able to manage it and enjoyed your mini-visit! Where did the driver take you?

I think now you should plan on a longer trip to really get to know the city. So maybe 4 hours next time?

dordal

We basically made a loop through downtown... past some big shopping/office complex with five(?) identical buildings, down past the container terminal, up past the signapore river, into a shopping/nightclub area of some sort, past the Raffles hotel, past the governers (?) mansion, through another shopping/nightclub area, and back out to the airport. I'm sure some of you natives can fill me in on what all those things were called. :-)

jpatokal

Not quite a native, but I'll guess anyway:

"big complex with five buildings" = Suntec City
"into a shopping/nightclub area of some sort" = presumably Orchard Road or the Bridge Rds around City Hall MRT?
"governer's mansion" = Old Parliament House?
"another shopping/nightclub area" = err... Financial District?

Jim1542

I don't know how you could possibly expect to "see" Singapore with only two hours. At best it will take 10-15 minutes to reach customs and clear it. Then another 20-30 minutes to get a cab and get somewhere downtown. Of course, it will also take 20-30 minutes to get back to the airport and then you have to check in, go through security and get to your flight. It sounds to me like that will eat up about an hour and a half so the most you could possibly have in town is 30 minutes. Singapore is not a city to be visited in 30 minutes.

Sorry, no way you can do it in two hours.

awtravel

It took us about 20 minutes to stand in line to clear the custom.

MovieMan

You mean immigration rather than customs, right? Either way, seems like quite a bit longer than average. I rarely have to stand in line at immigration for longer than 5 minutes, and almost always just walk through the door after collecting my baggage. YMMV.

manar

Chiangi rocks. I've been on a plane that hit tarmac at 1.15pm and been 10 minutes early to a 2pm class way past downtown (Holland Village).

For a late night stop-overs (no traffic = predictable return journey time) with no previous or likely trip into Singapore I think I would have done the same as the OP. Worst case I'd be telling the taxi driver to turn around without having seen much and it's not like taxis in singapore are expensive.

Nevsky

Well it just makes me excited for my two day/two hotel (Ritz-Carlton and Marina Mandarin) stay next week. Round-trip on the nonstop from Newark.

UncleDude

What always amazes me with Changi is that no matter how far away from the Main Terminal you arrive, the Priority Bags are off the aircraft and on the Carousel in 15 minutes, not occasionally but every time. ^