Starring at Universal Studios Singapore

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After flying out of Vietnam we landed in Singapore and made our way to Sentosa Island. We are staying at the Festive Hotel which is a part of the 'Resorts World' complex. Basically there are 4 hotels, a casino, a theatre, lots of eating establishments and high end shops all in the one place. When I was here about 16 years ago there was none of it. Basically there was the giant Merlion, an old building dedicated to the history of Singapore and a pretty lamme luge. Now it is completly different and is a tourist mecca. It is not yet complete and there is still alot of building going on.

The main idea of staying here is to relax and go to Universal Studios. We settled in on Sunday and took the kids to the theme park yesterday. Universal Studios is the 4th theme park we have been to this holiday after Tivoli (Denmark), Disneyland (Hong Kong) and Vin Pearl (Vietnam). Each of theme has been slightly different been pretty much have common elements. The park opened up at 10am and we made sure that we were there 15 minutes early so we didn't miss a minute.

Our first stop was the Madagascar area. There wasn't much here as they are still completing the main show/ride. We went on the slowest merry-go-round of all time. Alex did score himself a good hat, of Alex the Lion of course, even though it is a bit too big. For some inexplicable reason do not have this particular hat in kids sizes, only adult.

Our next stop was Far, Far Away. This is of course dedicated to the Shrek movies. It was pretty cool. It had a smallish roller coaster and a few live shows. They had a Shrek in 4D show that was brilliant. You had to wear 3D glasses for the movie but it had other things such as your chair moving and spraying water and blowing air. It was by far the best one of these types of shows that we have been to. We also went to a show where Donkey was starring. Alex got picked out of the crowd to talk. He has done this a few times this trip so is pretty good at speaking nice and loud in front of an audience (must get that from his mother).

The next area was the Lost World, dedicated to the movies Water World, Jurassic Park and The Mummy. The live show at Water World was awesome, lots of splashing water, fire works, stunts and boats and jet skis. Alex and Phoebe sat right at the front because they wanted to get soaked during the show. And they did. We went on the Canopy Flyer which went over the Jurassic Park area which ended up being pretty good as Phoebe and I went backwards. Later on we went forwards and it was no where near as much fun. We also went on a boat ride in Jurassic Park. We were warned that we would possible get wet so we put all our gear in a locker. It was a pretty good ride, but as we got towards the end we were feeling a bit ripped off as we really hadn't been bashed around much. However the finally was brilliant. You end the ride by going into a dark tunnel, the boat you are in is lifted up (obviously you think this is the last part of the ride) then out of no where you are catapulted down a ramp and back into the water. Man did we get soaked. Great fun. Phoebe and I then went on the Mummy roller coaster. This was the best ride we went on. The roller coaster went in every direction (the sudden movement backwards for 30m at the start was whiplash inducing) and had great effects and some pretty major heat off the flames in the building. We wanted to go on it a third time but they had some "technical difficulties' which we think meant that someone had a spew on the ride and it was getting cleaned.

We made our way over to the Sci Fi area which is dedicated to the Battle Star Galactica show. This ride was the most awesome looking double roller coaster and I had been building myself up to riding it ever scince we started planning this trip. So you can understand my utter disappointment at the fact that this ride is not yet fully complete and is not open this week. It will be fully operational next week. Of course I think it is all a plot to ensure that my holiday is destroyed (damn those Cylons) but Jo assures me that it is probably better for the powers that be to ensure the ride is safe and ready to go instead of risking certain death of our car flying off at massive spead and height. I am now looking at her and suspecting that she may actually be one of the lastest generation of Cylons that looks and sounds human but is not and therefore devoid of all emotion. This ride dominated the whole park so for 9 hours I had to look at it with contempt and bile. I am sure it is a ride only suitable for toddlers anyway.

To finish off the day we went into the Hollywood area and looked at how special effects are made in a studio and a Monster Musical. We them grabbed a couple of souvenirs and made our way back to our hotel completely shagged.

So where does it rate out of all the fun parks we have been to this holidays. Pound for pound it is not the best, but it is far from the worst. The other 3 parks were complete and fully operational so Universal is automatically at a disadvantage. I am sure that if all the rides were open we would have had the best time. So the honour of the best fun park actually goes to the 160 year old Tivoli. Basically it had something for everyone no matter how old or young, had an old world charm and yet many modern touches. Universal also didn't have that atmosphere that completely absorbed you and made you believe that you were the most important person in the world (that went to Disneyland). Still I would definately give Universal Studios another crack, maybe one in a different country next time.

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Photos

Entering Universal Studios Singapore
The kids were pretty pumped about getting through the gates. They had been waiting for this day for 13 weeks.

Family reunited
The kids loved the many opportunities to get photos with characters from some of their favourite movies.

Water apparently makes you wet
Both Alex and Phoebe were completely soaked after going on the raft ride in Jurassic Park.

Bloody Cylons
All day I was teased by this ride. I could just feel the machines laughing at my anguish.

Back to the Jungle
Even though the main Madagascar attraction was still being built the kids had a ball.