A day, My day- at River Safari Singapore

Photos my friends and I took

My thoughts: 

Overall appeal of the place

   

Overall, I feel that the Park on a whole is well maintained and looked after. Rubbish bins were easily accessible and the cleaners also made it a point to ensure that the toilets remained fresh-smelling.

As the Park is mostly surrounded by marine exhibits, i expected the place to smell fishy or dirty. In contrast, the Park was clean and I could hardly spot litter around. 
The exhibition glasses were also well cleaned and there were no murky dirty waters, hence as visitors we could see the animals inside the exhibits clearly. The staff at the Park were also enthusiastic and ready to help if needed. 
Also, even though there were pushcarts and food outlets that sold water, water dispensing machines could be found in the park too.
The food sold were also priced quite reasonably, for example the huge panda pau sold at Mama Panda Kitchen was $2.90, and the tumbler with a choice of drink was $5. 

Areas/services/features that have been well presented

  

There were many signage and information boards that were colourful and easy to read. This made it easier for visitors, both young and old to read the boards to know more about the animals. Most of the boards, especially those that were facing exhibit tanks were made at a neutrally low slanted height with more pictures. 

The interactive features and information boards makes it easier for parents or teachers to explain to the children, or for them to read the information themselves easily.  The low slanted height makes it easy for the children to read the boards themselves while considering the comfort of the adults as a slanted angle helps adults to see the boards easily without needing to strain their neck. 

There were also many interactive features such as buttons that we could press to hear the cry of the animal. The trails around the park also have been carefully planned and i thought it was really smooth. As a visitor, i had no trouble navigating from one zone to the next, from an exhibit to another even without the use or referring to the map that was given to me. 

How engaging has the attraction been

        

   
 Engagement between visitors is low at the park. Most visitors travel with their family and friends and even guided tours are mostly private ones. This was what i had observed during the time i was at the park with my friends, the only guided tour we witnessed was one led by a guide for a class of secondary school students. The informative mood boards displayed along the trails also made interaction between visitors minimal. Unless there is a problem of language barrier, everyone have no reason to talk to another stranger. There was also a petting tank where visitors could try touching a baby freshwater stingray or starfish. Majority of the people who went to the petting tank were mothers with their kids so most of them left after taking a picture and trying to touch the animals.
Even so, there were some exhibits that encouraged interaction between visitors. Examples includes photo backdrops such as empty dinosaur eggs where visitors could "enter" into to take a picture. The meet and greet sessions of the animals also allowed visitors to interact as curious visitors exchanged comments with one another whenever the keeper said something about the animal. My friends and I witnessed the meet-and-greet of a hornbill and iguana too.

What most excited and  disappointed me

              

I was excited to see the Giant Pandas and even though when I met one of them, Kai Kai was out for exercise so only shy Jia Jia was present. Being a shy panda, she was quite intimidated by the sound as the place was quite noisy as some tourists were over excited by Jia Jia's presence. She was originally taking a walk around her home, because of the noise she retreated and started walking in circles. As much as that was also cute, i was still quite disappointed for the overall experience as there were no guides present to hush the noisy tourists down.

The guides at the entrance only help to do crowd control if the noise was getting out-of-hand or easily heard from the entrance.

I was also excited to take the Amazon River Quest, with the cruising speed and sudden accelerations whenever there were slopes and bumps. My friends and I could not guess what we were expecting. It was also interesting to see the animals up close, with most of them either giving us curious looks or just carrying on with their daily tasks and ignoring our presence.
It was also breath-taking to see the jaguars up close as they were less than a metre away from us, with the exhibit glass being the barrier between us.

At the squirrel monkey forest, my friends and i were not expecting much, but the visit made me a little scared as the monkeys were as near as less than 30 centimetres away from me. The keepers present warned us to keep our hands off the sides as they were "territories" of the monkeys. My friends and I even spot a spider monkey using a flower as a tissue to rub its nose before proceeding to discard the "tissue".
I did not need to zoom in my camera or take a step closer to take pictures of the monkeys as they come closer to me themselves and just minding their own business.

I was impressed by the large tank at the Amazon Flooded Forest. The tank was so huge and i felt as though I was really up close with the animals. The place was also very tranquil, probably because my friends and I visited the exhibit slightly later than 5, there were not many families present but mostly individuals and couples.
Hence the noise level was low and the slightly cold area with the many spaces to sit on the long benches facing the tank made the experience therapeutic and we even felt sleepy watching the manatees and other marine animals swim in the tank.

 I do not recall seeing any guides or keepers near the area of the large tank, but I thought that during peak days or hours, it would be great if there were keepers present to help keep the overall noise level down.

On a whole, i expected to see more animals and exhibits as we were told that the park has over 6,000 species, but some of the animals were retreated or sleeping.