Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 3 - Universal Studios

[Gavin]

It was Chinese New Year just recently, and I decided that the last place I wanted to be for it was Asia. The original plan was just to go to Australia, but since the cheapest flights were via Singapore, I decided to stop over for a couple of nights. I’d been before, about 6 years ago, but it was back before Universal Studios opened.

My flight got in quite early, but since it was a Sunday, I decided to leave the park for another time. Instead, I just dumped bags at the hotel (with rooms available to rent in two hour “transit” slots) in the delightful Geylang district. I’d stayed around there before, so it was fine. It’s certainly a more “gritty” area of the city that most people don’t get to see though. It’s not at all dangerous, given that in Singapore they execute you for farting too loudly, but it could come across that way if you’re not expecting it.

Daytime Hooker: Hi handsome, are you looking for fun?
Me: No thanks.
Daytime Hooker: Aw, you don’t think I’m beautiful?
Me: You’re very pretty, don’t worry, but I’m gay.
Daytime Hooker: That’s ok; I’ve still got my penis.

Anyway, it’s cheap (for Singapore) and still really close to the main sights, so I took a quick MRT ride a couple of stops and had a wander around the old colonial area. I’d been before, but it was still nice to just have a wander around looking at what we used to own

I grabbed lunch in a restaurant at the Fountain of Wealth, formally listed as the “world’s biggest fountain”. Personally, I think it should hold the record for the ugliest.

From here, it’s a quick walk over to the CBD/Quays/Waterfront area. This was all the same as last time I’d been here.

The Merlion is the symbol of the city/country:

The area across from here was completely different to the last time I’d been. The Singapore Flyer was completed but still a few days away from opening, and the whole Marina Bay Sands (the triple-towered hotel thing with the boat on top) complex didn’t exist at all.

I walked over to the Flyer since I was getting a bus from there the following morning. I was there anyway so thought it would be a good idea to check that I had the right place for the bus. It turns out it’s all very obvious and easier than Taylor Swift after a bottle of wine. There’s a huge floating stage in the bay that they were setting up for some New Year stuff. Right behind the Marina Bay Sands is a huge botanical garden, Gardens by the Bay, also completely new and featuring the Supertree Grove.

As it’s the tallest operating ferris wheel in the world (about 100 feet taller than the London Eye) – at least until later this month when it will be dwarfed by the new one in Las Vegas which stands a whole 9 feet taller - and I haven’t been on the London Eye, I thought I’d give the Singapore Flyer a go.

The area around the base is really nice, with an artificial “rainforest” and a load of shops and restaurants. The wheel itself is pretty ugly; I think it’s the shape of the capsules. I was there anywhere though, and it was quiet, which meant that I got a capsule to myself.

It wasn’t late, and I thought about hanging around to see the area at night, but I was knackered (literally zero sleep due to flight times) and knew that I’d be getting off the bus at the same spot the following evening anyway, so I just headed back to the hotel, playing dodge the hooker on the surrounding streets on the way, and crashed out.

I’m aware there are no actual parks in here yet. I was going to carry straight on, but I’m finishing “work” in fifteen minutes and want to get home.

Next up: Legoland Malaysia.

 

[Darren B]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 1 - Singapore Stuf

You didn't finish your story. But my presumption was that it ended like this...

Daytime Hooker: Hi handsome, are you looking for fun?
Me: No thanks.
Daytime Hooker: Aw, you don’t think I’m beautiful?
Me: You’re very pretty, don’t worry, but I’m gay.
Daytime Hooker: That’s ok; I’ve still got my penis.
Me: Go on then love; here's a tenner, get your mouth around this. YOLO

 

[peep]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 1 - Singapore Stuf

Nice start to the trip report. I love the style of Singapore, it's very high on my 'places to go' list and I don't think I'll tire of seeing pictures from the place.

Looking forward to seeing what you think of Universal.

 

[Jordanovichy]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 1 - Singapore Stuf

My grandma and grandad randomly went to Singapore 12 years ago. They absolutely loved it, said it was the cleanest place they have ever been and they felt so safe.

 

[TilenB]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 1 - Singapore Stuf

Oh, Singapore, it is a really interesting place...
I've been there some 11 years ago, back when I was 6. I remember practically nothing, but the sheer size of the city has really put a big impression on me. But the whole city has really changed in this time (Universal Studios, Singapore Flyer, etc.), so I'd really love to go back some time
And, as always, great Trip Report so far!

 

[PeskyTrimBrake]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 1 - Singapore Stuf

I saw the top of the towers in a picture and I though it didn't exist! :shock:

 

[insanecoastervids]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 1 - Singapore Stuf

Excited to hear the rest of the report.

 

[Gavin]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 1 - Singapore Stuf

Legoland Malaysia

I’d already booked combination bus and park tickets online before I went to Singapore; the whole thing was simpler than Susan Boyle’s primary school Maths book. There’s a small bus station right at the base of the Singapore Flyer, with the travel agent that organises the trips right in front of it. It took about an hour to get to the park, including the border crossing.

Merlin have actually been pretty smart with how they’ve located the park. It’s basically just across the Singapore/Malaysia border, meaning that they’re paying Malaysian land/construction/staffing costs, while still getting the Singaporean local and visitor customer base. For all intents and purposes, it’s a Singapore park really.

Despite it being quick and easy, it’s still a bit of an annoyance having to get stamped out of Singapore, into Malaysia, then out of Malaysia and back into Singapore again on the way back. A one day visit to a Muslim country just looks dodgy on passports, especially to moronic immigration officials who just don’t understand that people actually do travel alone without the intention of blowing up a plane. I’m looking at you, Israel.

The bus makes a quick drop off at the hotel entrance first, and then drives around to the back of the hotel and park entrance. This was the first Legoland I’d been to, and I was actually pretty impressed.

I headed straight for the first coaster I saw, a Mack Wild Mouse that is basically in all the Legoland parks from what I can gather. It was closed until later in the day though.

I didn’t ride the stupid water thing, but I had a go shooting kids in the face from the sidelines.

The biggest (still very small) area was Lego Kingdoms, themed to Olde Englande. Again, I don’t know first hand, but a quick look on RCDB suggests that this is another common theme at the Legoland Parks.

I rode the smaller of the coasters first, Dragon’s Apprentice. Although it’s got the same name as the UK park, it’s a different model – the same as the “Grover” coasters at the Busch parks. It’s decent for a kiddy ride – there’s actually a little pop of airtime in the back row – and looks really nice.

The coaster directly behind is Dragon, again with the same name and theme as the UK park, but a completely different coaster. This one is a clone of the one at the German park, and I was surprised at how big it was. The station area looks great.

It starts off as a pretty decent dark ride through a medieval castle, with a surprising little drop at the end that leads outside and onto the lift hill.

I actually really liked this coaster. It’s a lot bigger than something I expected to see at a kiddy park, and the dark ride element was very good. I’ll just shove a few random pictures of other stuff in here.

I don’t often bother with 3D/4D/5D/6D shows, but the park was dead and I had hours to kill before I could get the bus back to Singapore.

I don’t know about the other parks, but this one had four different films on constant rotation. I watched Clutch Powers, which was actually really good, and Spellbreaker, which was **** ing gash.

Next to the 4D cinema was the observation tower, with nothing to actually observe other than Legoland since it’s basically stuck by itself with nothing around it.

Miniland had a pretty much 100% Asian focus.

Laos:

Cambodia:

Thailand:

India:

China:

Kuala Lumpur:

Singapore:

A galaxy far, far away:

I’m sure you’re all fascinated to hear about lunch. The food at the park was really, really cheap. I took the equivalent of a tenner out of the cash machine at the front of the park at the start of the day – they accepted Singapore dollars, but gave change back in ringgits and I only had large bills – figuring that this would get me a typical theme park meal. A fast-food meal only actually cost about £2.50 though. The food was s**te, admittedly

The shooting dark ride, which I think is cloned at most/all of the parks was ok. It was really nothing special, but it looked nice from the outside.

