We were pretty tired after almost a full day in Sentosa after taking the cable car from Mt.Faber, spent several hours at the S.E.A. Aquarium, ate a lot at Malaysian Food Street, a bit of history at the Sentosa Merlion and then some stunning views from the Southernmost Point in Continental Asia and Sentosa cable car line.
Even after all of that we still had 2 tickets left from our Sentosa Fun Pass. So as our final activities in Sentosa we went on the Skyline Sentosa Singapore Luge and the Tiger Sky Tower before leaving the island.
Skyline Sentosa Singapore Luge
Located right at the Imbiah Lookout, it was a convenient location for our final things to do. Our pass allows us to go down the luge once and then take the skyride back up once (a SG$18/person value). You can always ride the luge again and again with additional tickets in increments of 3, 5, and 7. Their tag line “once is never enough” makes it pretty tempting to get more tickets.
We went to the ticket office to redeem our single ride ticket and headed off to get our helmets. The helmet colors are for size. Good to know know that most of us have the same size heads. Dad’s head is just a little bigger. Family selfie time as we wait in line for our turn.
They have upgraded these helmets since 2006. And if the the tag line “once is never enough” it’s taken me 10 years for my second ride. I’m the one on the right in the light pink shirt. I can’t believe that was 10 years ago!
The luge is a plastic sled like thing with bicycle handle bars. The handle bars help us steer and break. Steer as you would normally steer a bike and break by pulling the handle bars back towards you. The guys give you a quick lesson and once you look like you’re ready, off you go!
Mom and Yunti got an awesome picture of themselves halfway down the luge. “Slow and steady wins the best picture” is what Yunti kept telling me and my Dad. Dad and I were going much faster ahead and we didn’t get a good picture.
As you can see in the picture above, you are basically going down a few curvy paved roads and as you go down you can choose from different routes. Which is probably why they say “once is never enough.”
With the break set up, you can control your ride which is good for those who want to go really fast vs those who just want to enjoy their ride down. During our ride this time, it got a little annoying when some of the kids decide to ram into you as if they’re bumper cars…The experience would be 100 times better if there aren’t any obnoxious kids.
2006 vs 2016
The lifts aka skyride is still the same. As you hop onto the skyride, our luge sleds will get hooked on with us and it takes it back up to the top with us.
More family picture and selfies from the skyride.
The view from the skyride also gave us a birds eye view of parts of the luge course(s) and beyond. Just as we approached the top, you can even see people start heading down.
According to the Skyline Luge Website you can try out this luge in Canada, South Korea, and New Zealand as well.
After our adventurous ride down the luge, we walked over to the Tiger Sky Tower.
Tiger Sky Tower
This here was a bit of shocker for me as I was doing my research on Sentosa and even as I arrived. in 2006 it was called the Carlsberg Sky Tower, and 10 years later it is now the Tiger Sky Tower.
Obviously this is all dependent on who is the sponsor for the Sky Tower. According to Wikipedia, Carlsberg Beer was the sponsor from 2004 to 2008. Does anyone else remember the very green Carlsberg Sky Tower?
Coming in from Mt.Faber, the Tiger Beer Tower is hard to miss. It is a big stick thing standing up in the middle of nowhere.
When we arrived at the Tiger Sky Tower, we were the only ones there but of course just minutes later several other families arrived in line as we waited for the Sky Tower thing to make its way back down to earth us.
The Tiger Sky Tower is a gyro tower or a panoramic tower. There is a big pole/tower thing in the middle that sticks up in the air like a needle with a big donut shaped cabin attached. The donut cabin spins (slowly) and rises to the top, stops for a few moments, and then comes back down in the same slow spinning (I mean rotating) motion.
It’s a 6 minute ride; 3 minutes up and 3 minutes back down. I took a video of our ride up and then took the time to take pictures as we went down.
Since the “donut shaped” cabin is rotating you will be seeing the same thing multiple times. Which I guess gave me a few chances to get the right picture. The shots I took here are probably some of my favorites as we looked over Sentosa and beyond into downtown Singapore.
And when I had a chance to zoom in a little, you get another glimpse of the Singapore Port. You realize that that most of the coastline is dominated by the port.
This big metropolitan city is also nicknamed “the garden city” (one of a few different nicknames this city-state has been given or given itself. Looking down from the Tiger Sky Tower you see nothing but the tops of green trees and roofs.
The Tiger Sky Tower is actually nothing unique to me although the view is unique!
This is pretty much the same exact thing as the SeaWorld Sky Tower in San Diego and I was just on that with Yunti several months before going to Singapore. In San Diego the SeaWorld Sky Tower is an iconic tower (needle thing) especially during the holiday season when it strings lights from the 320ft (98m) tall tower. The Tiger Sky Tower is actually a slightly taller tower, standing at 360ft (110m)!
I guess both of these attractions have become relatively timeless over the years. I was here 10 years ago and yet nothing looks or makes me feel like I’m riding any antiques. Maybe a decade isn’t as long as it sounds…
Have you been on a Sky Tower like this before? Where else can we find these gyro/panoramic sky towers? Have you been on the Skyline Luge before? What do you think?
Green After the Rain 