Full day at Mandai in Singapore

I had been to Singapore multiple times in the past. As a nature and wildlife lover, I kind of struggled to find the right places to visit in the city heavy landscapes of Singapore. While Singapore does have nature parks, mangroves and other islands, the scale and pictures made it less exciting to plan something solely around them. Mandai was always on the wishlist

I recently got an opportunity to go back to Singapore. This time, I thought of taking my parents along since they seemed keen to visit, mainly driven by the hype from other relatives who had been there.

For Indian travelers, Singapore- Malaysia- Thailand circuit is the typical first trip outside the country. I still remember my cousin flaunting pictures with orangutans from Singapore zoo in 2000s when international travel was not so common

That happened to be true for our family too, not considering all the summer exchange programs I did in Switzerland, Germany and other European countries. Although we started with Thailand, we prioritized nature and ancient architecture heavy places like Bangkok, Phuket and Cambodia

I visited Singapore entirely on work related trips. Singapore zoo, night safari, Merlion, Gardens by the Bay were the pitstops on my first visit. I visited bird park the second time while it was in Jurong. I never felt convinced to visit Sentosa, Universal studios, Botanical Park, some partly because of high entrance fees, and some others because I had already seen places larger in scale elsewhere

Zoos are always a dilemma in my mind. We highly prefer wildlife in natural habitats. The idea of conserving injured animals, having education-oriented places feel justified at the same time. I got the inspiration to protect wildlife only after close encounters with them in local zoos like Nandankaanan. With the large spaces like in Singapore, they don’t feel tethered to a cage- that is quite important while taking care of animals in semi wild spaces

This time, we decided to spend almost a day and if possible, more than a day at Mandai. Mandai has 6 parks now

1. Singapore Zoo: With large mammals, orangutans. The layout is vast and made keeping animal preferences in mind. Specially to make them play around, like ropes, boxes and trees which we liked a lot

Take the tram to get a sense of the park and then walk to see exhibits around each stop

• Night safari: For nocturnal animals, the most expensive one. The tram trail covers different animals vs. walking trails. You cannot walk directly on the road since animals are free ranging. There are 30-60 min waiting time queues till 9:30 PM and it thins down after that. Best way is to watch the show at 7:30 PM, do walking trails till 9:30 PM and then take the tram

We were let inside at 6 PM, but nothing was open till 7 PM- both tram and walking trails. So grab dinner and don’t rush inside at 6 PM

We booked the 7:30 PM show, so did the Tasmanian devil trail and came back. You need to trace back the route unfortunately as they are one after the other

• River wonders: Mainly for aquatic animals. Some crowd pullers like pandas are here in addition to graceful manatees. We spend an hour just looking at the manatees and the babies!

• Bird Paradise: Specially for avian species. The weird shoebill and beautiful cancer fighter Great hornbill were standouts, in addition to penguins, flamingoes and hundreds of other species

• Rainforest Asia: Started in 2025, the west side is next to Bird Paradise, and East side close to Night Safari. The ticket covers both sides. It is more of adventure with few animals scattered around. East has African animals and west has Asian animals. It is a bit harder to spot animals in the west compared to east since east is more compact

• Exploria: Digital experience, somewhat on the lines of Theme Labs but different. The topics are dedicated to ecosystems and nature. Just visited since it was included in the 5 day pass, else not worth it unless you have kids interested in learning

Note that there might be some overlaps in animals found across parks, and a lot of overlap if you visit all parks

When to visit Mandai

All parks are year-round destinations. Most have opening times from 9 AM to 6 PM, except for

Night safari that operates from 7 PM- 12 AM

Night Safari opens at 6 PM but is only helpful in lining up for the tram queue since rides and trails start only after 7 PM

How to reach Mandai

There is no direct public transport from the city. We preferred taking Grab taxis since we were 3 of us with 2 seniors. It was usually under SGD 30, but one evening was SGD 50 one way. Better to wait for 5-10 minutes to check if fares decrease before booking

