March 12th, 2006:
Today's excursion was to the resort island of Sentosa. This island, just off the coast of Singapore, can be reached by road-bridge or the far more exciting cable car. I went with the cable car option and found myself dangling over 400ft above the ground, starting at a mountain top, passing over various big cruise liners in a sea port below, going through a hole near the top of a skyscraper until finally going down to the cable car station in the island below.The island, in the South China Sea, is a family resort and it looks like the entire island is owned by one or more companies: there are no houses, only resort-related businesses.
At the cable car station there were some preset tour packages which could be purchased and I got the most cost effective package (i.e. the cheapest). The first place on the tour was an aquarium where I could have used my new fangled SCUBA skilz to swim with the sharks. Sadly time was short so I made do with walking through an underwater transparent tunnel with sharks, manta rays and other sea creatures swimming above and to the sides.
Next stop was a virtual reality cinema ride, similar to some of the rides in Dreamworks Studios in LA. You were strapped into a seat in a cinema and as the rollercoaster movie played, the seat moved. I had expected it to be quite childish(!) but when we were warned that those who felt unwell or those who were pregnant should avoid it, things started looking up(!)... and sure enough, you had to hang on tight and sometimes you were thrown out of your seat by the seat-motors with just your seat belt preventing you from ending up on the ground. There were two movies which were shown and between the movies, the operator asked if anybody felt if they weren't able to handle any more... and some adults did actually leave (to a chorus of giggling from the other people present :) All-in-all, rather enjoyable and it gave a great massage :)
Last up was the Skytower which went up to a height of 130 metres and rotated at the top enabling you to take pictures of the surroundig area.
So, is it worth visiting? Well, I found some guide brochures of Singapore in my hotel and there just didn't seem to be much to do in the area: Sentosa at least passed away a few hours. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't have been overly upset had I missed it. Still, the kids with families who were also there seemed to have a great time so maybe I'm just an old fogey(!)
