Playground @ Gardens by the Bay

Having read good things about the new childrens garden/playground at Gardens by the Bay I took the kids along last weekend.

We did think twice about taking the swimming costumes due to the lack of rain and announcements asking malls to turnoff their water play areas but as you can see in the photo it’s good that we took them.

The playground is a fair walk from the MRT being the far side of the flower domes. I was careful to make sure the little one had a ride in the push chair so that she wasn’t tired before we even got to play. The older one was fine heading there but needed a piggy back on the way home.

Instead of our normal trick of heading out after nap time in the late afternoon we tried heading there in the morning. Clearly this is not a well-kept secret as the place was full, lucky not too full but very close. As you enter the main water play area is straight in front of you but there is an adventure trail off to the right for older kids with balance beams and other obstacles. We did have a little play on it later but were too young for it really.

There are good changing facilities next to the water play area with showers and lockers. Luckily I had my parents with me, so didn’t have to use the lockers as dad sat in the amphitheatre with our stuff. The little ones found the main water play area a bit intimidating and if I’d known about the toddler water play area we would have started there. The girls loved playing and climbing on the big fish that make up the toddler water play area. As an adult you can supervise them in this area in normal clothes and not get too wet.

It took some effort to persuade the girls to move onto the sandpit and tree house area as it’s hidden round the side/behind the amphitheatre. This section is has great climbing up rope ladders, slides and rope nests. There are wardens helping the kids as selected points but I still went up with the older one. This area really is too hard for the really little ones such as our 2-year-old but she still enjoyed some little bits. One point though is the slides are all metal and if you’re wet from the water play area you really do shoot down them. For older kids I think this is really fun but the little ones lose control. Well the older ones do too as I found out round the corner. Next to the trees there are a couple of slides on a hill that you climb up stairs to and with the 2-year-old on my lap spun round coming down one slide landing painfully on my backside. Next to the slides is also a shallow climbing wall with a spider’s web which was getting hot underfoot when we finally reached it.

There is also a toddlers dry play area, unfortunately we only spotter it was we were leaving and so I can’t tell you too much about it but it looked good.

We went for lunch at Satay by the Bay food court, we have had good satay meals here in the evening before but went for something else this time. The chicken rice was OK but a bit bland and I would recommend you not to order from the kabab place unless you have all afternoon to wait for service.