The Grab pass for $1 gives you 10% off on 8 rides, capped at $3 per ride. We used this to reduce expenses by 5-10%

There are buses between east to west sections which are included in your ticket if you buy multi park pass

Where to dine in Mandai

There are food options at the central entry point. Bird Paradise has Copper Chimney. Ah Meng (names after an orangutan) is decent near Singapore zoo with vegetarian lunch costing under SGD 15. Breakfast in the wild option used to be with Ah Meng in the past. It still continues with other animals now

We had lunch at Ah Meng restaurant which had one Indian vegetarian option- Biriyani with Veg Makhanwala casting around $15. We didn’t want the plant based impossible meat one. Our tickets had $5 credit which could be used on spend of $20- we used 2 of it.

Multi park passes vs. single visit

3 options are of good economic value for non-residents:  

1. Two park passes: Night safari + One other: $19-27 SGD savings compared to purchasing individual tickets

Note that

• There is no flexibility to choose any 2 parks. One of them has to be night safari.
• Passes are valid for 5 days
• You need to choose time slot for Night safari
• Amazon river quest fare is not covered in these tickets. Reviews were mixed, so we skipped that

• All park one day pass at SGD 118: SGD 35+ savings. Works best if you plan to visit 3 or more parks a day, basically full day only at Mandai

• All park multi day pass at SGD 128: SGD 25+savings. Works better if you plan to spend a week in Singapore and want to spread your visits

Two of us took the 5 day pass and split the visit into 2 days. Singapore Zoo, River Wonders, Night Safari on Day 1 and Bird Paradise, Rainforest East, Exploria on Day 2

If you plan to visit only 3 parks in a day, which is also practically what most people can only do, 2 day pass + Individual park pass might be cheaper with promos on Pelago. We had $20 off on purchases above $50, for 2 tickets, that helped shave off about $100 across our whole trip across Singapore and Kuala Lumpur!

To make purchase above $50, we included boat ride on River Wonders (otherwise $45). We also referred each other to get additional benefits which we didn’t end up using as the $20 off was enough

Our full day experience

We spent 2 hours visiting Gardens by the bay before heading to Mandai. We had plans to cover Singapore Zoo, River wonders and Night safari on Day 1 and managed to do it

We started with River Wonders since it was raining and this park is almost covered end to end. It took 90 minutes for us

We then headed to Singapore zoo and spent 4 hours here. We watched the 5 Pm Splash safari show which was really entertaining

We headed to Night Safari, but were too tired to complete the visit. We just saw the 7:30 PM show and did 2 walking trails among the 4

Be prepared to walk a lot, atleast 3 hours in each large park, with 4+ hours if you want to read every description and spend enough time at each place

Animal Show times

Plan our route so that you can catch animal shows at the right time. Our favorite was at Night safari where otters cleanly sorted garbage into different cans accurately!

Trams within each of the parks are included in the ticket fare, and between parks in multi park tickets

Walking between east and west side is about 10-15 minutes.

Our sample itinerary

While more than 3 parks in possible in a day time-wise, it is impossible walking wise since you get tired physically and stop enjoying after a certain point

Corporate events at the Night safari

As a part of our company event, we had a private experience at night safari for about 40 people. This included dinner at the Tipi tent, close interaction with animals like rainbow boa, owl and civet, tram ride after dinner

The food was good, animal interactions felt personal. I managed to take the tram here without waiting!

The verdict

Mandai is an amazing place to see the best of the best in the world when it comes to animals and birds, collectively probably the largest in the world! Definitely a must visit for a full day if not more

Explore next

Asia: India, Bhutan, Cambodia, Nepal

Central Asia: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan

Middle East: Jordan

Oceania: New Zealand

Americas: United States of America, Peru, Bolivia, Chile

Europe: Iceland, Turkey, Croatia

Africa: Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania