Marina Bay Sands SkyPark: Go in Daylight or After Dark?

Once you have decided to go up Marina Bay Sands, one question is left, and it is not a small one: which part of the day. Entry is sold in timed slots rather than as an all-day pass, the deck is outdoors, and the two halves of the day show you genuinely different cities.

The SkyPark Observation Deck ticket is the most-reviewed offer in our whole Singapore inventory – 7,937 reviews, 4.5 stars, from €23.89 – and the operator describes it as a 360-degree view from the 56th floor. Nearly eight thousand people have an opinion about it. Almost none of them tell you which hour they went.

First, the thing that catches people out

The observation deck and the infinity pool are not the same place, and the ticket is not for the pool. The pool on top of Marina Bay Sands is for hotel guests. A deck ticket buys you the viewing platform, not a swim, and no amount of asking at the top changes that.

It is worth saying plainly because the photograph that sells the hotel is the pool, and the attraction that sells tickets is the deck. If you have booked an evening at the SkyPark imagining the picture with the water and the skyline, the booking you want is a hotel room, not an observation deck ticket. Check what is included on the booking page before you pay.

Second: assume one entry per ticket. We could not find an operator statement confirming same-day re-entry. Plan on going up once. If you want the city by daylight and the city lit up, that is either two tickets or a choice – and the choice is what the rest of this article is about.

What daylight gives you

Distance. In the afternoon the view from the deck is mostly about how far you can see, and in Singapore that means the sea.

Below and to the south is the Singapore Strait, which is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, and the ships waiting in it are visible as a scattering of hulls out to the horizon. Turn the other way and the city reads as a plan: the financial district in one block, the conserved shophouse quarters beyond it, the wooded ridge running inland behind them, the Supertrees directly across the road at Gardens by the Bay. It is the one place where Singapore’s improbable geography – a whole country you can see the edges of – becomes obvious.

Daylight is also the quieter half. The slots people compete for are the ones near sunset.

The cost is heat and weather. The deck is open to the sky, there is limited shade, and the national weather service records afternoon and evening as the usual window for thunderstorms. Outdoor attractions in Singapore suspend operations when lightning is close. An afternoon slot carries a real chance of standing under cloud, and the wettest stretch of the year is November to January.

What the evening gives you

Colour, and a show underneath you.

Because Singapore sits roughly one degree north of the equator, sunset lands between about 6:50 pm and 7:25 pm whatever the month – a swing of half an hour across the whole year. There is no seasonal guesswork: an evening slot is an evening slot in February and in August alike.

Directly across from the deck is the Supertree Grove, where Garden Rhapsody runs at 7:45 pm and 8:45 pm every night for about fifteen minutes – Gardens by the Bay publishes both times. From the deck you are looking down on it. Whether that is better than standing underneath is a matter of taste, and they are not the same experience: one is a view, the other is a show you are inside of. If you have only one evening and the show matters more than the height, the grove is free.

Spectra, the water and light show, is staged at ground level on the Event Plaza at the foot of the hotel – listed at 8 pm and 9 pm nightly, with a third show at 10 pm on Fridays and Saturdays. It is designed for people on the promenade and on the water, not for people above it. Do not book an evening deck slot expecting to watch Spectra from up there.

Side by side

The compromise most people want

Book the slot that starts before sunset and stay through it. You get the last of the distance view, the sky changing, and the city switching its lights on, in one visit and on one ticket. Given that sunset is effectively fixed here, that slot is the same one all year.

The catch is that everyone else has worked this out too. It is the slot that sells out first, and it is not the slot to book on the day.

When not to go up at all

• The sky is already grey. You are paying for a view. There is no refund for cloud, and no view either.
• You wanted the postcard photograph. The picture of three towers with a boat across the top is a picture of this building; you cannot take it from the roof. Our comparison of Singapore’s viewpoints covers where to stand instead.
• You want to be moving. The deck is a platform. If a slow-moving view suits you better, the Flyer against the SkyPark is the comparison to read.

Practical points

• Entry is timed. Turn up for your slot; this is not a ticket you drift in with.
• Lift access takes you to the deck, and the approach is step-free, but the top is an outdoor terrace – wind and rain reach you.
• Prices move with season and sales channel. €23.89 is the starting price in our inventory on the date above, not a fixed rate.
• The deck’s own opening and last-entry times are published by the operator and shift for events. Confirm them for your date rather than trusting an article, including this one.

For everything else that happens after sunset, see Singapore after dark and, if the hour around sunset itself is the decision, viewpoint or river cruise.

Tickets for the deck and for Gardens by the Bay sit together on our Singapore attractions page.