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Straits Times
4 hours ago
- Business
- Straits Times
Forum: Offer discounts for local attractions during school holiday period
I just visited Rainforest Wild Asia in Mandai and was impressed by how beautifully designed it is . However, I was surprised and saddened to see how empty it was. Given that school holidays had begun, I expected more families to be enjoying the experience. I wonder if the ticket prices were the main deterrent. With school holidays under way, I would like to suggest that local attractions such as the Singapore Zoo consider offering discounted entry for children and their accompanying parents. Many Singaporean families may not have the means to travel abroad despite our strong currency. Local attractions present a valuable opportunity for these families to bond and create memories with their children within the country . By offering discounts, we can encourage more families to explore and appreciate our local treasures. Let's make local attractions more accessible and enjoyable for families. Larry Lai Chong Tuck More on this Topic Forum: What readers are saying Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
AsiaOne
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- AsiaOne
Special offers and wildlife experiences at Mandai attractions in celebration of SG60, Lifestyle News
Mandai Wildlife Group is rolling out a series of offers and wildlife experiences at the Singapore Zoo and other attractions at Mandai Wildlife Reserve to celebrate Singapore's 60th birthday. Named Mandai is Wild about SG, the initiative features the SG60 WildPass Specials — which include bundles such as: two admission tickets to the Singapore Zoo or River Wonders at $60 from now until June 30 and three admission tickets to any wildlife park at Mandai Wildlife Reserve for $60 (for youths aged 13 to 21) from now until Aug 31. Local residents with a valid admission ticket to any wildlife park at the reserve can also purchase a Friend of Rainforest Wild Asia individual membership at $60 from May 31 to Aug 31. The SG60 WildPass Specials are applicable to local residents only. There's also the SG60 Senior Promo — where senior residents can enjoy the annual Friends of Mandai five-park membership at $60 (usual price $235) until Aug 31. In addition to the discount bundles, the Mandai is Wild about SG initiative also includes wildlife experiences such as Hello from the Wild, which will start from June 7. These 20-minute experiences will offer visitors upclose encounters with animals like the capybara at River Wonders, as well as fennec foxes and ring-tailed lemurs at the Singapore Zoo — during which they can feed and prepare enrichment activities for these furry friends. A wallaby edition will launch at Night Safari later in the year. For those who want an exclusive behind-the-scenes experience, check out Backstage Pass: Penguin Encounters at Bird Paradise — a programme that gives visitors a rare glimpse into the daily care of the king, gentoo and northern rockhopper penguins in an off-exhibit facility. This programme will launch on June 7. A new VR film adventure immersing guests into the world of penguins will also be available at Ocean Network Express Penguin Cove from July 18. From May 31 to Aug 10, guests can also enjoy Born to be Wild — a series of free, curated digital itineraries during their visit. The trail consists of stories of Singapore's native wildlife and celebrates many of the locally born animals, including some newborns which have made their debut at the Mandai Wildlife Reserve. Those who complete the trail will receive a limited-edition SG60 memento. For those who prefer the classics, there's also the Too Wild to Miss itineraries, which guide visitors through some of Mandai Wildlife Reserve's most iconic experiences like the world's first free-ranging orangutan exhibit at the Singapore Zoo and the new Pangolin Trail at Night Safari. As for community events, there's the return of Wild Day Out — Mandai Wildlife West's signature community event that's returning on June 28 and 29. The event will feature local themes and creative activities in collaboration with The Artground. Here, visitors can look forward to playing nostalgic games like Five Stones, craft orchid postcards inspired by Singapore's national flower and a series of other nature and wildlife-inspired activities. The event is also pet-friendly. Visitors can look forward to more programmes and promotions throughout the year. More information, bookings and updates on SG60 activities can be found on Mandai Wildlife Reserve's official website. [[nid:718369]]
Straits Times
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Special offers, attractions at the zoo as Mandai Wildlife Group celebrates SG60
