Universal Studios Singapore

The company I work for had a Family Day event held over 4 Sunday evenings at the Universal Studios Singapore at Resorts World Sentosa.  It was also to celebrate some milestone that the huge corporation had achieved over the years.  Each staff received a free ticket to the attraction, a $10 meal coupon and the chance to buy additional tickets for family members at a hugely subsidized rate.  I was lucky to receive 2 free tickets from my colleagues who couldn’t go and I bought another 2 tickets.

Each of the 4 nights were allocated to specific departments of the company and my department date was yesterday, 18th June.  My sister and her 2 daughters, my daughter and myself arrived at the USS at 7pm and already there was a huge crowd of people.  Those who had visited the park in the day time and who aren’t staff of our company had already left the park by the time it was open to us.

There are seven themes in the park: The Lost World, Far Far Away, Ancient Egypt, Sci-Fi City, Hollywood, New York, and Madagascar.  We made a beeline to The WaterWorld amphitheatre in The Lost World where the event kick off with early bird gift for the first 500 staff.  Me and Lina managed to get the gifts, a $10 retail voucher each, before they ran out.

USS Guide

Map of the attractions

Map of the attractions

At the amphitheatre, the Group CEO of our corporation made his speech and soon, the show was underway.  We were drenched by the performers as sort of a warm-up, with pails of water and water guns.  They said those sitting in the front few rows would be the worst hit but the sneaky performers even went up to the middle rows to splash pails of water randomly.

Soon the live show started and there was motorboat chases, firing of guns and canons, splashes of water and great balls of fire.  The performers had a flawless performance but everyone was eager to start exploring the grounds and they didn’t get the proper appreciation that they deserved.  Can’t blame the audience since we only have 4 hours, no, 3.5 hours after that performance to enjoy the other rides.

WaterWorld

Speech by Group CEO

WaterWorld – Start of the show

WaterWorld

WaterWorld

Our next stop was Ancient Egypt.  We had a picture taken with O’Connor of The Mummy fame (wish it was Brandon Fraser!).  Another pic was taken with a guy in ancient Egyptian warrior costume and walking in stilts.  He had a super hotbod and was trying to pinch me and Lina (my sis) on our waist but he only got my bag LOL  Lina said she wondered what he thought of the fats he grabbed LOL  After the pic was taken and we walked off in the same direction as he, he did some grabbing actions at us LOL  But I have to say that I prefer the other guy whom I took a picture with during hubby’s company family day last year 😛  He’s looks more handsome and hot and I was kind of disappointed it was a different guy this time 😛

Revenge of the Mummy with ‘O’Connor’

Group Pic with the Ancient Warrior

– Last year’s pic with the warrior

Ancient Egypt (last year’s pic)

Ancient Egypt2

– Ancient Egypt3

Somehow Lina and I (the 2 mummies) were talked into taking the Revenge of the Mummy indoor roller coaster ride by our girls.  Good thing we survived without a scratch or we mummies would’ve extracted our own revenge! Hehehe!  It wasn’t a scary ride but some parts were exciting enough to elicit a scream or 2.  But that ride was soon forgotten as we made our way to Sci-Fi City.

There, Mel was thrust into the care of her 2 cousins by moi, her mummy, as they made their way into the queue of the Battlestar Galactica, Cylon (BLUE Track).  I was tempted to give it a try but in the end, the need to use the bathroom was too great LOL  Lina would never step into queue for this and I didn’t want to risk a heart-attack.  I was thinking maybe afterwards, if Mel said it’s an ok ride, that I would try it.  Yep, I sent her up there as a guinea pig 😛  Bad mummy!

Battlestar Galactica (Blue Track – Cylon, Red Track – Human)

While waiting for them to reappear from the ride, I met a few colleagues and also tried to get Lina to take the Accelerator, much like the teacup ride that whirls and twirls, but to no avail.  She couldn’t take the spinning motion.  So it was that we waited and waited until finally the girls showed up.  Mel was none the worse for wear, apart from feeling a little queasy possibly due to hunger as we hadn’t had our dinner.

