Singapore - where can I buy under-water camera & wet-suit?

[Lj82]

Great recommendations by Zipps, kilo fox and Live in Sin.

Just to add to their recommendations,
There is another shop near the 3 shops in beach road called bluereef scuba.
Bluereef Scuba - Dive Equipment

Do you have any preferred brand for wetsuits?
I recommend dropping by at Oceanic asia and take a look. Their wetsuits are priced very competitively. ($100 - $130 SGD)
Oceanic Asia Pacific - Contact Us

In the same building as Oceanic there is another shop called Americ. You can take a look there as well. Americ

These 2 shops are located in Parklane Shopping Mall at 35 Selegie Road.
This mall can be reached by taking the MRT from Changi airport to Dhorby Gaut and a short walk away.

Near Parklane shopping mall is our country's electronic hub called Simlim Square. If you are looking for a marine case (Canon, Panasonic, Olympus etc) for you normal point and shoot camera, you have a good chance of finding it here. Even better if you plan to buy both camera and casing. I got my Panasonic marine case for TZ4 at Alan photo: Alan Photo Trading - More Than Just a Store

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If the dive shops at Parklane doesn't satisfy your need, the shops Kilo fox recommended in beach road are just a short taxi ride or 15-20mins walk away!

Hope these information helps.
If you need more help, do not hesitate to ask.

 

[xariatay]

Second the recommendation for Alan Photo. The Funan store should be less crowded though...
Also second the recommendation for Oceanic...

 

[kilo_fox]

kilo-fox, thanks so much for the info! Let me know how your shopping goes and if you have any suggestions on which shops I should go to or avoid. I'm going to be in Singapore in Jan next year (but the planning has started WAY ahead of time!)

Well, the shopping went extremely well and I have got all my stuff together....

It's in the shops listed below where I left my money and that I can recommend (in no particular order):
(1) Divemasters Pratama; 315 Outram Road;Tan Boon Liat Building #09-07; Tel: 6226-0991 E-mail: divemstr@pacific.net.sg DiveMasters Pratama
(2) Diveshop@sg (details see my previous post, #6)
(3) Waikiki Dive Centre (dito)
(4) Oceanic Asia Pacific Pte Ltd; 35 Selegie Rd #03-09 Parklane Shopping Mall; Tel : 6391 1420 website (they have also other brands, not only Oceanic)
(5) Sports Center (dito)

I got a discount of 10 - 15 % in all shops except (5) where I got 25% for buying 30 mouthpieces (for the dive shop in Indonesia I am headed to) [The guys from the dive shop had asked me to buy the mouthpieces for 3 $ or less, so I negotiated as hard as I could to get them for that price but 4.5 $ (normal price 6 $) was the very last price, and I obviously also understood that they couldn't give me a discount of 50 %, even when buying a larger quantity. So I called "my" dive shop to ask them about it and found out that they had meant 3 US$ while I was trying to get them for 3 Singapore$ ]
Shops (1) and (2) also provided me with the necessary paper for the reimbursement of the GST (Goods & Service Tax of 7 %). [The other shops were not GST-registered and hence couldn't give me those papers.]

I visited this shop but didn't buy anything:
(6) Americ Marine & Sports Centre; 35 Selegie Rd #01-20/21 Parklane Shopping Mall; Tel : 6336 6233 Americ
The guy in the shop kind of gave me the feeling he preferred to keep his stuff so I decided to do him that favour and didn't spend much time in his shop..

There is only one shop that I cannot recommend:
(7) The ScubaShop (Orpheus Dive Centre) (dito)
They have mainly SP but also other brands.
Before buying anything I made the tour to all the mentioned shops to check out what they offered and to which prices. The ScubaShop had the highest prices for all items I compared (same brand). While I realised that the guy who showed me around the shop said something about shops which were reselling SP gear for higher prices than the retail price. I didn't quite understand what he meant and said "all right, so there are shops that sell the dive gear for retail price?" to which he replied "yes, like our shop here...."

For the brands you can check their websites (or ask me); shop (5) has no website, as they said from the beginning that they don't have 5mm wetsuits in small size I didn't take a closer look, all I remember is that they have Beuchat.

Shops (2), (3) and (5) are in walking distance one from each other and relatively close to the airport. Shop (4) is 15 minutes walk further into town (or a short taxi ride). Shop (6) is in the same building as shop (4). Shop (1) is even further, you'd need to take a taxi to get there.

If you come with cash, there is (official) money changers everywhere. I got the best exchange rate at the Parklane shopping mall (shops (4) and (6)).
Obviously you can pay everywhere with credit card. Even in the taxi.

Cheers....

 

[escher123]

kilo fox, thanks a ton for the information! It will definitely help me find what I'm looking for!