The water ride was also decent. I ended up getting completely drenched down one side though, which I didn’t much enjoy.

Project X, the wild mouse, had been open for a while by this point; it was absolute turd. Since it was dead, the ride ops asked if we wanted to go again. I definitely didn’t, but the kid sitting next to me (parent and other kid sitting behind) was fairly insistent. Fine.

I still had time to kill, so ate more cheap food, re-rode Dragon a couple more times and had a look around the shop – apparently the biggest Lego shop in Asia – not buying anything because I’m not 12.

The park was better than I expected really, and was such an easy day trip from Singapore. Obviously, I’m not the target audience, so I’d done everything I wanted to do in a really short amount of time. For families it would be different though. The waterpark has recently opened as well, so including that it’s definitely a full-day/weekend place for families with young kids.

I got back to Singapore and did some nighttime stuff, which I haven’t uploaded any pictures of yet, so you’ve got that to look forward to next time, you lucky bastards.

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 2 - Legoland Malay

Legoland Malaysia looks a lot more impressive than Legoland Winsor! Another great report.

 

[Gavin]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 2 - Legoland Malay

Day 2 Part 2: Faffing About

I’m shocked that my amazing Legoland report didn’t get more of a response given that most of you arseholes have at least been to the one in Windsor a million times. so would have something to compare it to. Have some more general Singapore stuff before I get onto Universal Studios later.

I’d already decided that after I got back from Legoland I was going to have a walk over to the Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by the Bay. The Helix Bridge goes from pretty much next to the Singapore Flyer directly across to Marina Bay Sands.

The weird looking white building is an art museum, but I never went in.

Instead, I headed up to the observation deck of the Marina Bay Sands, which is on the front end of the boat thing that sits on top of the towers. The views from there are much better than from the Singapore Flyer. It’s cheaper as well and you can stay up there as long as you want.

You can also get a bit of a look at the hotel’s swimming pool. You can’t actually access it unless you’re a hotel guest, obviously, but it looks amazing.

The Helix Bridge is fab.

Since there wasn’t long to wait, I just grabbed as beer and hung around until it got dark.

Supertree Grove was due to have a light show as soon as it went dark, which I thought I might miss. It turns out that there a two shows an hour apart, so I didn’t have to rush back down.

I didn’t realise that their was another light/laser show that happened from where I was standing. It’s clearly meant to be viwed from the other side of the water, and there were a bunch of tourist boats that had taken people out onto the water. It looked like it could have been pretty impressive, with those water/mist projection screens and stuff.

Back down at Helix Bridge:

Supertree Grove was really cool. The walkway suspended between two of the taller trees had just closed, but I made it in time for the second light show. Basically, the trees just change colour with music and sound effects. There were just a handful of people around, and it doesn’t cost anything to get into the area, so it was a nice way to chill out for a bit.

And that was it. I debated going out that night since it was my last night there (well, 2nd of two anyway), but it was already getting pretty late by the time I got back to the hotel. I knew I had a very long couple of days coming up, and it was a Monday night anyway, which I knew from previous experience would be about busy as Lindsey Lohan’s work schedule, so I just had a boring early night.

Next/Final part: Universal Studios Singapore

 

[peep]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 2 - Legoland Malay

Wow, that Legoland miniland is really impressive. I love the Cambodia temple.

The Clutch Powers 4D movie is one of the latest ones and I agree, it's actually decent. The use of effects is well done. I bet the Chima one is excellent, the animation on the TV series is fantastic.

Most of the park looks pretty identical to Windsor. (despite Windsor spiting their Technical cred for the hotel). The Dragons Apprentice looks nice and that coaster model is fun (ridden one of the grovers).

The water ride building looks incredible too, does anything happen inside?

Yay for more Singapore photos! I can't get enough of it, the architecture of it all just amazes me. The fake tree place was on Click a couple of months ago (technology news show made by the BBC) because they're trialling some sort of new internet coverage system which is meant to be far superior than 4G. Didn't know it had a light show but totally makes sense.