But before we could have dinner, me and Lina just had to have a pic taken with Bumblebee of the Transformers.  I didn’t manage to catch him the last time I was there with hubby during his company’s family day, so this time I made sure he didn’t run away from me (he, as in Bumblebee, not hubby :P).

Bumblebee

Bumblebee, Lina and me – Lina running off even before the pic was taken with my phone

After meeting Bumblebee we went to take the 3D Transformer ride.  It was super cool!  We got to see all the Transformers up close, the good and bad guys.  The fall from height scene had us all screaming and so did some of the fights between the robots that happened as if they were really just in front of us.  It was so real that when Optimus spoke to us at the end and asked if we were alright, we even replied him yes.  We couldn’t help it cos he was only just inches away from us.  Of course, it was the 3D goggles we were wearing but then it’s good to let your imagination run wild a little from time to time 😉

There was a very old couple seated in front of me and Lina with their daughter and their domestic help during the ride.  At the end of the ride, the daughter asked her dad if he enjoyed it and he said yes 🙂  So did we!

Finally off we went looking for food and the mac cheese (macaroni cheese) that they girls were salivating over just by talking about it.  We took some pics as we strolled past New York and Hollywood, though it was so dark it was hard to take good pics.

– New York, New York

Along New York

Outside Mel’s Drive-in Restaurant

Roast Beef sandwich at Celebrity Cafe & Bakery

Macaroni Cheese

After dinner, we rushed off to Far Far Away, but then we were distracted at Madagascar because the dancing was about to start.  We stood and watched the whole dance by the characters of Madagascar: Alex, Gloria, that irritating figure King Julien XIII and the penguins.  I took some pictures which unfortunately aren’t very clear 😦 and a video 🙂

Gloria

Alex

Penguins

At Shrek’s Castle in Far Far Away, we watched the 4D movie which was quite entertaining.  When a character (Donkey? can’t remember) sneezed, water actually sprinkled onto our faces.  Then there was a scene with big, hairy spiders scurrying around and we suddenly felt them on our feet, the smacking of something hairy which caught us unaware.  I had seen this once and I still enjoyed it.

Shrek Castle – taken last year

After Shrek, it was the Lost World.

The Lost World

When Dino meets the Mummies

Jurassic Park

We took the river raft ride, Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure, all 5 of us together with a family of 4 on one raft.  Usually we had to split 3/2 because the rides were always in 2s or 4s.

Rapids Adventure

The moment we sat down on the round raft, we knew we were in for a wet time.  I had no idea how the ride was going to go but it turned out very exciting.  We were thrown around, swirled around, dipped and then raised at the end.  But, because the woman from the other family had put her legs up, raising her knees to almost chest level, the ride stopped just before our raft could be raised.  The announcement came on for passengers to put down their legs but she didn’t pay attention.  It took 3 or 4 announcements and a little bit of annoyance in the voice for her husband to realise that she was the one being singled out.  Finally we were on our way out of the tunnel.  This is our wet look:

Wet Mummies

To dry ourselves, we could’ve used the drying pods just beside the ride but we didn’t want to pay for it.  My niece took us to the Canopy Flyer instead, saying it’s guaranteed to dry us in no time.  Without knowing what it was all about, we mummies followed our babies.  It was a brief ride around the Lost World, less than 1 minute and we were back where we started.  It was too fast and too short but the scenery below was fantastic.  And we did manage to dry ourselves considerably 🙂

Canopy Flyer (Picture taken from Resorts World Sentosa website)

It was 11:15pm by the time we emerged from the Lost World.  We made a mad dash towards Sci-Fi City for one last ride on the Transformers.  Yep, it was THAT good that we had to go a second round.  If I can afford it next time, I’ll go again.  It’s definitely one of the best rides in the park.  But with admission ticket to the attraction so steep, it’s going to be a long wait for the next time to come around.

Just before we left, we managed to spend the $20 retail vouchers on some souvenirs and chocolate.  It was a wonderful evening filled with fun and laughter…and water!