View of Resorts World Sentosa from the Sentosa BoardWalk
Last March 2016, Jollibee announced that they will be having a raffle for a trip for 4 to Resorts World Sentosa, Singapore. To join, you simply have to purchase their Chickenjoy meal and you'll be presented with a raffle entry. Luckily, during the promo period, my tita had been religiously eating at Jollibee because it's the only nearby fast food store at the place they were dispatched in. Weeks later, we learned the great news through Facebook!
See: Rowena De Leon <3
Days later, we received an envelope from Jollibee Corp. containing the vouchers and instructions for our trip. We were a bit hesitant at first since we thought we could still not afford the cost of living but we gave it a go! (We actually thought of selling it HAHAHUHU glad we didn't push that idea!) BTW, it was only during the last week of March this year that I was able to organize everything! Procrastinating much? :))
Before everything else, we had to book both our flight and hotel rooms. We have agreed to reserve two rooms at Hard Rock Hotel (sosyal diba!) from the choices given. TIP: when travelling, you need to secure the place where you'll be staying at before booking a flight with an agency lels found it the hard way.
From the letter, we were advised to book our flight with Adkins Travel Agency Inc. Their office is located at UN Ave. in Manila but luckily, you may transact with them through a phone call and email. They organize both local and international tours along with being one of the accredited agencies of PAL.
We chose to travel on May 9 (departure from MNL) up to May 11 (arrivel in MNL). We encountered a little problem since I haven't received any confirmation with Hard Rock Hotel yet so we had to request to hold our tickets until 2PM of March 31 (I called them at around 10 AM of the same day lels). So like I said, secure your hotel reservations first before booking a flight!
After hanging up, I immediately made an international call to SG to request to expedite our booking request. The CS Rep I talked to was very accommodating (and I was suspecting that she was a Filipina too! I caught her say "na" once HAHA) and really did help a lot in assuring me that she'll raise the concern to their supervisor and that I'll receive an email and a call back before 2PM.
As promised, by 1:30PM, I received a booking confirmation and received a call from their manager! THANK YOU HARD ROCK HOTEL, YOU DA REAL MVP!!!
I forwarded the email to Adkins and they sent me a copy of our Itinerary which contains our e-ticket number. Now, we only had to wait till May 9!!!
Our traveler's itinerary
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On May 9 at 3AM, we traveled to NAIA Terminal 2 (popularly known as Centennial Terminal) to check in and wait for our 6AM flight.
Check in and immigration were pretty fast and we were soon waiting in front of the gate we were assigned to.
By 5:20AM, the crew announced that passengers may start boarding the plane.
The flight to Singapore lasted for more than 3 hours. PAL announced that we can watch movies through our phones simply by connecting to their network and downloading the myPAL Player application on Playstore. By an hour and a half during the flight, we were served with a hearty breakfast. We were asked to choose between Grilled Chicken with Rice (to die for ugh) and Salisbury Steak with Potatoes (to die for ugghhh). The tray also carried snacks and desserts then we were offered our choice of drink.
By 9:45AM, we have reached Singapore Changi Airport.
Changi Aiport as seen from the plane
Changi Airport had been declared 4 times in a row as the world's most beautiful airport. I truly believe it when we first stepped out of the plane. The halls were big and the security are very attentive. After getting off, we were led to another baggage check before being allowed to enter the main arrival area.
We walked for quite some time, or sometimes simply stood on their "travelator" HAHA. We finally saw the immigration area and before passing thru, took some pictures.
After passing thru immigration, we headed towards carousel 5 to get our bags. After having to wait for more than 15 minutes to get our baggage and having our pocket moneys be exchanged for their local currency (TIP: If you can, only exchange the amount you need to travel then have your money exchanged outside the airport for better deals see: Bugis, Chinatown), we headed towards Terminal 3 to get to the SMRT station.
To get to Changi Airport's Terminal 3, you'll be needing to ride their very famous in-house train (this is the way to get around the 3 terminals of their airport).
Train inside Changi Aiport
We proceeded towards the Basement 2 and bought our EZ-Link or their version of our Beep Card.
EZ-Link card (image grabbed from here)
The EZ-Link can be used not just for SMRT rides but as well as for bus, taxis, shopping, food stores, and many more. For tourists, they offer the 3 day pass which contains unlimited transportation rides. The tourist pass costs S$20 for a 3-day pass plus an additional S$10 as deposit for the card. By the end of your trip, you can opt to return the tourist pass to get a refund. You can learn more about this one by heading here.
For our stay, since I already planned ahead and realized that we won't be getting the most if we purchase a tourist pass, we simply purchased a regular EZ-Link card. The cost is S$12 which amount to S$7 of stored value (refundable) and S$5 for the card cost (non-refundable).
We traveled to RW Sentosa through the use of their subway system and arrived at Vivo City (the mall which serves as the entrance to Sentosa Island). Travelling around Singapore is the least of your worries since their subway system is very efficient. You can read more about their subway system by my next update :)
We traveled to RW Sentosa through the use of their subway system and arrived at Vivo City (the mall which serves as the entrance to Sentosa Island). Travelling around Singapore is the least of your worries since their subway system is very efficient. You can read more about their subway system by my next update :)
Since boarding the Sentosa Express would cost us S$4 each, we opted to take the Sentosa Boardwalk instead. At only 670 metres, the Sentosa Boardwalk links VivoCity to the RWS Waterfront.
Because we arrived in Sentosa Island at around past 12 in the afternoon, we decided to check out the (pricey) food stalls around the area before proceeding to Hard Rock Hotel to check in.
We discovered this Malaysian Food Street facing the entrance of the Universal Studios amusement park. The cheapest finds we discovered here costs around S$7 for one plate of fried rice and S$8 for a plate of Malaysian Pancit. It still is quite pricey since the serving is for a single person only so we decided to share a plate instead hehe. But the taste is superb!
TIP: if you're looking for cheap food, find the nearest Hawker Center (their version of banchetto) since these places offers the best deals with authentic food.
After lunch we decided to head to Hard Rock Hotel for check in :) We were booked in a Deluxe Room with twin sharing. Since we could no longer wait until 3PM, their standard time of check in, we requested for an early check in with separate rooms (instead of connecting rooms).
Hard Rock Hotel Sentosa view from pool (image grabbed from here)
My mom enjoying the bed lels
After checking in, we rested for a while before heading out again.
Tune in for my follow up post about our sponsored (hehe) trip to Singapore!
Credits to the following for the images I used.
@http://www.credso.org
@https://traveladept.com
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