The offers are launched under Mandai Is Wild About SG initiative, and will be available from June. PHOTOS: MANDAI WILDLIFE GROUP SINGAPORE - Local residents can look forward to a slew of offers and interactive experiences at the Singapore Zoo and other attractions at Mandai Wildlife Reserve, as part of Mandai Wildlife Group's SG60 celebrations. The group will roll out a series of offers under the Mandai Is Wild About SG initiative. As part of the SG60 WildPass Specials offer, local residents can purchase two admission tickets to the Singapore Zoo or River Wonders for $60 – down from $98 – from now until June 30. For the same price, local residents aged 13 to 21 can buy three tickets to any Mandai Wildlife Reserve park. The offer is available from now until Aug 31. Local residents with a valid admission ticket to any wildlife park at the Mandai Wildlife Reserve can also purchase a Friend of Rainforest Wild Asia individual membership at $60 from May 31 until Aug 31. As part of the ongoing SG60 Senior Promo offer, senior residents – those aged 60 and above – can continue to enjoy the annual Friends of Mandai five-park membership at a special rate of $60 , down from $235, until Aug 31. From June 7 , all visitors can enjoy 20-minute close encounters with capybaras at River Wonders, as well as fennec foxes and ring-tailed lemurs at the Singapore Zoo – part of the Hello From The Wild experience. A wallaby edition of the Hello From The Wild experience will be launched at the Night Safari later in 2025, said Mandai Wildlife Group. Bird Paradise will give visitors the opportunity to meet the king, gentoo and northern rockhopper penguins in their chilly off-exhibit facility as part of the Backstage Pass: Penguin Encounters experience. And from July 18 , the Ocean Network Express Penguin Cove will offer a virtual reality film adventure where visitors can immerse themselves in the world of penguins. From May 31 until Aug 10 , visitors can also enjoy complimentary access to curated digital itineraries during their visit, including the Born To Be Wild digital trail. They can get a limited-edition SG60 memento upon completing the trail. More programmes and promotions under the group's Mandai Is Wild About SG initiative will be offered throughout 2025, added Mandai Wildlife Group. 'The Mandai Wildlife Reserve has been woven into Singapore's story for over six decades – from school excursions and weekend family outings to first dates,' said Ms Belinda Lee, the group's deputy chief executive for transformation and growth. 'With Mandai Is Wild About SG, we invite local residents to reconnect with our destination through newly launched experiences and special offerings.' Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
The Star
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Special offers, attractions at the zoo as Singapore's Mandai Wildlife Group celebrates SG60
The offers are launched under Mandai Is Wild About SG initiative, and will be available from June. - Photos: Mandai Wildlife Group SINGAPORE: Local residents can look forward to a slew of offers and interactive experiences at the Singapore Zoo and other attractions at Mandai Wildlife Reserve, as part of Mandai Wildlife Group's SG60 celebrations. The group will roll out a series of celebratory offers under the Mandai Is Wild About SG initiative. As part of the SG60 WildPass Specials offer, local residents can purchase two admission tickets to Singapore Zoo or River Wonders for S$60 – down from S$98 – from now until June 30. For the same price, local residents aged 13 to 21 can purchase three tickets to any Mandai Wildlife Reserve park. The offer is available from now until Aug 31. Local residents with a valid admission ticket to any wildlife park at the Mandai Wildlife Reserve can also purchase a Friend of Rainforest Wild Asia individual membership at $60 from May 31 until Aug 31. As part of the ongoing SG60 Senior Promo offer, senior residents – those aged 60 and above – can continue to enjoy the annual Friends of Mandai five-park membership at a special rate of $60, down from $235, until Aug 31. From June 7, all visitors can enjoy 20-minute close encounters with capybaras at River Wonders, as well as fennec foxes and ring-tailed lemurs at Singapore Zoo – part of the Hello From The Wild experience. A wallaby edition of the Hello From The Wild experience will launch at Night Safari later in 2025, added Mandai Wildlife Group. Bird Paradise will also offer visitors the opportunity to meet the king, gentoo and northern rockhopper penguins in their chilly off-exhibit facility as part of the Backstage Pass: Penguin Encounters experience. And from July 18, the Ocean Network Express Penguin Cove will offer a virtual reality film adventure where visitors can immerse in the world of penguins. From May 31 until Aug 10, visitors can also enjoy complimentary access to curated digital itineraries during their visit, including the Born To Be Wild digital trail. They can receive a limited-edition SG60 memento upon completing the trail. More programmes and promotions under the group's Mandai is Wild About SG initiative will be offered throughout 2025, added Mandai Wildlife Group. 'The Mandai Wildlife Reserve has been woven into Singapore's story for over six decades – from school excursions and weekend family outings to first dates,' said Ms Belinda Lee, the group's deputy chief executive for transformation and growth. 'With Mandai Is Wild About SG, we invite local residents to reconnect with our destination through newly launched experiences and special offerings.' - The Straits Times/ANN
Times
03-05-2025
- Times
The stylish new hotel that shows off Singapore's green side
