Monday – April 6, 2026 – Singapore
Today’s featured photo is of Fiona, Sylvie and Shaun at the Supertree Grove in Gardens By The Bay. We met Fiona and her children while on an excursion from Manila about 3 weeks ago. They had joined the World Cruise to spend time with their husband/dad – the chief engineer of MSC Magnifica. Singapore will be the jumping off point to return to Italy and “normal” life. We enjoyed the time we had to share the cruise with them. Hopefully, they will not encounter travel woes as they return home.
As we pulled into the dock this morning we saw another cruise ship already docked – the Disney Adventure. This is one of the large ships (6,700 passengers, 2,500 crew) on which I have no desire to sail – just too many bodies. We were told the ship began cruises from Singapore in March and Singapore will be its home port.
We boarded our bus and headed off to our first stop – Gardens By The Bay. We took a walking tour of the area. Originally, we were to stop at the Jurassic World The Experience but it was closed for renovation. While at the gardens we saw the supertrees and also had a good view of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. We understand that the supertrees are illuminated at night – wish we could have seen that.
Next stop on our excursion was a river cruise on a bum boat – also known as tongkang. We had a pleasant 40-45 minute cruise in beautiful weather. We were able to see a vibrant waterfront and some of the iconic structures in Singapore. Next to the dock for the bum boats was a thrill ride that we chose not to try. It looked like a slingshot with a couple chairs in the center. Didn’t include a copy of the photo I took in the gallery because each time I look at it I think of the jolt it would have given!
Following the river ride we were off for lunch at the Peach Garden Chinese Restaurant located on the 33rd floor of the OCBC bank building. Our excursion group had a private dining room to ourselves. The view was beautiful and the food was excellent. The lunch began with Peking Duck! We also were given clear soup, Soon Hock fish (also called marble goby), shrimp and pork and many other tasty items. Desert was a combination of mango and pomelo brought to us on dry ice! I enjoyed the lunch and wish all those we had with excursions were as good.
For the conclusion of this excursion we drove to what I would call similar to Orlando, Florida (in the sense it has many entertainment sites in close proximity). Our destination was Singapore Oceanarium and next to it were Universal Studios Singapore, Resort World Sentosa Casino, Dolphin Island and Adventure Cove Waterpark. We were given tickets to the Oceanarium and off we went to view sea life. We spent over an hour and a half walking through the exhibits, some of which were immersive (i.e., walking through a tunnel or against a large wall of an aquarium. One of the specimens I saw that was new for me was the dragon fish – it does look like a water dragon in shape.
We had a time deadline to meet our guide and wanted to do some shopping. We walked around the shops located at the center of the venues listed in the preceding paragraph. What we found were stores like we could visit at home and what we wanted were souvenir shops (of which we found none). As we began to walk to the meeting point, we came across a specialty store that sold chocolate and macaroons. Kelsey had been missing macaroons on this voyage. Last year she got them at afternoon teatime each day at sea. This year there is afternoon tea, but macaroons are not offered. Pierre Herme Singapore offered 19 varieties of macaroons. We purchased a box of 24 and filled it with 1 of each of the 19 varieties and 6 extra raspberry macaroons. There are a couple photos in the gallery of the macaroons for sale and Kelsey’s box of 24. Following the purchase at Pierre Herme we walked to the bus, rode back to the dock, boarded Magnifica and said “Goodbye” to Singapore.
Here you can view the photos from Singapore.