Three days is the most common Singapore trip from India and the length the city fits best. One day each for the bay, Sentosa and the old quarters.
Three days is the length most Indian travellers give Singapore, usually as half of a longer trip that also takes in Malaysia or Bali. It is also, not coincidentally, the length the city is best suited to: three clearly different days, no repetition, and nothing rushed enough to feel like a checklist.
Day one — Marina Bay and the waterfront
The bay in the morning: Gardens by the Bay, both conservatories, then the Skyway if the queue is moving. Lunch below one of the malls. The afternoon is for the Merlion, the Esplanade and the walk along the promenade, which is flat, shaded in parts and gives you the view the city is famous for from three different angles.
Evening at the Supertrees for the light show, then dinner at Clarke Quay or, if you would rather eat well than eat by the river, at Lau Pa Sat with the satay street that opens outside it after seven.
The same days, already costed
Our Singapore packages are built around the number of nights rather than a fixed departure, so an itinerary like this one can be priced as it stands — or rearranged around the parts you actually want.
Day two — Sentosa
Give it the whole day and go in by cable car from Mount Faber rather than the train; the crossing over the harbour is the best part and it costs a little more than the Express. Universal Studios fills the day on its own if that is the plan. If it is not, the combination that works is S.E.A. Aquarium in the morning, lunch at Beach Station, and the Skyline Luge and the beach in the afternoon.
Stay for Wings of Time if the timings suit; it is on the beach and it is a reasonable way to end the day without another journey.
Day three — the old quarters and the last morning
Chinatown early, when the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple is quiet and the shophouse streets are not yet full. Little India by late morning — Tekka Centre for lunch and Serangoon Road for the shops. Kampong Glam in the afternoon: Sultan Mosque, Haji Lane, and coffee somewhere on Arab Street.
This is the day people cut when they run out of time, and it is the day that makes the trip feel like a place rather than a series of attractions.
Doing it on a tighter or looser budget
The cheap version of this trip is largely the same trip: the bay walk, the quarters, hawker food and the Supertree show are free or nearly so, and what you cut is Universal Studios and the observation deck. The expensive version is not more places, it is a hotel on the bay and dinner with a view — the itinerary barely changes.
What does not fit in three days
The zoo and the Night Safari are the usual casualty, and they should be — adding them means dropping either Sentosa or the quarters, and both are better uses of a first trip. A Malaysia day trip does not fit either.
The three days as a clock
- Day 1 — Gardens by the Bay 9am, waterfront after lunch, Supertrees at 7.45pm, dinner at Lau Pa Sat.
- Day 2 — Mount Faber cable car at 10am into Sentosa, one big attraction, beach and Luge late afternoon, Wings of Time.
- Day 3 — Chinatown 9am, Little India for lunch at Tekka, Kampong Glam mid-afternoon, last evening on Orchard Road or back at the bay.
What to book before you fly
Universal Studios and the Gardens domes on fixed dates, because a three-day trip has no slack to move them. Everything else on this list is walk-up. The cable car is worth buying as a round trip rather than one way — you will want the ride back.
Where to stay
Bugis, Chinatown or Clarke Quay. All three put you on a direct line to both Marina Bay and HarbourFront, which is the only connection that matters at this length. A room on the bay is a fine indulgence but it does not save you time; the trains are quick and the walk from Bugis to the water is twenty minutes.
Adding a half day
If the flight home is late, the best use of a final morning is the Botanic Gardens — free, twenty minutes from most hotels, shaded, and the one place in the plan where you can sit down for an hour without buying anything.
Having this quoted
Three days is the length most of our packages are built around, so this is the plan we can cost fastest and adjust most cheaply.
We run this ground ourselves rather than passing it to a local agent, so the plan you are quoted is the plan our own team operates — hotels, airport transfers, attraction tickets and a car on the days the trains will not do. Send us your dates on the plan my trip page and you will get it back costed, day by day, with the parts you would rather change marked as options.
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