Sentosa Island Bus Tour
The Sentosa Island Bus Tour is a 2-hour guided tour around Sentosa, introducing the history and key attractions around each zone of the island. For this bus tour, I used 10 tokens (worth S$10) from the FREE Sentosa Fun Pass for National Day 2020. While I got it for free, if using a Sentosa Fun Pass in general, this technically gives me a 60% discount from the usual full price of S$25.
Sentosa Island Bus Tour Meeting Point
The Sentosa Island Bus Tour meeting point is right at the Cable Car Station Ticketing Counter at Imbiah Lookout, 10 minutes prior to your choice of tour slot.
10 minutes prior to the start of the tour, the Sentosa Island Bus Tour tour guide meets up at the meeting point where your temperature is taken and tickets are scanned, followed by a separate contact tracing form to fill up. Tickets are kept by the tour guide after scanning.
Heading to the Imbiah Lookout bus stop where the Sentosa Island Tour Bus is waiting.
Boarding the Sentosa Island Tour Bus
The Sentosa Island Tour Bus is a Mitsubishi Fuso Rosa wrapped in a One Faber Group livery.
Before boarding, participants need to check in via SafeEntry into the tour bus.
There is ample social distancing inside the tour bus.
As the tour starts, the tour guide introduces himself and the driver for the tour, along with a short history of Sentosa, or rather, Pulau Belakang Mati.
Fort Siloso Skywalk
The first stop in the Sentosa Island Bus Tour is the Fort Siloso Skywalk. Just the Skywalk though, not Fort Siloso. Each stop lasts for 20 minutes.
Heading to the queue for the Fort Siloso Skywalk. There is a capacity limit of 14 people on the Fort Siloso Skywalk with safe distancing measures.
Queuing up for the lift once enough people have exited the Fort Siloso Skywalk and I checked in with SafeEntry.
The view of Siloso Beach from the top of the lift tower.
The Fort Siloso Skywalk is 11 storeys high and 181 meters long, offering a shortcut treetop trek to Fort Siloso. You can also come here without the Sentosa Island Bus Tour, entry to Fort Siloso Skywalk and Fort Siloso is free.
An information panel describes the scenery in front of the Fort Siloso Skywalk.
Looking out to Keppel Bay.
Looking out to HarbourFront and a bit of the former Underwater World.
20 minutes is not enough time to head to Fort Siloso, but walking trails there are self-guided and you can do it without a tour.
Heading back to the waiting tour bus after the Fort Siloso Skywalk visit.
Resorts World Sentosa (Entrance of Universal Studios Singapore)
The next stop is Resorts World Sentosa, or rather, the outside of Universal Studios Singapore where the Entrance Globe is. Another 20 minutes stop here.
This is probably a compulsory photo stop for foreign tourists going to Sentosa, otherwise, have they really been to Sentosa?
The 20-minute stop also allowed time to walk around some shops in this area.
Heading back to the tour bus which is parked at the coach stand. Too bad I can’t catch the TS1 from here to JB any time soon.
Sentosa Cove Drive-Pass
Next, the bus goes around Sentosa Cove. I thought that there might be a chance to see the houses beyond the checkpoints, but to my disappointment, the tour simply followed the Bus B route for the drive-pass.
Making a short stop of a few seconds to see some yatchs at Quayside Isle from the bus.
Passing by Sentosa Cove Village on the way out.
Passing by the other end of the Sentosa Golf Club driving range.
Palawan Beach
Next on the agenda is Palawan Beach, slightly differing from the advertised Southernmost Point of Continental Asia on the official website, but I would soon find out why the tour guide didn’t tout it as such.
Walking along the Singapore-style beach social distancing.
Just like everywhere else in Singapore, a maximum of a group of 5 can be clustered together. On top of that, there are safe-distancing squares on the beach for each group to place themselves in.
A sample of an empty square for the next group to come and fill. The beach is also separated into segments to minimise mingling between groups and probably for ease of contact tracing too.
Each beach segment has an individual entrance.
More likely than not, the beach gets full in the afternoon, and some queuing is expected. From 17 October 2020, reservations will need to be made to enter the beach on peak periods (Saturdays, Sundays, and Public Holidays). Bookings can be made up to 7 days before the intended beach visit.
Southernmost Point of Continental Asia
I was wondering why the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia was so empty.
After asking one of the patrolling Safe Distancing Ambassadors, it turns out that the suspension bridge between Palawan Beach and Southernmost Point of Continental Asia was closed for maintenance. Ah well.
And by the way, if you don’t know it yet, the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia on Palawan Beach is just for a photo op, and is actually not the geographical southernmost point of Asia.
The actual southernmost point of the big piece of continental Asia (without islands) is at Tanjung Piai, Johor, and the actual southernmost point of Asia is Pamana Island, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia.
It’s not even the southernmost point on Sentosa – it’s at Sentosa Cove behind someone’s house at 123 Cove Drive.
Heading back to the tour bus waiting at Palawan Beach bus stop.
Slowly passing a former British barracks on Allanbrooke Road, which is now So Spa.
Passing by the hoarded-up Merlion.
Return Back To Imbiah Lookout
The tour ends back at Imbiah Lookout, where the tour concludes.
Overall, a good introductory tour of Sentosa that foreign tourists should go for to know the resort island better before deciding further on which attractions to go for later in the day.
I just wished that the Sentosa Island Bus Tour (or perhaps a new localised tour) would include a visit to the SDC Depot off Artillery Avenue in future to see the various transport vehicles there, just like how there was a visit to the maintenance area of the Singapore Cable Car Mount Faber Line in the Mount Faber Gai Gai Tour.
The tour guide had a little secret up his sleeve during the tour, and I followed him back to the ticketing counter for quite a surprise.
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