Marina Bay Sands: The Infinity Pool, the SkyPark, and What Non-Guests Can Actually Do

The pool is exclusively for hotel guests. This is the most important practical fact about the Marina Bay Sands infinity pool, and it comes first because the number of visitors who arrive expecting otherwise is significant. There is no day pass, no food-and-beverage arrangement that grants pool access, and no workaround that has been operational in recent years. If you are not staying at the hotel, you cannot use the 150-metre rooftop pool suspended 57 floors above Singapore’s Marina Bay skyline. The SkyPark observation deck is open to non-guests – separately ticketed, genuinely worth doing – but it does not include pool access. The view from the deck includes the pool. You can see it. You cannot swim in it.

The infinity pool itself sits on the SkyPark cantilevered end, 340 metres above sea level, and appears in so much travel photography that seeing it in person creates a slight sense of unreality. The pool edge faces north, the Singapore skyline is in front of you when you swim, and the effect of the water appearing to extend into the city air is exactly as disorienting as the photographs suggest. Morning visits (before 10am) are the least crowded; mid-afternoon fills quickly. If staying here and using the pool are priorities, book early. Standard room rates run S$550-800+ per night at recent rates.

The SkyPark Observation Deck

The SkyPark Observation Deck is open to non-guests daily from 11am to 9pm (later at weekends) and costs around S$32 for adults, S$18 for children. It gives access to the northern platform with views of Marina Bay directly below, the financial district, Fort Canning to the northwest, and the Strait of Singapore extending south toward Indonesia. You can see the pool from this area. On clear days the observation deck gives you one of the stronger elevated perspectives on Singapore’s urban density and the way the city meets the water.

The most visited time is sunset, when the city transitions from natural to artificial light and the view becomes notably more dramatic. The deck gets busy from around 6pm; arriving at opening at 11am is quieter and has good morning light.

Gardens by the Bay

The Gardens by the Bay are directly adjacent and deserve the same attention as the Sands complex. The two conservatories – the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest – are more interesting than a generic “botanical garden” description suggests. The Flower Dome holds the world’s largest collection of Mediterranean climate plants outside the Mediterranean itself. The Cloud Forest has a 35-metre indoor waterfall and a series of elevated walkways through vertical garden levels, the whole structure maintaining a cool mountain climate that provides a genuinely useful respite from Singapore heat.

The outdoor Supertree Grove is free during the day. The illuminated sound-and-light show at 7:45pm and 8:45pm is free to watch from the ground. The elevated OCBC Skyway walkway between two of the Supertrees costs S$14 and provides the structure-level perspective.

The National Gallery Singapore

Ten minutes’ walk around the bay in the former Supreme Court and City Hall buildings, the National Gallery holds the world’s largest collection of Singapore and Southeast Asian art. It is consistently undervisited by tourists focused on the Marina Bay Sands complex, and the permanent collection is free on certain days. The building itself – a colonial judicial complex converted into gallery space with a glass canopy connecting the two structures – is worth the walk even before you consider the art.

Food

The Marina Bay Sands hotel has five celebrity-chef restaurants including Waku Ghin by Tetsuya Wakuda (the most expensive restaurant in Singapore, operating a counter-service format with extremely limited sittings). For accessible food, the Maxwell Food Centre in Chinatown (10 minutes by taxi) has Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice, which builds queues for consistently good reason. Lau Pa Sat hawker centre by the financial district is closer to Marina Bay and serves quality hawker food at local prices.