SINGAPORE—DAY 2 (3/19/12)

• Today was one of the best days on the trip thus far.  After sleeping in, we took the “Jewel Cable Car Ride” from the dock to the small, nearby island of Sentosa, where we spent the day “playing” at Universal Studios—Singapore.  What a blast!
• It wasn’t as big as the original, or even the one in Florida (there’s no back lot), but it had the same feel and flavor as the others and was a great place to spend the day.
• Its sections include Hollywood, Madagascar, Far Far Away, The Lost World, Ancient Egypt, Sci-Fi City and New York.
• We rode the Madagascar “Crate Adventure” (river boat ride)
• We saw the Shrek 4-D Adventure, where you watch a 3-D movie as your seat moves and things squirt at you, blow on you, or touch you, from all around your seat (the 4th dimension)
• We ate lunch in “New York” at “Loui’s NY Pizza Parlor” and had some tasty pizza, spaghetti and salad
• There were places to smoke, which I loved of course
• In “Sci-Fi City”, we rode their two “Battlestar Galactica” roller-coasters:  one called “Human” and one “Cyclon”.  The two run contemporaneously and zoom at speeds of about 83 km/h, twisting, turning and sending you upside down and through corkscrews in an intense ride!  In fact, we rode them both twice!
• We also rode “Revenge of the Mummy” (twice), which is an underground roller coaster, which sends you into seeming contact with those dreadful scarab beetles, warrior mummies who want to steal your soul, and twists and turns (sometimes backwards) – in the dark!  Whew-hew!!
• We went on “Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure”, a raft ride through dinosaur habitats, which lifts you up into a cavern where a T-rex is waiting to eat you – just before they plunge you down a hill, so everyone gets wet! 
• Best of all was “Transformers The Ride”!  This is a 3-D roller coaster (with 12-person cars), where Optimus Prime sends you on a mission to transport the All spark to safety through a sea of Decepticons (Megatron in particular) who attack us along the way – it feels like you’re really on the city streets with the autobots and is intense and oh so fun!  When the mission is completed successfully, Optimus says:  “Your bravery saved the planet.  Well done, freedom fighters!”  We had to ride this one twice too – of course!!
• It costs $68 each, plus $15 each if you want the “express pass” (which allows you to ride each major attraction once without waiting in long lines – but frankly, the lines weren’t bad all day, and we could have done without the passes)
• When the park closed at 7 p.m., we went to the Hard Rock Café for drinks and appetizers . . . also great!  (I finally got potato skins!)
• If you come to Singapore, you’ve got to spend at least one day “playing” at Sentosa – it’s loads of fun and full of attractions beyond Universal Studios.