Marina Bay Sands Singapore: Travel Guide (4.7★)

Three curved towers, fifty-seven storeys each, holding up a 340-metre boat-shaped deck: that’s the shape everyone recognises before they’ve ever set foot in Singapore. Marina Bay Sands opened in 2010 and sits at 10 Bayfront Ave, directly across the water from the Merlion and the Gardens by the Bay domes.

What’s actually up there

The SkyPark deck holds the hotel’s rooftop infinity pool, reserved strictly for registered guests with a room key card. Everyone else uses the separate SkyPark Observation Deck, a public ticketed viewpoint on the 57th floor.

• Observation deck: paid entry, open to all, no room required
• Infinity pool: hotel guests only, key-card checked at the entrance
• Both look north over the Marina Bay skyline and south toward Sentosa

Ground level connects to The Shoppes, a mall with a canal running through it, and to Marina Bay Sands Theatre and the ArtScience Museum next door shaped like a lotus flower.

Getting there and around

Bayfront MRT station (Downtown and Circle lines) exits directly into the mall’s basement, a five-minute walk from the towers. Taxis and ride-hail drop off at the hotel’s main lobby entrance on Bayfront Avenue.

The casino occupies its own wing with a separate entrance; Singapore citizens and permanent residents pay a levy to enter, foreign passport holders do not. Free walkways link the hotel, the mall, and the Bayfront waterfront promenade, so you don’t need transport between them.

Seeing the skyline without a room

Book Observation Deck tickets online ahead of a visit; the venue is consistently one of the busiest in Singapore and walk-up queues at the ticket counter run long, especially late afternoon before sunset. Arriving right at opening usually beats the queue that builds through the day.

If you want the pool photo you’ve seen online, staying at the hotel is the only route in; day passes are not sold. Non-guests get the same skyline from the Observation Deck one floor below, just without the water.

For the free version, the Marina Bay waterfront promenade below the towers gives a straight-on view of the whole building reflected in the bay, best around dusk when the light show at the base runs. Spectra, the water and light show, plays nightly at the event plaza facing the bay at no charge.

Eating and staying oriented

The Shoppes hold restaurant outposts from several well-known chefs alongside the mall’s canal, plus food courts on the basement level for a faster, cheaper meal. Rooftop bar Ce La Vi sits on the SkyPark itself and takes walk-ins for its bar area, no room key needed, though it fills fast after work hours.

Because this is one of the most-reviewed hotels in Southeast Asia, expect crowds at check-in, the Observation Deck lift, and the mall on weekends. Weekday mornings are calmer across all three.