Adventure Cove Waterpark at Resorts World Sentosa

What attracted us to this theme park is the promise of being able to swim with 20,000 fishes. If this is as good as what I imagine then we don't have to travel overseas for snorkeling anymore.

Since most of the attractions are not suitable for toddler, we didn't bring our daughter with us. We thought it would just slow us down and with the school holidays just started, the place could have been packed to the limit.

Adventure Cove Waterpark
The waterpark is one of the attractions of Resorts World Sentosa besides Universal Studios, The Maritime Experiential Museum, and the S.E.A Aquarium.

Walkway to the Adventure Cove Waterpark

The entrance

We reached there around 10am and to our surprise there wasn't any queue at all! Yeah, so far so good. :)

The ticket price for an adult is $29. But since the dolphins aren't here yet, they gave us a $5 meal voucher which can be used anywhere in RWS, not just inside the park.

The dolphin pool is still empty.

A reminder of the dress code.

Rainbow Reef
Snorkeling is the first thing we tried once we arrived. We had to pick up a life jacket and snorkeling gear before going into the aquarium.

Rainbow Reef is actually an aquarium.

Get your life jacket here.

The colorful fishes

It definitely had more fishes than what we saw in our snorkeling trips but somehow it lacked the excitement. There were a lot of fish but not much varieties. The coral was so so only. The aquarium wasn't deep and big enough so it felt like a pool. No, this can't replace the real thing. :((

Dueling Racer
It was quite a thrilling ride, and at some point I felt like Aladdin with my magic carpet. :P

Race with a friend.

Storage racks to put your stuff before going up the slides.

Pick up a mat.

And off you go.

Bluewater Bay
Wave pool wasn't really my cup of tea. It made me seasick.

The wave pool

Cabanas at the Bluewater Bay.

Tidal Twister and Pipeline Plunge

These two slides are side by side.

Spiral Washout and Whirlpool Washout

The four slides above were pretty similar, it started with a series of dark tunnel, some twisting and turning, a sudden water spray and finally splashing out of the tunnel. All the slides were quite entertaining, we took them a few times each.

Riptide Rocket
This is the one slide you should not miss. It is pretty much like a roller coaster ride that sends you up and then suddenly plunges at maximum speed... for as much as three times!! I couldn't stop laughing after I took this, too much adrenalin!

Adventure River
It's a relaxing river ride on a float, sans the adventure. A notable mention was passing underneath an aquarium full of manta rays.

Toddler playground
The Big Bucket Tree House and the Seahorse Hideaway are the only places where toddlers could play. No wonder it's free entry for kids under 4 years old.

Big Bucket Treehouse

Seahorse Hideaway is a toddler pool.

F&B Outlets
There is only one restaurant here and the menu didn't whet my appetite. Chicken rice, nasi lemak, fish and chips which I wouldn't mind if I had no other choice. But I had already imagined having the char kway teow at the Malaysian Food Street, which is only a 5 minutes walk from here. :D

Submarine snack kiosk

Bay Restaurant

We were so lucky that there were very few visitors on that day. The park was so empty that I had a feeling there were more staffs than visitors hehe... We took two to three rides per attraction and completed all in less than 3 hours. Since we finished the rides, we went to get change before going out for lunch.

Very nice shower room with wet and dry section.

Before we exited the park, we had our hand stamped so that we could come back later.

Malaysian Food Street
We were famished after having all the rides. See how much food we ordered.

Malaysian Food Street

Famous food streets in Malaysia

Buzz of a typical hawker center at night, complete with a moon. :D

Very nice char kway teow. Better than those I had in Penang. If only they had a branch outside Sentosa, I would be their loyal customer.

Chendol was pretty good too, comparable to the one in Malacca.

Chicken rice ball wasn't good. Singapore chicken rice tastes better.

Roti Prata was so so only.

After we finished our lunch, we still had pretty much half a day before the park was closed. So we thought of going to pick up our daughter from home and bring her to the waterpark. But unfortunately, it rained heavily soon after we reached home.

Day 5: Koh Samui - Singapore

We were surprised when the hotel told us that they would give us a complimentary airport transfer. I really didn't see it coming hehehe... No wonder they have such a positive review in tripadvisor.

Koh Samui Airport
So here we were again, but now at the departure terminal. After clearing the immigration, we had to pass by all these shops before reaching the boarding gate.

The layout is like a factory outlet in US.

There are some restaurants like Swensens and shops like Jim Thompson, Harnn & Thann.

The waiting area was hot, small and fully packed. But to make up for it, the airport served complimentary snacks and drinks to all the passengers. With such a hot weather and no air-con I think we all need it. :D

And that's it, our last trip for the year. Hopefully next year we will do better. :P

Day 4: Koh Samui snorkeling

The tour van picked up us at 8am from the hotel and heading to the southern of Koh Samui. Along the way, we picked up more people and finally we reached the pier at around 9. When we arrived, the tour boss told us that the rest of the group would go for a fishing trip.  That meant we were the only one going for snorkeling and so it was going to be a private tour. Yay!!

We took a motorised long tail boat out to the sea. The sea was calm, the sky were blue, and there was hardly any waves at all. It was a perfect day to have a snorkeling trip. Halfway to the island, the boatman stopped the boat and told us to jump down from here. Daughter was so excited to know that she was going to swim and couldn't wait to go down. In my mind I was thinking that she must have thought this was just a very big swimming pool hehehe... But first, I asked hubby to go down and checked the situation. After he signaled that it was ok, all of us went down and swim for a while. She was so happy and excited, no fear at all. I don't think I have this kind of courage when I was young. :P The Koh Samui trip was really an adventure for her. First it was the trekking and now this. Next time she could tell her friends that she has swum in an open sea at the age of two. :P

Long tail boat

Her first trip to the sea

The nearby islands

The boatman threw some bread to entice the fish

After letting her swim for a while, we took turn to snorkel. The variety of fishes was pretty good, hubby even spotted a stingray but I didn't see any. :(( We snorkeled for about 20 minutes here and then continued our journey to the island.

Coral Island
It was a different story here, at first look there wasn't any fish at all. After painstakingly looking around, we spotted only one kind of fish. It was a long silver fish, no wonder we couldn't see any. When we stood still, they would come and swim around us. But anyway, it was still a disappointment.

Hardly any fish but the water was crystal clear.

There were many other boats came and go while we we were there.

In the afternoon, the boatman prepared the lunch for us. It was just too much for the three of us.

A simple lunch: rice, stir fried vegetables, curry chicken, fried chicken and assorted fruits.

Playing swings

After lunch and relaxing for a while, we asked him to go back to the first snorkeling site and we snorkeled one more time before heading back to the main island. This was the good thing of going on private tour, we could go whenever we like. :D

Overall this snorkeling trip wasn't good at all. Actually there is another more famous snorkeling site, but it requires 1.5 hour boat ride. With a kid in tow, it isn't an option for us. But anyway, so far the best snorkeling site for us was at Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park near Kota Kinabalu.

Day 5 >>