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Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Should you take the kids to Adventure Park Singapore?

We recently had a wonderful family trip to Singapore. If you have just stumbled into this post you can read about our apartment and our thoughts on visiting Universal Studios too.

The kids got to decide the activity for a day, we were lucky enough to meet family in Singapore and to be celebrating a tenth birthday. Miss 10, and the additional four kids aged five to thirteen were keen to visit Adventure Park on Sentosa Island.

Sentosa was a quick $2 bus trip from our apartment, then a very short walk to the park.

The line to get in was small when we arrived at 10am and the lovely person at the ticket booth told us we wouldn't need to worry about the express pass option. At this park, the express ticket only gives you express access on two water slides, for everything else, you need to wait. And wait. And wait.

There are some really great slides at Adventure Park, especially for bigger kids. Miss 8 followed her cousins very quickly up the stairs and they all eventually came flying down the duelling racer slide.

The little pool behind her here is a paddling pool, ideal for toddlers only.

Miss 5 and I paddled in a small pool minding the lounge chairs, but she soon got bored in the paddling pool and we headed to the Rainbow Reef. Thankfully, those years of swimming lessons came in handy. The Rainbow Reef is beautiful. You pop on a life jacket, grab a mask and snorkel, get a 30 second lesson in what to do and swim around a reef filled with stunning fish.

This is a stock photo, not mine.

All was going well until a rather large fishy came a bit too close, and then Miss 5 decided she was not going to be swimming anymore - however, there is no turning back. Once you start, you need to keep going with the flow. (Unless you are drowning of course, there are many people there to watch out for danger). The only way we were going to get through is for me to piggy back her through the reef. Which is fine, but it is hard to swim with a snorkel with a life jacket and a five year old also in a life jacket on your back. My snorkel was filled with water a few times!  Beside this, I loved this reef.

The bigger kids were now lining up for a second water slide turn so Miss 5 and I went into the wave pool. This was also great fun. I put the life jacket on her and we went right to the deep end, with the jacket on she could bob around in the never ending waves and it was really fun. The waves then stop for ten minutes or so and start again, so we headed off to look for another adventure.

The big kids were still in the line for their second water slide.

We headed to the Adventure River. This is a nice option for small kids, but it was really packed. So packed that there were no tubes left for us to ride on. We decided to just float our way along the river, but there are so many people we were mainly walking. A highlight was floating past the Sting Ray pool and seeing all those smiling stingray faces looking at us. You can do a special Sting Ray experience, but that is an additional cost.

We were floating past the bottom of one of the water slides when all of a sudden the big kids came splashing down. They had waited over an hour for a ride on the spiral washout.

Uncle B then took Miss 5, Mr 7 and Miss 10 to the Big Bucket Treehouse for a play and I went back to take my turn looking after the chairs and bags. Seconds later he Uncle B returned with Miss 5 who was deemed too small to play in that area too.

Miss 5 and me doing a little more waiting around, hoping the storm will pass.



And then it rained just a little.

Even though it was still hot, the rides are stopped, everyone is ordered out of the water and you have to wait around until it's time to play again.

Then you line up all over again.

And then there is a storm warning and you are back out of the water again.

We eventually left Adventure Park just after lunch. In three hours the big kids had managed two water slide rides and that is it, the rest of the time they were lining up.

There are dolphins in the area, but this is as close as we got.




We went back to our apartment and played in our pool. We had our own small slide, our own pool stuff and stacks of fun.




Then on our way to have a feast of Japanese food the kids got cleaned up by the little fishies in the fish spa.

Personally, I have no interest in having fish nibble my feet, but the others all enjoyed it.




In conclusion:
Adventure Park is a water slide park that is ideal for big kids. There is not a lot for those that are under 122cm. But, the lines are very very long, we went on a Tuesday which was not considered a busy day and everything just took forever, even lining up for food.  If there is even the slightest chance of rain or thunder storms, it is probably not worth going. If you are heading to Adventure Park, prepare the kids for long lines and take a book, you are likely to get lots of time to read it.






Disclaimer: 
This is not a sponsored post. We travelled to Singapore and all destinations on our own and paid our own way. 









3 comments:

  1. Whenever we're in Singapore we head to the one in Pasir Ris where the locals go. My dad has a membership being a senior citizen and all, he gets "extras" so we get a good discount when we go there. It's called Wild Wild Wet and has a few rides. Not bad but...I get bored easily..the kids had fun though. A tip though? I NEVER go to Sentosa. It's too much like a tourist trap.

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  2. Most excellent post. I am meeting my sister in Singapore next year - between us we will have 4 kids in tow (5, 8, 11 &12 years); the big boys will love this venue. However will need to look at some other activity for group enjoyment. Thanks for the heads up....PS I HATE the queues at those places, I spend my time dreaming of a lovely deckchair by a pool x

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  3. Thanks for sharing, this is good to know as we were thinking of Singapore instead of Bali. I'm thinking maybe the GC is looking better all the time.

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