Amazon Quest boatride at River Safari Singapore Revisited

On the day of Caelyn's birthday we decided to go to the zoo because if it's your birthday you get free entry! We got to the zoo about 10.45am and the line to buy the tickets were ridiculous!! It was stretching all the way to the River Safari entrance sign. I couldn't believe it because 2 weeks ago on a Monday as well there was hardly any queue. Here's a tip, if you aren't after any discounts or promotions, just go buy your ticket online so you don't have to wait so long! (note that there's a discount for OCBC credit cardholders if you buy at the ticket booth).

But there's also a catch, while queuing up, we noticed on the tv there were time slots for the River Safari boat ride. The ride starts at 12pm and the slots were for every half an hour until 4.30pm. By the time we got to the ticket counter, only 4.30pm time slot was available, so we took it cos we were planning to go to River Safari anyway after the Zoo since we had annual passes. Here's what I don't get, if you had annual passes, you would've by passed the ticket line and go straight into the park, which means you wouldn't be able to book your time slot. The ticket counter gave a printed ticket with the time of your boat ride and how many people it was for. So I'm not sure how it would work for annual pass holders....and they didn't have this system when we went 2 weeks ago too. So strange. Lucky we did manage to get a slot because straight after us it was all filled up but there was still a long queue of people behind. Disappointed no doubt. If you don't manage to get a ticket though, it's no harm to ask the attendants at the attraction, who knows, they might let you in.

For the time being, the boat ride is complimentary. I don't know when and if they will start charging for it. If they did, well it'd be pretty sucky because it's such a fun attraction and if time permits you'd want to go on it at least a second time. But then again, perhaps they'd sell an all day pass or something.

This time around, we went with a friend who had a child that was too small for the ride, so we got to experience the baby swap system. It went fairly smoothly, you go on the boat and the other parent with the baby waits at the baby room. Which is a half open room with fake grass, green plastic table and chairs (from Ikea type), and a tv showing some kind of cartoon. So after you get off the ride, you go around the exit barrier to the room and get the other parent who will go straight onto a boat with 'minimal' waiting. My friend did have to wait a while for some reason because the attendant forgot to tell the other attendant who was arranging the passenger numbers for the boat that she was in the priority queue. So if you find yourself waiting a while, just prompt them.

I think this is her favourite attraction at the River Safari.