What's Included in a Singapore Tour Package?

Two quotes for the same seven days can differ by forty thousand rupees and both be honest. The difference is almost never the hotel. It is what each one decided to put inside the price and what it left for you to discover at the counter.

Here is what the words on a Singapore package normally mean, and where the money hides.

Hotels: the line that moves the price most

Accommodation is usually the largest single component, and the number that changes it is not the star rating — it is how many people share a room. Three adults in one Singapore room is roughly a third off the accommodation line each. Two is standard. One is close to double. If you are comparing two quotes and one assumed triple sharing, you are not comparing anything yet.

Ask for the hotel by name, not by category. "4-star Singapore hotel" covers a property beside an MRT station in Bugis and one in an industrial estate forty minutes from anywhere you want to be. In a city this compact, location is worth more than an extra star.

Transfers: private or shared changes your day

Airport pick-ups and sightseeing transport come in two shapes. A private vehicle collects your family and drives you. A seat-in-coach transfer is shared, which is cheaper because you are one of several hotels on its route — often forty minutes of collecting strangers before you see anything.

Neither is wrong. A couple who do not mind the wait save real money on shared transfers; a family with a toddler and a grandparent do not. What matters is knowing which one you bought. Our own Singapore transfer rates are published, so you can see what each shape costs rather than guess at what a package absorbed.

Attraction entries: which ones, and bought when

"Sightseeing included" is the vaguest phrase in the trade. It can mean entries to four ticketed attractions, or it can mean a coach drives past them while somebody narrates. Ask for the list by name.

Then ask when the tickets are bought. Entries purchased before you fly cost less and, more importantly, cost no time. Tickets bought on the day mean queuing while your transport waits somewhere it should not be. Every ticket we sell is listed with its own price on the Singapore attractions pages, so you can add up what a package's sightseeing line is actually worth.

Meals: breakfast almost always, dinner sometimes

Breakfast is nearly always included, because it comes with the room. Beyond that, be careful what you wish for. Adding lunch and dinner to every day inflates a per-person price without anybody feeling richer for it, and it locks you into eating at a fixed hour in a fixed place in a city with some of the best casual food in Asia.

Most people do better with breakfast and dinner included and lunches free, so they eat where they happen to be standing. Indian vegetarian food is genuinely well served here — Little India is a real food district, not a tourist approximation — so a supplier who treats a half-vegetarian group as a complication is telling you something.

Flights: read whether they are quoted or booked

A package "with flights" should name the airline, the route and the baggage allowance. An indicative airfare inside a package is not a booking, and the gap between the two grows every week you wait. Some of our packages are quoted with flights and some without; the package pages say which, and the ones without are cheaper for a reason rather than by sleight of hand.

What is usually NOT included

Four things are left out of most Singapore packages, ours included, and every one of them is a real cost:

• The visa. Sometimes the fee is included, sometimes only the paperwork help. Ask which.
• Travel insurance. Rarely bundled. It is inexpensive and worth buying whoever you book through.
• Optional experiences. The evening cruise, the cable car, the second theme park.
• Personal spending. Lunches, shopping, the taxi you take because it is raining.

A quote that appears to include everything has usually moved the cost into a line you have not read yet. Ask for the exclusions in writing; any operator can produce them on one page.

Can a package be changed?

Yes, and this is where fixed packages and built-to-order trips part company. A listed package is a fixed shape at a keen price because it is sold repeatedly. A custom itinerary costs a little more per head and does exactly what you asked. Most people want something in between — a listed package with two days rearranged — and that is a normal request, not a special one. Tell us what you want moved on the plan my trip form and you will get the revised figure rather than a lecture.

How to compare two quotes in one afternoon

Line them up on four things and the winner becomes obvious: the hotel by name and its room sharing, the transfer type, the named attraction entries, and the written exclusions. Everything else is noise. If you would rather not do that arithmetic yourself, send us both quotes on +91 7838007208 and we will tell you where they differ, including when the other one is better.