Day 1

So we arrived in Singapore at 5 am and were fortunate the hotel let us use their shower facility at the pool to shower, change, and refresh.  Our location at the JW Marriott South Beach was excellent and it was a nice hotel.  You don't have to tip in Asia but honestly in places where they are used to guests they are expecting tip, just not as much as you would in North America.  Our hotel we stayed for free using Marriott points for 4 nights get 5th night for free.  You know our airline ticket story from another post.

After we showered we took a uber to chinatown, had an awesome breakfast (noodles and dumpling $10 for the 4 of us), then headed over to Gardens by the Bay.  This is a financial blog so we'll do some breakdowns along the way.  I paid $414 for an adult 5 day unlimited Go City Singapore card, the kids were $100 less or so.  The cloud and flower dome were included and the cost?  $53.   Those were the supertree grove and kids pretending to hold the tree.

We stayed until about 1 pm ate a light snack at McDonald's.  One of my favorite places to eat no matter what country we're in.  We love seeing the how McDonald's adapts to local culture.  We had a nasi lemak (fried chicken) burger and a chicken nugget happy meal for the kids.  Then we were off to our 2 pm Duck Tour reservation.  Duck tours are WWII boats adapated for tours that go in the city and water.  Cost $45 and you need a reservation.  The merlion photo was taken from the duck boat.

After that we headed back to the hotel to check in and rest until an early dinner across the street at the Suntec City mall.  We had dinner for the cost of $48 which included tax and tip for a family of 4.  Yes that was one of the more expensive meals we had out.  Anywhere we paid with a CC was more than the cash stalls we happened upon.