Family fun at Palawan Beach and explore the historic trail of Fort Siloso (Sentosa)

Day 2

Exploring Sentosa Island

We had our bread that we bought from Breadtalk last night as breakfast. We then changed to light attire and prepare for our trip down to the beach. From Festive Hotel, we walked to the Waterfront Station and took the Sentosa Express monorail to the Beach Station. From the station, visitors could either turn to the Siloso Beach on one side or the Palawan and Tanjong Beach on the other side. Siloso Beach is the most popular beach of the three and is also the longest. The hotels like Siloso Beach Resort, Costa Sands Resort Sentosa and Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa are located along the beach front, thus also explains for the large number of tourists at the beach. There're a number of attractions located at Siloso Beach as well, such as the Wings of Time, iFly Singapore, Skyline Luge Singapore, Wave House, and The Flying Trapeze, along with many other beach bars and cafes.


Palawan Beach

We headed to the less crowded Palawan Beach. Along the way, we passed by the new attractions such as the KidZania and Port of Lost Wonder, which both are meant for children.

Palawan Beach

Port of Lost Wonder

Book your Singapore hotel here with Agoda

We found a shelter on the beach and settled down there. My kids quickly took out their sandcastle set that we brought along to start playing with the sand and building sandcastles and other figures. Not far from us, we saw a group of young men and women having their "beauty pageant contest" near the water, most probably from a local polytechnic or university. Others were observed having picnic, swimming in the water, canoeing, sunbathing, taking beach photo shoot and playing Frisbee etc. It was an enjoyable sight to see people of different ages having fun at the beach.

Water Playground

After our kids were done with their sandcastle building, we washed up and continued along the beach towards the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia. From the beach, there's a suspension wooden bridge that leads to an islet. Via different land bridge links connecting the islet, Sentosa Island, Singapore mainland and Peninsular Malaysia, it is technically the southernmost point one could walk to on the continental Asia.

Southernmost Point of Continental Asia

Suspension bridge to the islet

View of Palawan Beach from the bridge

On the islet

The islet has two outlook towers, which we climbed up to enjoy the scenery. On one side, one could see the busy Singapore Straits filled with many commercial vessels. On the other side, we got a different view of the Palawan Beach, as well as other Sentosa icons such as the Sentosa Merlion and Tiger Sky Tower.

View of the suspension bridge

View of Sentosa from the outlook tower

After this, we returned to the beach and took the beach tram back to Beach Station. We returned to our hotel room to wash up and change up.


Fort Siloso

We had our lunch at the Resorts World Sentosa Ding Tai Fung (which its Hong Kong branch was awarded one Michelin star). We had our favourite Xiaolongbao (steamed pork dumpling) and the fried rice with pork chop. After lunch, we headed to the Resorts World Sentosa basement to take the Sentosa Bus 2 to the Siloso Point. This is the place where visitors could reach the Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa  side of the Siloso Beach, the Underwater World and the Fort Siloso. Visitors will be immediately impressed with the 43m high Fort Siloso Skywalk Tower, which the skywalk links the Siloso Beach to Fort Siloso.

Fort Siloso

Fort Siloso Skywalk Tower

Introduction to the Skywalk Tower

The tower has lift access, which brought us up to the skywalk bridge. The skywalk bridge is 181m long, which along the way visitors would have a stunning unobstructed view of the Singapore Straits, Siloso Beach, Harbour Front and the Keppel Bay.

On top of the Skywalk

View of the Siloso Beach

View of Underwater World and Harbour Front

View of Keppel Bay

Walking on the bridge towards Fort Siloso, we also found a number of displays by the side introducing the history of the fort and the artillery gun emplacements.

Fort Siloso was built in the 1870s by the British during the colonial period, as part of a series of other coastal batteries built in various parts of Singapore to protect the new colony from seaborne attacks. Today, it is one of the best preserved fortifications in Singapore that is open to public. At the end of the Skywalk, we entered the yellow zone (one of the 3 zones classified at Fort Siloso).

Fort Siloso Map

The upper area of the yellow zone consists of the Tunnel C Complex and several gun displays. The tunnel facilities are the mainly meant for ammunition storage and visitor could learn the mechanism the soldiers used to transfer the large heavy rounds up to the firing platform.

Artillery Gun Display

Tunnel C Complex

Re-enactment of soldiers loading the shell to the hoist mechanism

At the lower area of the yellow zone, there are more guns and there's the guard room where the Combat Skirmish LIVE attraction is located. In the red zone, the key attractions are the Fort Siloso Square and the Surrender Chambers (separate entrance ticket required). At the Fort Siloso Square, there is an old military barrack turned exhibition hall, which showcases the Singapore's history during the World War II, and the history of Fort Siloso.

Fort Siloso Square

Fort Siloso Square Exhibition

Model of Fort Siloso

The Surrender Chambers focus on the re-enactment of the scenes during the British and Japanese surrender of Singapore during World War II, with wax figurines.

Scene inside Surrender Chambers (Source: Photo from Sentosa.com)

The blue zone is located at the furthest western end of the Sentosa Island, which mainly comprise of the Fire Direction Tower and the Tunnel A Complex. After the tiring walk up and downhill around Fort Siloso, we traced back our route back to the Skywalk and took the Sentosa Bus 1 back to Resorts World Sentosa.


Starz Restaurant

After some rest in our hotel room, it's time for dinner. We went to the Starz Restaurant at Hard Rock Hotel for the international buffet. Once we were allocated with the seats, we set off to explore the food available. At the cold dish section, they have a good variety of salad options. The seafood section is typical, with snow crabs, cold prawns, clams, and mussels.

Starz Restaurant

Sashimi and sushi choices are quite limited, with salmon, tuna and a few types of sushi rolls. There's also the bread and cheese section, although small, but they do offer a good variety of cheese. At the hot dish section, there's roasted beef, fried finger food, spaghetti, laksa, chili crab, steam fish etc. The India food selection is small, but the curry and tandoori are tasty. There's a wide variety of deserts like cakes, tarts and puffs, but what really stands out is their ice cream There's a wide variety of ice cream flavours and the staff will scoop the ice cream for us. Overall, we were satisfied with the meal. Although the variety of food choices might not be as many as other hotel buffets, but the food quality is good and would really commend on their ice cream section. The ambience of the restaurant is good and the services of the staff were great too, attending to our needs promptly.


Lake of Dreams

After the buffet dinner, we strolled around The Festive Walk to help in the food digestion. We stayed around at the Lake of Dreams to wait for the performance at 9.30pm. The Lake of Dreams is a 15 min musical show coupled with the special effect of fire, water and light. It was designed by 4 times Emmy award winner Jeremy Railton.

The show was the last activity of our day, which we returned to our hotel room after the show to call it a day.



Follow the links below to the other days of my Sentosa staycation:

Day 1: Resorts World Sentosa (Festive Hotel, The Maritime Experiential Museum, S.E.A Aquarium, Hard Rock Hotel Swimming Pool, Crane Dance)

Day 2: Sentosa (Palawan Beach, Fort Siloso, Starz Restaurant, Lake of Dreams)

Day 3: Sentosa (Merlion Plaza, Madame Tussuads Singapore, Images of Singapore LIVE, Sentosa Nature Discovery)