 

[Jordanovichy]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 2 - Legoland Malay

I have to disagree with Daniel. Legoland Windsor and Legoland Malaysia actually seem pretty generic. It seems there are a couple more spectacular lego features in Malaysia, but it really stops there, I am quite surprised there aren't bigger differences actually.

Another thing I would add would be the Legoland miniland in Malaysia does have a lot more, as you said Gavin, things that people in that area of the world would recognise like Legoland Windsor has a lot of things European (and North American to be honest) based.

I wanted to ask how many of those 'supergrove trees' are there? And do they serve any purpose other than to 'look nice'. Looks like a lot of time/effort/money spent on a light show

 

[Gavin]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 2 - Legoland Malay

^^ There are a few aninamatronic figures in the inside bit before the drop, but it's nothing spectacular.

^ I did count them, but can't remember now. They have solar panels and catch rainwater, and the biggest one has a bar/restaurant at the top of it.

 

[Gavin]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 2 - Legoland Malay

Universal Studios Singapore

I had a flight out of Singapore to Australia (next trip report) at about 10:30pm, meaning that I still had a full day left in Singapore. I left my bags at the hotel, contemplated using public transport to get to the park and just opted for a taxi instead (It’s public, and it’s transport dahling!), which only took about 15 minutes and cost about £6 anyway.

Universal is just one part of a much bigger resort, Sentosa Island, which includes hotels, casinos, shows, the world’s biggest aquarium and a bunch of other stuff. I wouldn’t mind heading back at some point and spending a bit more time trying out the other stuff, but for this trip, my main focus was Universal Studios. I feel I should now post this obligatory shot.

At the ticket gate, they made it very clear that Battlestar Galactica wasn’t open. There were signs up, but the people selling the tickets also pointed it out on the map and made it even clearer. I knew this anyway, since you can’t even click on it on the park’s interactive map on their website at the moment. It’s also not labelled on the printed maps at the park; it’s on the map as a point of reference, but has been greyed out with no information about it. Rather annoyingly; it’s pretty much the first thing you see after you get through the entrance area.

When I left the park, I called into guest services and played the dumb tourist to see if I could get any information out of them. I asked if it would be open by August since I might be coming back to Singapore with my family, and was given a number to call closer to the time since they “couldn’t promise anything”. All they would say that was wrong with it was “technical difficulties”, but everything really points to this ride being down for quite a long time (it’s been down 6 months already). I’ll stick some other pictures up of it, and then we will never speak of it again.

The various lands are arranged around a lake, and I headed around anti-clockwise starting with the New York area, which was very well-themed, as to be expected, with some extra Chinese lanterns for New Year. I’ll just point out that I took the pictures at various points throughout the day as I moved around a lot between the areas for rerides. I’ll write about it in a way that makes a bit more sense than jumping back and to though.

The first thing I tried out was Lights, Camera, Action, which was one of those special effects shows where you stand in a room and s**t happens.

I think Singapore is the only park to have this at the moment, but it’s basically a different take on the Backdraft/Twister shows at the other parks, set in a New York boathouse during a storm and ending with a huge ship crashing through the wall. Sorry for the spoiler, but let’s face it you’re not going anytime soon, not when Thorpe has Angry Birds this year.

I wasn’t going to bother with this show, but later in the day I had time to kill and was in the area.

It was crap. I just don’t get the whole point of having a huge, fully-functioning, Broadway/West End style theatre for a crappy 20 minute show. It was full though, which was quite an achievement given how quiet the park was.

The other attraction in this area, which just opened last year I think, was Sesame Street Spaghetti Space Chase.

It was decent for a kids’ dark ride. It’s one of those suspended rides - like the old ET I guess, but with video screens in the vehicles - which starts by going down Sesame Street and then “taking off” into space to retrieve the Earth’s spaghetti, which has been stolen. It makes about as much sense as Katie Price’s book sales, but it was a cute ride.

