The ferry out of Marina South Pier takes about twenty-five minutes. Behind you are the cranes and the glass of the central business district; ahead is a scatter of low green islands where the loudest sound is wash slapping a concrete seawall and the occasional horn from a tanker riding at anchor. These are the southern islands: a quarantine station, a pilgrimage islet, and a reclaimed sandbar that became the best beach in the country. On a weekday you can have most of them almost to yourself.
Two operators leave from the same pier
The trip begins at Marina South Pier MRT, the last stop on the North South Line, and the terminal building is a two-minute walk from the station exit. That makes this one of the few day trips here where you never need a taxi at either end. Two companies sail from the pier, and they are not interchangeable.
Singapore Island Cruise & Ferry Services (Marina South Pier) is the licensed operator for the Kusu pilgrimage and the backbone of any island-hop. A round trip runs roughly S$15 to S$18 for an adult, quoted as S$16 on weekdays and S$18 at weekends during the Kusu season. It takes groups freely on scheduled sailings, so you do not need to warn anyone that eleven of you are coming. Private charters seat anywhere from 12 to 200 with flexible departure times on request, so a family reunion or an office day out can simply buy the boat. Book online, and accept that all tickets are non-refundable, weather included. Calls at Big Sister's Island are suspended on weekdays until further notice, so if the Sisters' Islands themselves are the reason you are going, sail at a weekend and confirm before you pay.
Marina South Ferries (Marina South Pier) is the open-deck alternative at roughly S$18 to S$25 an adult return, with island-hopping passes costing more. It is walk-on friendly and runs dedicated charters for private groups by phone or email. The extra few dollars buy wind and horizon instead of a cabin, which on a still morning is the better ride. Note where it actually lands you: its St John's sailings currently berth at the Pulau Seringat jetty on Lazarus while the St John's main jetty is under repair. Because St John's, Lazarus and Seringat are linked by causeways, landing at one is effectively landing at all three, and you walk between them. It does change your timings, and it changes which end of the island you start from.
Lazarus Island earns the crossing on its own
Lazarus Island (Pulau Seringat–Kias) is what most people cross for. The beach is a long shallow crescent of imported sand facing a quiet lagoon, and it is the single best stretch of sand in Singapore, better than anything on the mainland coast and quieter than anything on Sentosa by a wide margin. Access is fully public and free once you have paid the ferry, there is no door policy of any kind, and groups picnic on the sand all day without anyone approaching them.
There is no shop on the sand itself: no kiosk, no cold drinks, and no shade you have not brought with you. Plan for that the way you would plan for a hike. Carry more water than feels necessary in the humidity, bring a proper sunshade rather than a towel, and take your rubbish back onto the ferry. The tree line gives a band of real shade in the late afternoon, which is a good argument for a later sailing out and a swim at four rather than at noon.
Kayaks, and one board that takes eight people
A ten-minute walk from the Pulau Seringat jetty, Lazarus Sea Sports Centre (operated by Camelot, Lazarus Island) is set up for exactly the group that the beach attracts. Alongside singles it runs tandem and triple kayaks, and a Mega SUP that takes up to eight paddlers standing on one board, which mostly becomes a slow argument about which way to go and is much funnier than it sounds. Hire starts from around S$20 an hour. Two-hour guided kayak or SUP intro programmes cost more and are the sensible option if nobody in the party has paddled before.
Everything here is non-motorised, and that rule is what keeps the lagoon quiet enough to hear birds over the water. Build the ten-minute walk into your ferry maths in both directions. It is the difference between a relaxed return and a jog along the causeway with a dry bag under one arm.
Half an hour indoors on St John's
The one indoor stop on the southern hop is the Sisters' Islands Marine Park Public Gallery (Marine Park Outreach and Education Centre, St John's Island), open daily from 10am to 4pm, free, and walk-in. It is a small space, so a party of fifteen arriving together will fill it. Send people in waves and let the rest sit outside, which is what the staff will politely ask you to do anyway.
Go in even if displays about coral recruitment are not normally your thing, because this is where you pick up the free self-guided trail map for St John's, a 2.8km route with fifteen stations. The island spent decades as a quarantine station and later held detainees, and the trail walks you past the bones of that: administrative blocks, jetty structures, the odd stretch of wall doing nothing in particular. Allow an hour and a quarter at an unhurried pace. In the middle of the day it is hot and largely unshaded, so it works best either straight off the first ferry or after the heat has broken around four.
Kusu holds two faiths on one small hill
Kusu Island (Da Bo Gong Temple and Keramat Kusu) is the strangest and most rewarding stop, an 85,000 square metre islet carrying two religions at two heights. The Taoist Da Bo Gong temple sits at sea level near the jetty. The Muslim keramat of Syed Abdul Rahman sits at the top of a flight of steps on the hill, reached by a climb that people of very different beliefs have been making side by side for well over a century. Access is free and unrestricted, and the ferry fare is the same S$16 weekday, S$18 weekend during pilgrimage season.
