Fun & Entertainment Outdoors: Spoiled for Choice!

By Donn Richard
June 2008
Singapore

Looking for outdoor fun and entertainment? Resorts World at Sentosa is the place!

RWS's outdoors fun is nearly fourfold of MBS’s. No surprise really as RWS’s focus during the bid to construct Singapore’s second IR was as a destination for family filled fun, focusing slightly less on MICE and business activities than the Marina Bay Sands.

Festivewalk is the ‘spine?of RWS IR and is located in the central zone. Universal Studios Singapore is in the east zone and the Marine Life Park and Equarius Water Park are found in the west zone. This means that RWS visitors will literally have 3 different holiday destinations.

Festivewalk is a 0.5km strip located under the Vivo-Sentosa Skytrain link that will buzz with activity 24/7. The strip will host great street performances including FREE spectacular audio-visual performances, fine dining, as well as wonderfully themed shops and clubs. And when the sun sets visitors are guaranteed additional entertainment near the waterfront.

Arriving by bus from Harborfront, visitors will be welcomed by outdoor performers in what will be known as Bull Ring. And did you know that several performances at RWS’s strip as well as performances in other locations of the resort, including the resort’s signature performance, the Crane Dance at the waterfront will be developed by multi Emmy award-winning entertainment production design master, Jeremy Railton? This is not your average busker, mime and juggler entertainment.

Need to cool down and get a bit wet? The mother of all water parks, Equarius Waterpark will incorporate the latest water theme park technology. This is true family fun! And as if that wasn’t enough, it will be complemented by the Quest Marine Life Park. When RWS said the West zone theme is water, well, they weren’t kidding! The water park will be located just north of the Equarius hotel.

The park will be designed by Germany's Melchers Project Management and Canada's Whitewater West Industries and will feature one of the latest thrilling activities; an artificial wave pool. Here, surfers of various abilities can enjoy the thrill of riding their surfboards on an astounding variety of artificial waves. Kids can enjoy water coaster rides and a 450m water flume cascading around trees. And of course there are also the? well, let’s just say that much more awaits you in the water-based adventure zone.

Melchers and Whitewater have promised to customize the 1.3 ha water park in order to integrate it with the hillside jungle terrain of Sentosa. So, keep your eyes open!

For the truly adventurous, RWS will include the Marine Life Park (MLP), an edutainment centre where visitors can swim with the whales and tiger sharks at the world's largest aquarium, and an 8ha oceanarium. This behemoth will house about 700,000 aquatic animals and fish. It is believed that MLP will also house the world's largest collection of coral reef.

Furthermore, Marina Life Park will offer primary as well as secondary students study tours in and around QMLP. In addition, it is rumoured that RWS's MLP will offer up to 20 internships to outstanding postgraduate students who will then receive this once in a lifetime opportunity to be placed in a research fellowship programme alongside prominent marine biologists.

SGD $100,000 will be set aside for 2008 and 2009 and up to SGD $1,000,000 per year after the opening of the resort in 2010 for research, conservation, environmental and sponsorship purposes.

The purposely set up “Marine Life?fund will also help support a rescue centre including an emergency response team for marine animals in need of urgent care in the coastal waters of Singapore and beyond.
The world’s largest man-made dolphin habitat will be based here too! And being very conscious of our marine friends, Shark’s fin will remain off the menus in all RWS based restaurants!

Boston based Chermayeff & Poole have been hired by RWS as consultants for the resort’s 20-million
gallon Marine Life Park.

Universal Studios Singapore Theme Park. Well, that just about says it all. Located in the East zone, it will undoubtedly become one of Singapore’s main crowd pullers.

Universal Studios Singapore will be larger than Universal Studios in Hollywood. It will be as large as or larger than Universal in Orlando (and those of you who have been there can attest to its enormous size). In fact, this theme park, with an expected visitor number of 5 million a year, will become Asia’s largest.

China's Jingye Engineering Corporation Limited was awarded the SG $ 705 million contract for infrastructure works on the theme park's walkways, facades, the amphitheatre and main buildings. China Jingye is linked to China Metallurgical Corporation (MCC) which built the Beijing Olympic "Bird Nest" stadium. MCC is also RWS's main supplier of structural steel.

There will be at least six themed worlds within Universal Studios Singapore, namely: The Big Apple, The Lost World, Egypt, Hollywood Boulevard, Super Hero City and Dreamworks.

From dinosaurs roaming the lands to erupting volcanoes; from coaster rides that will take you into the world of movies to the Waterworld stunt shows ?fun and excitement for all. The total number of themed attractions will be 24, 18 of which will be exclusively designed for Singapore. It is rumored that even some Hollywood movie productions could well be produced here in the future.

Interestingly most of Universal's 24 attractions will be imported predesigned and prefabricated from major theme park ride manufacturers around the globe.

Universal Singapore will not disappoint when we talk computer animation. Guests are given a peek into the latest computer animation technology by the iconic Dreamworks. Tours will be given where movie buffs can see animation artists at work and learn about computer-generated imagery and the creation of films.

Some good news for Singapore residents: RWS is promising to keep the ticket fees affordable to the public. Tickets are priced at least 30% below that of Universal in Orlando!

Plans are in the pipeline to produce and distribute TV programs of interest to Asian viewers around the region. In fact, with RWS’s signing of a $ 20 million 50-50 joint venture in October 2007 with Reality TV guru, Mark Burnett Productions Asia (MBPA), this should soon become a reality.

MBPA are currently based inside RWS’s corporate offices on Sentosa. It is believed that in the not too distant future, the specially designed multi purpose MBPA studios will be housed somewhere within the RWS IR complex, most likely on the grounds of Universal Studios.

It is rumored that the current corporate office will be transformed into a training centre for RWS staff sometime around 2012.

It is expected that RWS will put aside $20-$30 million yearly to fund the maintenance of its major edutainment centres, namely; Universal, Experiential and Marine Life as well as its two entertainment centers, namely; Festivewalk and Equarius.