Around the corner from New York was the sci-fi themed area containing that-which-shall-remain-unspoken-about, some futuristic-themed Tea Cups and Transformers: The Ride, which originated at this park before being rolled out to the two in the USA.

The park was quiet, and I didn’t see the line go above 20 minutes all day. However, there’s also a single rider line, meaning I waited approximately 0 minutes for each of the five rides I had on it. I rode it twice in a row at first, felt a bit nauseous afterwards, and came back to it a few times later in the day.

It’s a stunning ride, but I have to say that I preferred Spiderman. It could be that Spiderman just blew me away based on having ridden nothing like it before and I’d have to re-ride to form a proper opinion, but I just didn’t enjoy Transformers as much, despite recognising it as an amazing ride. It could also be that I have about as much interest in Transformers as the average Jeremy Kyle guest has in visiting the dentist I suppose. I’m just confused as to why the US parks would install both rides, given the enormous price tag and the fact that they’re so similar. Please feel free to smugly point out all the differences to me since I really, really care.

Next up was the Egyptian area, which was really impressive and home to Revenge of the Mummy.

I haven’t been on any of the other Mummy rides, and they seem to get generally mixed reviews on here, but I really loved it. The opening dark ride section is excellent, and the coaster section after the launch (admittedly not very powerful) is a lot of fun. The little backwards bit was rather pointless though.

Again, there were short to non-existent queues all day, and also with a single rider line, which I realized really wasn’t necessary after the second time around since the station was always pretty much empty, even though they were only loading from one side of a dual-platform.

Some costumed characters started to appear in the afternoon.

^WANT!

Jurassic Park is the next area.

It includes a small suspended coaster, Canopy Flyer, which is basically a “Roller Soaker” but without the water. It was pretty decent for what it was though, and covered pretty much the whole Jurassic Park area. This had a constant 30-minute queue throughout the day, but again there’s a single rider queue, meaning I was on straight away.

You get a slightly different experience depending on the direction of travel, and since my reride had me facing forwards again (no choice in seating given single rider), I had to go a third time to finally get a backwards ride.

The major ride in the area is the Jurassic Park rapids ride.

I’d been really looking forward to this, as I’m a bit of a sucker for originality within chain parks, and I thought it was great that Singapore went with something different here. It was crap though. The animatronics are not even close to being as good to the ones on the Jurassic Park ride in Osaka, which I’m assuming is a clone of the others. It was one of those annoying rapids rides that just lets stupid amounts of water into the bottom of the boat, soaking nothing but your shoes, and the drop at the end was s**te.

I gave it a second go in case I’d maybe missed something, but I still didn’t rate it. Don’t get me wrong, compared to 99% of other themed water rides, it’s great, but it’s not a patch on the original Jurassic Park boat ride, which I still think is probably my favourite water ride out there.

I ate lunch in this area, which consisted of a “jumbo” hotdog, which was about the size of a midget toddler’s cock, and a handful of french fries that were limper than John Travolta at Hooters.

I didn’t bother with Waterworld which was right next door. I’m assuming it’s identical to the other versions.

Far Far Away is the next land, and it looks really impressive.

There’s a Vekoma roller skater here called Enchanted Airways, themed to the dragon from Shrek.

There were some nice touches around the ride, including the “ticket counter” as you enter the station.

The area had underpaid migrant workers in Shrek character outfits dragged out every now and then.

Fairy Godmother’s shop had a cute little ferris wheel at the back of it.

They have Shrek’s swamp, which either doesn’t do anything or was broken – you can walk right up to the toilet door, and it seems like something should happen, but it didn’t.

I watched the Donkey Live show and wished I hadn’t wasted half an hour of my life.

It’s one of those Stitch Encounter/Turtle Talk “attractions”, only this one was even more **** ing dreadful than normal. To be fair to the guy doing the voice, he had it down perfectly, but it was just awful, trying to get people to dance along and stuff. When your audience consists of 85% disdainful Europeans, good luck with that.

The biggest disappointment though was that the enormous castle was home to this:

I just didn’t get it at all. The park is so full of unique attractions, and they just go and shove a copy and paste 4D film as the main attraction of a really major land. This one had a fairly decent pre-show, which I don’t remember the one in Japan having, but it was still just a **** 4D cinema.

At the end of the street, there’s a dead end with an announcement of something new being built.

I’d noticed the construction site from the lifthill of Canopy Flyers – you only really notice it if you’re going up the hill backwards – so I did a reride on that later on to snap this amazing construction picture:

It’s quite a big area, and rumours seem to be pointing towards a Despicable Me area with Minions Mayhem as the main attraction.

The final area, or first depending on which way you go around the lake, is Madagascar.

The major ride here is a boat ride, again unique to the park, called Madagascar: A Crate Adventure, which is housed in the base of the huge ship structure.

I haven’t seen Madagascar, but I still thought this was brilliant. It’s partly models, partly animatronics and partly enormous projection screens. There are no drops or anything remotely thrilling, but I still thought it was excellent.

And that’s pretty much everything covered. Like I said earlier, I did a quick circuit to start with, riding everything I wanted to, with a couple of instant rerides, and then just had a random wander around re-riding stuff.

Overall it’s an odd park really. It’s a great place with a lot of unique/see-it-here-first attractions, but it feels somehow incomplete with its signature ride just blatantly sitting there, but taken off the map, with no visible work being done to it. Far, Far Away is also a horrendously wasted opportunity. It looks amazing, and it would’ve been perfect for a unique attraction, especially given that it’s a unique area to Singapore, but it’s filled with s**te.

Anyway, after spending way more time at the park than I actually needed to, I headed back to the hotel to collect my bags and then onto the airport, where I had way too much time to kill, for my overnight flight to Osstraya.

 

[furie]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 3 - Universal Stud

Well, that's made my morning catching up on the entire report - really, really enjoyed reading it

The scale of Far, Far Away is fantastic - it's a shame it's Shrek and ****

 

[rtotheizzo17]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 3 - Universal Stud

The urban legend I like to retell, originally from one of the managers who opened the park, was they were in such a rush to open the ride, that the clones are literally clones from whatever park they got copied from.

IE: The Mummy building has emergency exit pathways and doors that were carried over from Kongfrontation, and serve no purpose with a coaster in there.

 

[Gavin]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 3 - Universal Stud

^Revenge of the Mummy is pretty much the only clone there anyway, and that only seems to be with the coaster section. Just looking at the facades of the buildings, they're already very different. Then the queuelines are different and even the storyline and effects are different.

So yeah, sorry, but urban legend seems about right on that one.

 

[nadroJ]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 3 - Universal Stud

I still find it weird seeing Universal 'Studios' parks that have stemmed away from the studio style of park from the 90s that consisted of big ugly sound stages with attractions inside. The difference is amazing.

Madagascar ride looks fab, I still don't really get what it does, is it a bit like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Alton but....good? Like, a kind of elaborate dark water ride?

 

[Gavin]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 3 - Universal Stud

^ I think it's a case of the parks in Asia being a combination of "studios" and something more like IOA, rather than an actual studios park.

Yeah, Madagascar is basically a large scale dark water ride. I haven't checked, but pretty sure there are YouTube POVs out there.

 

[peep]

Re: Singapore and Malaysia (kind of): Day 3 - Universal Stud

I was looking forward to your report of the Studios, you didn't disappoint. It's so frustrating that they filled the ridiculously awesome castle with Shrek 4D, it's clearly perfect for a decent dark ride. I've watched a POV of Madagascar (I can find it and post it here if you like?) and it's one of the main reasons I want to visit the park. I loathe Madagascar but the ride looks incredible. All the areas of the park look extremely well designed though and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

But OMFG the Mummy exterior is amazing <3 I don't think I'd seen pics of that before, I have a major soft spot for Egyptian themed areas so the scale of that just amazes me.