The date you pick decides which island you get. The 2026 pilgrimage runs from 10 October to 8 November, and that is when the place comes alive: the hilltop stairs open, the island hawker centre opens, and thousands of people arrive by the boatload. It is also when you will queue for the ferry, queue for the temple and queue for the steps. If you want the ritual and the crowd, go during those four weeks and go early. If you want the island quiet enough to hear the sea from the temple forecourt, come on a weekday outside the season and accept that the hawker stalls will be shuttered and the hill steps closed.
Two dives in low visibility
For anyone certified, Dolphin Explorer (departing for the southern straits) is the way to see this archipelago from underneath. It runs two purpose-built boats taking up to 15 divers each, with a toilet, changing area and freshwater on board, and whole-boat charters are available for clubs and groups. Two dives with your own gear cost roughly S$100 to S$160. The reefs off Pulau Hantu are about half an hour out and the boats sit on site for around three hours, which is comfortably enough for two dives and a surface interval spent drying off on deck.
Visibility in the straits is low year-round. This is a busy shipping channel with silty water, and nobody should board expecting blue. What you get instead is biodiversity at close range: hard and soft corals, nudibranchs, seahorses if you are patient and your eyes are good. It is a macro photographer's day out rather than a postcard one, and divers who understand that in advance come back happy.
Lunch anchored in the straits
The best kitchen anywhere on this hop floats. Albatross Island Restaurant aboard Royal Albatross (Tall Ship Adventures, boarding from Marina South, Sentosa or Ola Beach) serves a three-course menu at S$95 for adults and S$75 for children, including the speedboat transfers out to the ship, with an à la carte range of roughly S$5 to S$30. It runs Tuesday to Sunday, 10.30am to 3pm, with the last seating at 2pm.
Walk-on seatings are available, and the corporate desk handles full-ship private charters if you want the whole tall ship for an event. The speedboat transfer is part of the experience rather than a chore: you board at speed, climb onto a rigged sailing ship anchored in open water, and eat a properly cooked lunch with the anchorage spread out around you. It does demand discipline about the clock. Last seating at 2pm means a morning on Lazarus has to end decisively, and the transfer point you choose determines where your afternoon can go next.
Staying after the last ferry leaves
There is one way to be on these islands after dark, and it has an expiry date. Tiny Away Escape @ Lazarus Island (Big Tiny, Lazarus Island) put five tiny houses on the island, the first overnight stay ever offered there, from around S$284 a night. Five units is the whole site, so a group of any size books the lot or splits across dates; in practice the guests are couples and pairs. The reward is hard to get anywhere else in this country: the beach empty, no day-trippers, and a sky with no towers in it.
The concession with Sentosa Development Corporation ends, and final bookings run only to 31 January 2027. If this is something you want to do, book it now rather than someday. For anything longer than a night or two, base yourself on the mainland instead and treat the islands as day trips. The Singapore hotel search covers the neighbourhoods within easy reach of the North South Line, which is the line that matters here.
A bookend on Tanjong Beach
Most island days end back at the pier at dusk with nowhere obvious to go. The fix is Tanjong Beach Club (Tanjong Beach, Sentosa), the one beach bar in the archipelago that is good rather than merely convenient. Mains run about S$25 to S$40, daybeds and cabanas carry a minimum spend, and it is a comfortable place to sit salt-stained with a drink while the light goes.
The booking rules are worth knowing before you arrive with a crowd. Parties under 20 book online in the ordinary way. Over 20 goes through the enquiry form instead, and full-venue hire runs to 350 seated or 450 standing, with buyouts from around S$28,000. Reservations open a month ahead and weekends go fast, so put it in the calendar when you book the ferry rather than on the day.
Planning the day
Start at Marina South Pier MRT on the North South Line. The terminal is a short signposted walk from the station and there is no sensible alternative approach. Buy ferry tickets online in advance, check which jetty your operator is using, since the St John's repair works are live and affect Marina South Ferries sailings, and treat every ticket as non-refundable, because it is.
Carry cash. There is no shop on Lazarus beach, the Kusu hawker centre only opens during the 10 October to 8 November pilgrimage window in 2026, and small vendors on the islands are not a reliable place to try a card. Water, sunscreen, a hat and a dry bag are the difference between a good day and an endured one.
A realistic budget for one person, ferry to nightcap, is S$30 to S$60 for a simple beach day with a kayak hire, or S$150 to S$200 if you add the tall-ship lunch and dinner on Sentosa. Take the earliest sailing you can, do the St John's trail or the gallery before the midday heat, swim in the late afternoon when the tree line finally throws shade, and leave at least one clear hour of slack before your return ferry, because the boats do not wait and the causeway walk is longer than it looks on the map. For everything else on the mainland side of the day, the Singapore guide is the place to start.
