Trick Eye Museum at Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) Singapore

June 14, 2014

Trick Eye Museum at Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) Singapore

I visited Trick Eye Museum yesterday because I wanted to take advantage of the Opening Discount which offers tickets at 50% off the usual price. Only caveat is that you have to buy this on site (no online booking) and you have to use the tickets before 22 June. The usual price tickets go for $25 for adults and $20 for a child (under 12).

I anticipated that it would be crowded on a Saturday, but I certainly did not expect to have to queue for nearly 1.5 hours and then have the ticketing staff LIE to me about the wait. More on that later. Let's move on to How to get to Trick Eye Museum.

It is a little Tricky (no pun intended) as there are literally no directions or signboards that lead to the Trick Eye Museum. Firstly, the best way to get there is probably to take the monorail ($4) and stop at Waterfront Station. Or walk in through the Sentosa Broadwalk. Or cab in. If you have lots of money to waste, then I suggest parking at RWS sentosa, which costs about $8 an hour to park. If you drive, and have the Islander Pass, park at Imbiah and then take the monorail one stop down.

So here's an enlarged view of the RWS attractions area. The Trick Eye Museum is literally behind Universal Studios, but there's no short-cut to get through it, unless you're arriving via the Sentosa Broadwalk, which will lead right up to the museum. If you, like most people, are arriving via the monorail, then follow the red line which I have plotted, walk right past the Universal Studios gate, to the green area, where the Malaysian Food Street is, and then go around it, keep walking, keep walking, and you'll finally see it in an obscure corner.

Okay, now for the ticketing, when I arrived on a Saturday at about 11.45am, there were already snaking long queues for the tickets and to get into the museum. Yes that's right, there are TWO queues, one extraordinary long one for the ticketing counter, and another one to get in.

I was quite dismayed and thought about coming back another day, but that meant my efforts and money spent just getting to Sentosa would be wasted. So I persevered and started to queue. The queue for the tickets was about 25-30 metres long, and the queue to get in was about 20 metres long.

I can't remember how long I queued for at each line, but it took me approximately 1.5 hours to get in. Now here's the part where the staff LIED to me. When I was about the purchase the tickets, the staff told me that the wait to get into the museum was Five Hours! She advised me to buy the tickets and then come back another day. I was really skeptical as although the queue was long, it didn't look like a 5-hour wait.

The queue for the entrance was long, and it was good that the regulated it so that not too many people were inside the museum at any one time. But I saw about five people being ushered in every five minutes or so, so it really didn't look like a 5-hour wait to me. I decided to ignore her advice and went to join the queue at the entrance, and I'm glad I did.

I mean, I understand that they may want to control or moderate the crowd, but to resort to such tactics is completely despicable. People do spend time and effort to plan an outing, the least you could do is not to turn them away.

Anyway, enough of that.

What to Bring

1) A wide angle lens, high shutter speed, low-light friendly camera.

The Wide Angle Lens is especially important because many of the exhibits take up a wide area, and if you want to get the photo to look as dynamic as it should be, you need a wide angle lens.

2) Fitting clothes and shoes/hairband

Some of the exhibits require you to lie down, and the picture is supposed to be inverted afterwards. If your hair or clothes are too loose, well it will look obvious that you're not really dangling upside down.

The Exhibits

I must say there's quite a good range of exhibits and we easily spent 1.5 hours in there. We did rush a little as we had another appointment. The exhibits can be divided into 3 types - Optical Illusions (my favourite), You're a Star (posing next to iconic figures?), and some miscellaneous stuff like floor art and cutsey stuff.

We didn't get to take all the exhibits as there were too many people crowding around it and getting into the way so there wasn't really Enough Space/Distance to take a proper picture.

Yes, People kept getting into the Frame. So it's best to visit this place when it's relatively quieter.

Here are some of my favourite pictures.