KAREN & THE CONSTABLES

It can be really difficult to decide where to go on honeymoon. You’re faced with the opportunity to travel and potentially take the trip of a lifetime but how do you begin to choose?

When Allan and I got engaged we were gifted a scratch-off map of the world, and we decided that we would use it to mark everywhere we visited together. We had already marked off a couple of trips closer to home, but that left us with a whole lot of map to cover!

We knew we wanted to visit somewhere distant, and if we were travelling quite far we’d like to see more than one place so, after browsing a pile of brochures, we opted for Singapore and Bali through Trailfinders.

Trailfinders is expensive, but this was likely to be a one-off luxury experience, so we booked our dates and a few trips and counted down the days until we departed (oh yeah, and there was a wedding in there somewhere too!).

We were very lucky (and thankful) that my parents were able to look after the girls and pets while we headed to the airport at 2am, starting a 36 hour trip from home to hotel from Edinburgh-Amsterdam-Singapore. After a long journey we were glad to see a driver holding up our name on a board, just like in the movies!

We arrived at the Fairmont Singapore to find that our room wasn’t ready. We were quite surprised at this, and even more surprised when the man at the desk offered us an upgraded room which was ready for an extra nightly fee. When we declined and asked if there was somewhere we could leave our bags and get some breakfast, all of a sudden our room became available! What a coincidence!

The hotel was lovely, very modern and stylish, but we were immediately disappointed. We’d paid a lot of money, travelled a long way, picked a luxury 5-star hotel, and we felt they were trying to scam us as soon as we got through the door.

Our deluxe room was fantastic and spacious, we had a delicious breakfast by the pool or in the restaurant every morning and the location of the hotel suited us perfectly. But the hotel was just somewhere to sleep really, we were off to explore!

After we freshened up we took the train (MRT) to Sentosa, an island to the south of Singapore dedicated to everything fun! It houses Universal Studios, beaches, golf courses, waterparks, museums, adventure and wildlife attractions, but we were there to visit the SEA Aquarium. The aquarium was very busy but full of sealife. We loved walking through the exhibition, especially the glass tunnels and the massive tank with a seating area, in awe of the different species swimming by. Expect sharks, dolphins, fish, crabs, rays, seahorses and jellyfish.

We then took the train up to the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which is a fantastic open park with lots of space to walk around and smell the flowers, as well as cafes, play areas, and often events.

Most of the park is free to visit, with the exception of the National Orchid Garden which is around £8 for adults, £1-2 for concessions, and free for kids under 12.

In the evening we headed down to CÉ LA VI, an amazing rooftop restaurant and open air bar located at the very top of the Marina Bay Sands.

The food is expensive, the cocktails even more so, but the views from the SkyBar are amazing!

It was such a lovely, warm evening that we took a stroll around the Gardens By The Bay.

Seeing everything lit up at night was the perfect end to our first day.