In the blog family-friendly tips Singapore, we give all kinds of information and tips following our city trip to this city with our daughter. Singapore is a place, for many travelers, where they make a stopover on their way to other Asian destinations. For us, Singapore was the stopover on our world trip from the Maldives to New Zealand and since we were curious about this smallest country in Asia, we stayed there for a week with our family. Below, we provide the necessary family-friendly tips for visiting Singapore with the family.
Family-friendly tips Singapore
Family-friendly tips Singapore: Singapore airport
The MRT train departs from Changi Airport MRT station, which is located below Terminal 2 and 3. Trains run from 5:30 a.m. to midnight, and the ride takes about 27 minutes. The cost of this ride is very low, about $2 per person, with kids under 7 being free.
There is also an airport shuttle service that connects the airport, the city center and most hotels in Singapore. Buses leave when all seats are occupied, or every 15-30 minutes. The price is about SGD 9 per adult and SGD 6 per kid.
Cabs to downtown Singapore are available outside at the arrival halls of both terminals. The fare to the city center is about SGD 20 (about €13) to SGD 50 (€32) with a travel time of about 30 minutes. Bookings can be made at the airport shuttle counters.
By the way, Singapore’s airport is beautiful and there is plenty to do at the airport for families with kids as well. Therefore, being at the airport earlier is definitely not a punishment. Take a look online for more information about the Singapore airport.
Family-friendly tips Singapore: transportation
The metro in Singapore is cheap and super well organized. We therefore mainly used the subway system in Singapore. A ride costs about 1.5 euros each way, and you can get to most places in the city by subway.
In addition, the subways run on a regular basis, so you never have to wait long for the next subway. Since everything is clearly displayed in English, you won’t easily get off at the wrong stop or take the wrong subway. For kids under 7, the subway is free! So our daughter traveled for free on the subway in Singapore.
Family-friendly tips Singapore: accommodation
Since Singapore is not a cheap country, hotel prices are a lot higher than in other Asian countries. Under 50 euros a night, you will find virtually no hotel rooms for your family here. Because everything is easily accessible by subway and most neighborhoods are safe, it doesn’t matter so much which neighborhood you have your hotel in, as long as it is near a subway station. That in turn ensures that the choice is greater.
We ourselves were in the Robinson Condo apartment in the Central business district of the city and had a fantastic view of the city from our room. This apartment had a full kitchen, balcony and private bathroom and was 100 meters away from Lau Pa Sat, the food court, where we had a great outdoor meal every night at the various international joints.
There were several metro stations here just a few minutes’ walk from this apartment. In addition, you could use the facilities of the building and that meant we had an outdoor pool on two different floors with a beautiful view of the city.
Unfortunately, this apartment is currently no longer offered through booking.com (where we had booked the apartment), but be sure to check the list of accommodations in Singapore for a similar apartment with outdoor pool.
If you have a slightly smaller budget, you can have an excellent room between 50 and 100 euros. Check websites such as booking.com to see what the ratings are for certain rooms and if there are enough reviews.
If a hotel has already had more than 100 reviews and those reviews are good, then at least you already have a bit more of an indication of whether the hotel is something. A great option in this price range in Singapore, is the Wink Capsule Hostel@Chinatown.
Surely the most famous hotel in Singapore is the Marina Bay Sands and we hesitated for a long time to book at least 1 night at this hotel. This hotel was really on our bucket list to stay there once.
The hotel has a swimming pool with fantastic views of Singapore. Unfortunately, the price at the time was a little too high for our world trip, since we were traveling for 6 months. Had we visited Singapore on a shorter trip, we definitely would have wanted to experience the luxury of this hotel.
Family-friendly tips Singapore: activities
There is a huge amount to do in Singapore for families with kids. You can easily spend two weeks entertaining your kids with activities. Check out the blog Singapore with kids, where we list all the city’s children’s activities.
We also wrote a blog about all the free activities in Singapore. In fact, there are plenty of those too and in this blog we give many tips about the city. Finally, we wrote a blog about the city with 10 reasons for a family-friendly city break to Singapore. In it, we also give a lot of information and tips on when to take a family-friendly city break to Singapore.
Family-friendly tips Singapore: food and drink
Like most world cities, the food choices in Singapore are vast. Most shopping malls have a food court with the well-known fast food chains, and downtown Singapore has many so-called Hawker Centers. This is also a kind of food court, but mainly with Asian cuisine. Lau Pa Sat, which we described above in this blog is highly recommended and here you can eat delicious food for a low price.
Even in the expensive neighborhoods around Marina Bay Sands, you can eat for little money (Makansutra Glutton’s Bay, overlooking Marina Bay. Ideal if you’re going to see the light shows at Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by the Bay afterwards). Chinatown, Little India and the Arabian neighborhood of Kampong Glam are also great places to eat for little money with the family.
