First thing’s first. Singapore is HOT. The kind of hot that makes exploring with kids a little harder than usual. But if you break your days up with a splash in the pool and plenty of time in the MRT subway system, buses or shopping centres, there are ample opportunities to cool down.

We stayed at the Shangri-La Apartments, which were a more affordable alternative to the Shangri-La Hotel, but you still have access to the Shangri-La facilities (note: you need to be staying for a minimum of 6 nights to stay at the apartments). It is an easy walk to the Orchard Rd precinct (with more shopping centres than you could possibly visit) and nearly every bus you need leaves from the nearby Orchard Rd/Orange Grove Rd bus stop, or you can walk a few minutes further to the Orchard MRT underground train station.

Rather than my usual chronological blog post of what we did each day, I think it will be easier if I list the places we visited/where we ate.

1. Haji Lane / Arab Street district

This is a great place to start. Busy, colourful and lots of places to eat and little shops to stop in. My kids loved visiting the Loka Made store and all of them bought some stickers and Singapore notebooks, which they subsequently used as their journal for the trip. They also have beautiful, frame-worthy postcards, tasteful souvenirs and sell stamps.

2. Little India

We walked from Haji Lane to Little India, but could have caught a bus. It was about a 20 minute walk and by the time we got there we were pretty hot and bothered! But nothing a 7-Eleven stop couldn’t remedy with some cold water and lemon cakes. Little India is full of colourful shophouses and home to the ‘Former House of Tan Teng Niah’… the rainbow house!

3. Maxwell Hawker Centre, Chinatown

The kids voted this their favourite place to eat, and we went back a couple of times. We got Singapore’s signature dish – Hainanese Chicken Rice – and satay chicken sticks as well as Lime Calamansi juice from the lady with the juice stall roughly in the middle of the market (SO refreshing when you’ve been traipsing around in the sweaty heat).

4. Harry Potter World

Somehow I managed to talk the kids out of visiting Universal Studios (was going to cost nearly $500 for the 5 of us and I had read it was okay but can be really long queues and if your kids aren’t huge on big rides there wasn’t a great deal of other stuff). The idea of lining up in that heat was not my ideal day. So we compromised with a visit to Harry Potter World, which is next to Universal Studios and was perfect as it wasn’t too busy and it is all inside undercover and the day we went was raining. It was a great exhibition. Very interactive… you get given a magic end at the start and use it as you go around to activate things.

5. ArtScience Museum

Highly recommend this museum (the white flower shaped one) near Marina Bay Sands shopping centre on the river. In fact, the kids agreed that this was better than Harry Potter World. We went to the ‘Team Lab Future World’ exhibition, which was fantastic for kids and really interactive. We ended up spending over an hour and a half here.

6. Raffles Hotel

You can’t visit Singapore without a little snoop around the grounds of Raffles Hotel. Anyone can walk in and look at the beautiful courtyards and building, you don’t have to be staying there. This is one of those things that the kids didn’t find overly interesting, but it was easy to jump off the bus and have a quick look, and then we headed to see the Merlion statue which wasn’t far away.

7. The Merlion Statue

Despite staying directly opposite this tourist attraction in previous trips, I never had any great desire to visit, but I knew the kids would enjoy a little look at it. It was quite comical watching everyone being to take the iconic drinking and cupping water photos. We made sure we got some novelty photos of our own! If you stand close enough to the statue, you can enjoy some of the spray mist and cool off.

8. Marina Bay Sands Shopping Centre

Just another fancy shopping centre, but we enjoyed cooling off in here and had lunch at Din Tai Fung, a well known Taiwanese restaurant chain. We also enjoyed watching the big whirlpool water feature (Rain Oculus) which empties several times an hour into the fake Venetian-style canal where you can hire a gondola lol. Very cringe! After lunch, we had treats from BreadTalk bakery (these are everywhere).

9. Gardens by the Bay

This is another place I hadn’t managed to visit in previous trips. I wasn’t quite sure how it worked… we were nearby during the day so stopped to have a quick look but the kids were wrecked and hot so we decided to come back one evening and watch the light show. I couldn’t stomach paying for more tickets to go into the cloud forest so we opted for the free option which I didn’t realise was a possibility until we got lost in the gardens trying to find the train station and found ourselves directly underneath the giant tree structures in time for the nightly light show (at 7.45pm and 8.45pm). I’m so glad we stuck around because the kids loved it. The lights dance in time with different songs.

10. Chinatown

We visited Chinatown on Sunday and it was bustling. There were little market stalls all around the main temple where the kids bought some lucky bracelets, coins and tassels. This is also where you’ll find Maxwell Hawkers’ market.

11. Singapore Botanic Gardens

Beautiful expansive gardens and lots of shade. I believe there is a little water play area near the children’s garden but we didn’t make it that far. We just went to the Symphony Lake because I knew we’d see turtles in the lake and the big water monitor lizards that frequent that part of the gardens. It was really hot and the kids (well the youngest kid) struggled with the walk back from the lake to the MRT train station (about 20 minutes) but we were glad to see some local wildlife. The Orchid Garden is well worth a look (I’ve been before – stunning displays!) but I knew it would be too much that day.

12. Holland Village

My friend who lives in Singapore recommended we visit Holland Village after the gardens as it is in that direction, but a few stops further on the bus/ train. I’m so glad we did, it was a great little village with people parading their designer dogs (dogs with shoes, clothes, bows and prams omg), a Hawkers market as well as a shopping centre with lots of food options. I had my fill of Birds of Paradise icecream here. This is a boutique icecream shop with a few outlets in Singapore and is delicious, but the kids were more interested in the Baskin and Robbins flavours just nearby in the shopping centre. We also had our first try of Milo Dinisaurs and Kaya Toast here,  both Singaporean treats. The Milo dinosaurs were more if a hit than the toast though.

13. Takashimaya Shopping Centre

My friend recommended we stop in here to check out the food court and shops as it was near our hotel train station. There are two sections: one part of the centre with different branded shops and one with the multi-level department store – at the bottom of which is a busy food court.

15. Satay Street (Lau Pa Sat)

This is an unmissable experience and my kids voted this one of their favourite meals. At night, the street is closed off, and a whole bunch of satay stalls fire up for the evening. There is also a great Hawker market at the same location for other treats.

16. Joo Chiat Road

A little out of town, but an easy bus ride or MRT trip, you’ll find Joo Chiat Road. A historic conservation area… cute street with Peranakan shophouses. Some beautiful shops to browse – maybe less interesting for the kids, but we found ice cream, so everyone was happy.

17. Jewel Shopping Centre at Changi Airport

It’s worth getting to the airport a couple of hours earlier than you need to, to check out Jewel shopping centre where you’ll find the famous indoor waterfalland lots if shops and food outlets. Perfect spot to grab dinner before your flight. We didn’t have time to check out any of the attractions inside the airport like the butterfly area, so can’t vouch for those.

Getting Around

You can tap on any of the local trains and buses with your credit card, and we got the kids their own transport card from a vending machine at the MRT station near us that we topped up throughout the week as needed. The public transport is great and we didn’t need to catch a taxi at all, aside from to and from the airport.