Singapore

Yes, if you plan to leave the ship and clear immigration. The SG Arrival Card (SGAC) is mandatory for all sea arrivals who pass through immigration, including cruise passengers on shore excursions. It's free, submitted online via the ICA e-service or the MyICA app, and must be filed within three days of your arrival date (including the arrival day itself). Passengers who stay on the ship and don't clear immigration are exempt. Anyone who pays a third-party site for an SGAC is being scammed — the official submission costs nothing.

Mega-ships (anything around 4,000 passengers and up) use Marina Bay Cruise Centre Singapore at 61 Marina Coastal Drive. The terminal can handle vessels up to 360 m long, 220,000 GT, and an 11.5 m draft. Smaller ships, regional ferries, and some luxury and expedition lines use Singapore Cruise Centre at HarbourFront. The two are about 7 km apart and not interchangeable — confirm against your ship's pre-cruise documents, not against an old guidebook. SCC is scheduled to move to an interim terminal in late 2026 as part of the long-term Greater Southern Waterfront merger into MBCCS.

If your ship is at HarbourFront, yes — Sentosa is across the cable car or boardwalk from the terminal and you can do beaches, S.E.A. Aquarium, and Universal Studios Singapore in a half day without ever touching central Singapore. If your ship is at MBCCS, it's a different calculation. Sentosa is a 20-minute taxi from Marina Bay, and you'll spend the day on a beach island instead of seeing the city you flew across the world for. First-time visitors should pick Marina Bay (Gardens by the Bay + Marina Bay Sands SkyPark + Chinatown lunch) over Sentosa unless you have kids who need a theme-park anchor.

The gardens themselves — the outdoor Supertree Grove, the public boardwalks, the photo-everyone-takes shot of the metal trees against the Marina Bay Sands towers — are free. The two paid conservatories are Flower Dome and Cloud Forest, S$46 for a non-resident adult combo ticket, S$32 for children 3–12, with seniors 60+ getting Singapore-resident pricing only. Both open 9am–9pm daily with last entry 30–60 minutes before close, and are closed one day a month for maintenance. Cloud Forest is the better one if you have to pick — the indoor mountain-and-waterfall is genuinely impressive. Buy online to skip the queue.

You need Singapore dollars (SGD) for taxis, hawker centres, and small purchases — US dollars are not accepted in normal commerce. Cards are universal everywhere else: malls, restaurants, the MRT (contactless tap), Gardens by the Bay tickets, Marina Bay Sands. Note that paying a taxi by card adds a 10% surcharge on top of the metered fare, so for short cruise-day rides cash is meaningfully cheaper. ATMs are everywhere, and the airport-style currency-conversion booths at MBCCS and the malls are fine — Singapore is not a country where you get fleeced on the exchange.

Yes — Singapore is one of the safest cities in the world for cruise passengers and routinely sits at the top of global crime-and-safety indices. Solo travel, late-evening walks, the MRT after dark, women travelling alone — all fine by international comparison. The catch is the law, not the danger: chewing gum, jaywalking, smoking outside designated areas, and even minor drug offences carry meaningful fines or worse. Behave like you would in an airport and you'll be fine. The bigger cruise-day risk is the heat — 30°C and 80% humidity is the normal day, not the bad day.