Looking out across deep-green waters, I can see what looks like thick rainforest on the opposite bank. I hear the barks and quack-like sounds of frogs, the high-pitched call of a collared kingfisher and the mellifluous song of an oriental magpie-robin. This sense of unadulterated nature is illusory, though, as I'm in Singapore, the bustling city-state that has one of the highest population densities in the world. When I listen hard, beyond the birdsong there's the undeniable rumble of rush-hour traffic. I'm in the Mandai Wildlife Reserve, a green area in the north home to zoos, aviaries and adventure parks, and now, surprisingly, a luxury hotel. The Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree opened last month, offering 338 stylish rooms in this tranquil, tropical setting, designed around hundreds of mature trees, including a 12-metre rain tree with a sprawling canopy and a native Indian beech strewn with climbers. Through a lobby left open to the elements are five storeys decorated with specially commissioned wallpaper depicting the rainforest's natural layers: on lower levels the imagery is of the forest floor; higher up it reflects the canopy. The most alluring guest rooms are 24 so-called treehouses, elevated on pillars at either end of the main building. The design is said to have been inspired by seed pods but the oval shape and latticed façades reminded me of birds' nests. It was here on the balcony, whose sweeping architectural lines framed the forested banks of Upper Seletar Reservoir, that I felt most immersed in nature. That a high-end hotel group like the Singapore-owned Banyan Tree brand would open its first hotel on home turf next to a tourist attraction could sound tacky, given that Banyan Tree's usual range is boutique properties in Phuket, Dubai and the Maldives. Here in Singapore, the group has gone big with hundreds of rooms and a bias towards families, providing buffet dining, a kids' club, playground and guided zoo excursions, but no bar or coffee shop. Zoo kitsch has thankfully been avoided, the biophilic design is stylish and there's a refreshing approach to climate care, with air conditioning set so it won't adjust below 24C. Interactive panels show power consumption and offer reminders when usage exceeds recommended levels. On the rooftop is an infinity pool, next to it an edible garden of herbs and spices, while the spa has three treatment pods inspired by the shape of the keratin scales of the Sunda pangolin. Although the design has its own appeal, the reason most will stay here is for easy, walkable access to the zoo's numerous areas, including Singapore Zoo, River Wonders, Night Safari, Bird Paradise and the recently launched Rainforest Wild Asia (separate entry tickets from £25, bundles available; Splitting up the zoo like this incentivises Singaporeans to come on separate visits, but makes it tricky for tourists on a stopover because more than one park a day can be taxing. They tend to prioritise, seeing the pandas in River Wonders, for example, including three-year-old Le Le, who was born here, or the orangutans in Singapore Zoo. Many come after dark for the Night Safari, which claims to be the world's first zoo showcasing nocturnal animals in action. • Read our full guide to Singapore here Bird Paradise houses 3,500 birds shifted here from an outdated park in the west of the country, with 400 species across the aviaries, one the size of two football pitches. Singapore's zoo, which attracts more than a million people a year, often features at the top of lists of 'ethical zoos' and funds conservation projects and breeding programmes, but I felt a tinge of melancholy to see free birds perched on the outside interacting with birds trapped inside; it won't be for everyone. The hotel comes amid a flurry of new hotels in Singapore, with the biggest news being the opening in March of the resort-style Raffles Sentosa,sister to the brand's flagship heritage hotel downtown (B&B doubles from about £800; The Singapore hotel group COMO — with properties in Bhutan, Bali, Tuscany and Turks and Caicos — has also planted a flag in its home town with COMO Metropolitan Singapore, opened 19 months ago in the thrum of the city, strong on wellness, with a robot barista and sensational digital artwork (B&B doubles from £250; It is near Orchard Road, the main drag, as is the Standard, which opened at the end of last year as an urban bolt hole with terraced gardens for morning yoga. The check-in desk is a terrarium artwork by Erik Tobua, there are oversized outdoor sculptures and an excellent izakaya-style restaurant, Kaya, where the chef Nicholas Cheng focuses on fermented and pickled dishes in glorious surrounds, with fronds of hanging plants trailing from the ceiling (B&B doubles from £230; There is a sense that this city of striking skyscrapers and efficient infrastructure is also embracing itslush and verdant character. Located just sixty miles or so off the equator, Singapore was once, of course, all dense tropical rainforest, home to tigers and leopards. From the 19th century British colonialists felled giant trees for fuel and timber and established rubber plantations in a continued programme of deforestation. But now the wild is being brought back in the spaces between modernity. Highways are increasingly bordered by shrubbery and bougainvillea; many roads are leafy boulevards lined with towering trees with sprouting epiphytes clinging to their trunks, and wedges of urban land have been transformed into bursts of hibiscus and heliconia. • 15 of the best hotels in Singapore Singapore Botanic Gardens is a Unesco world heritage site with 197 acres of tropical landscaping and the world's largest display of orchids. Around dawn, locals congregate to practise the meditative martial art of qigong and a gentle form of swordsmanship with long sticks. It's one of the few places in tech-forward Singapore that still triggers my memories of childhood trips here(entry free; The modern homage to horticulture is Gardens by the Bay, with glassy conservatories showcasing different biomes (entry to the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest, £18; and futuristic tree-shaped structures collecting solar energy to power a nightly light show on Marina Bay. Wilder nature is less prevalent across the tiny country, although there are still some areas, such as Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in the north, Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, and MacRitchie Nature Trail & Reservoir Park, all within an hour from the city centre by bus or MRT, the highly efficient underground system. An easy walk around any of these is often rewarded with sightings of long-tailed macaque monkeys, smooth-coated otters and clouded monitor lizards. There's a strong drive in Singapore to integrate nature into the cityscape, to position the country not only as one of the world's most ambitious commercial ports but also one that hasn't forgotten its natural assets, its tropical environs and its place on the planet. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue Michelle Jana Chan was a guest of Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree, which has B&B doubles from £260 ( Fly to Singapore By Chris Fitch Australia's biggest city is all about sun, sea and some of the country's — if not the world's — best beaches. Down at Sydney Harbour there's twice the fish diversity of the entire UK and at Cabbage Tree Bay, a protected reserve, you can snorkel among abundant marine life. Find the Living Seawalls attached to the local ocean pool ( these are dotted around the harbour, providing habitats for tiny ocean critters. Head upstream to the Parramatta River and official swimming spots that opened a decade ago after a major clean-up. If you spot seals lounging on the steps behind Sydney Opera House, send a photo to Wild Sydney Harbour to help their citizen science ( At Bondi beach, swim among stingrays and humpback whales, as documented by Drone Shark App (@dronesharkapp). Gaudí's masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia, contains columns sculpted like trees and doorframes with leaf motifs (£22; but for real nature in Catalonia's buzzing capital, walk 15 minutes east to Parc de les Glories. Once a raised highway, it has been converted into a public park with a lawn, playground, biodiversity corner and newly opened tree gardens. Montjuic, to the south of the city centre, is a raised coastal headland with a diverse landscape of wild forest and pristine ornamental gardens, with walking trails and beautiful views of the city. Stroll down to the coast for Barcelona's famous beaches, artificially created specifically for the 1992 Olympic Games. More than 500 marine species live in these waters, especially around the Forum bathing area. The Meiji Jingu forest, just south of the trendy Shinjuku district, was planted a century ago to honour the passing of the reformist Emperor Meiji, with 100,000 trees transported from across Japan. It is now a huge self-sustaining forest, with a vast canopy of mature native trees, best accessed from Harajuku Station. Many of Tokyo's native trees have been preserved inside centuries-old ancient shrines, such as Nezu, also home to a popular multicoloured azalea garden. Shinjuku Gyoen, a short walk northeast, contains a diverse range of vegetation densely packed together, from the ecological 'forest of life' to a traditional Japanese ornamental garden. This park becomes full of crowds every time the springtime hanami cherry blossom viewing season rolls around. In the south of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi National Park is the world's foremost urban wildlife reserve, with giraffes, zebras, hippos, lions and rhinos (£60; Drive around independently, jump on a tour, or team up with Friends of Nairobi National Park ( and volunteer on a bimonthly biodiversity drive. The park also has a raised safari walk and animal orphanage to visit on foot. Kenya's charismatic animals can also be seen at the nearby Giraffe Centre (£2; and Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage (£15; To the north, Karura Forest Reserve is a historic site where the Nobel peace prizewinner Wangari Maathai led her campaign for the protection and reforestation of land, and for the rights of the Kenyan people ( Chris Fitch's Wild Cities: Discovering New Ways of Living in the Modern Urban Jungle is out now (William Collins £22)
