How to effectively visit the top of Marina Bay Sands for free?

Why you should skip the tourist transport card?

How to save at least 30% on attraction tickets and loads more insights for visiting the impressive Lion City?

Here's what I wish I knew before visiting Singapore.

Firstly, because I'm so inclined, I made this simple page for all attractions we visited to help anyone short on time.

Feel free to pause before I cut away, which will be now.

Every first trip to Singapore has to include a walk through the impressive Gardens by the Bay, so let's start with a few things I wish I knew going in.

There are actually 6 main attractions within Gardens by the Bay, and before visiting I wasn't too sure myself which to choose from.

So I first wanted to share what each of them are and which ones might be more skippable than others.

Gardens by the Bay itself is fully free to explore.

You can walk underneath the supertrees and around the gardens for a good hour if you wanted.

The night show Garden Rhapsody is also free and something I'd definitely recommend.

We paid extra for the Skyway ticket which are the bridges between the trees and is a great single ticket option for only 14 Singapore dollars.

We only waited for about 10 minutes to line up, but queues will be longer the closer you get to the evening.

The second option, the Observatory, is the highest tree in the grove and has both an outdoor and indoor viewing platform.

The views here will be slightly different to the Skyway, giving a more top down perspective on the nearby trees, and you'll probably be satisfied visiting just one of these two.

One thing to keep in mind is that rain or lightning will close all of the Skyway and the outside platform to the Observatory.

So I'd advise against pre-booking the Skyway specifically for this reason, and on the day you are visiting, just keep an eye on the sky.

More on the weather later.

The next best attractions are just a short walk away.

The Flower Dome and Cloud Forest.

Just from a pricing point of view, it's around 10 more Singapore dollars for the combined ticket for both, so it's probably worth double dipping here.

The Cloud Forest for us was definitely the better of the two though, being the most impressive in terms of scale and presentation.

The Flower Dome was more a traditional botanical garden so although enjoyable, wasn't as unique but still worth it as a combo ticket.

The Floral Fantasy was just fine for what it was, but for $20, unless you're really into flowers or insta poses, it's the easiest one to skip if you're paying full price.

Later in this video I'll cover how to save a third on most attraction tickets so stick around for that.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that each of these attractions will close at least once a month, so I'll link the up-to-date info in the description below.

I've also made a downloadable Singapore PDF guide that will have all links talked about in this video, plus some bonus info in written form, so hopefully that will all help.

Public transport in Singapore is both excellent and at incredibly low prices.

The trains were all well-connected, clean and regular.

For the buses, even during rush hour, they weren't packed, again were clean, frequent and proper traffic jams seemed so little, at least on the routes that we took, you never got that "oh god when are we going to move vibe" that you can often get on buses.

And all of this is very affordable, taking a train from the airport was 1 hour and only cost $2.50.

My main takeaway in regards to transport though is to ignore getting the Easylink card or Singapore Tourist Pass cards that you'll see being promoted.

We just used our contactless cards by way of our phones on a pay-as-you-go basis and it was as simple as tapping what you already have.

Since most journeys were only $1.50, we were there for 8 days and used transport daily for every single journey and still only spent $26 per person.

For comparison, the tourist pass is $34 for just 3 days and requires you to visit a specific ticket office to collect the card and then you can get a refundable deposit back later which all seems like a lot of unnecessary faff.

So for all bus and train journeys, you just tap to enter and tap to exit for the correct fare.

And just briefly on this subject, card is accepted everywhere in Singapore with the only exception being hawker centres where you'll need some cash.

So if you do want to get some local cash before arriving, just keep that in mind in terms of the amount that you'll actually require.

Next I want to share how you can essentially visit the Marina Bay Hotel observation deck for free.

But before we get to that, I wanted to touch upon something that I don't usually talk about on this channel, but I've seen countless times how therapy has been immensely helpful to the people in my life.

And if you've ever thought about speaking with a therapist, there is an online platform that alleviates some of the barriers to finding the right person for you.

This is a paid partnership with BetterHelp and what I really like is how accessible the service is.

If you're nervous about speaking to someone, like the old cliche, in a room, lying down on a couch, instead you can more easily schedule a phone call, a video call or even just a live text chat to dip your toe in.

Previously when looking for a therapist, I felt restricted by my own geography, but with BetterHelp being online, you can obviously cast your net much further.

And if you're travelling like we are at the moment or you're frequently away with work, this might better fit around your schedule.

It's easy to sign up and get matched with a therapist today.

There's a link in the description or via the QR code on screen now.

It's betterhelp.com/suitcasemonkey.

Clicking that link gets you 10% off your first month so you can easily connect with a therapist and see if it helps you.

Next, visiting the Marina Bay Skypark Observation Deck, the most iconic and central viewing platform in Singapore.

My first tip here is that if you're planning on visiting after 5pm for sunset, you will need to pre-book a specific time slot beforehand and it's easiest just to book direct for this, which I'll link below.

If you are visiting in the morning up to around mid-afternoon, you can easily just buy on the day or use the Explorer Pass like we did as a walk-up.

Again more on that later.

It's only after 5pm that you need to pre-book.

Lastly, there is one hack of sorts to get up here for free.

The C'est La Vie Sky Bar allows both walk-up and reservations and has a $30 entry ticket, but that cost is redeemable off food and drinks.

So instead of paying $32 for just the view, you could pay $30 and get a drink and seat included.

Unfortunately the dress code specifically mentions no singlets, so that was me out.

But for those of you who epitomise casual chic, you'll probably be fine.

Accommodation can easily be your biggest expense in Singapore and if you want something central with a good rating, you're looking at at least $100 per night and that's sometimes if you're lucky.

In terms of general areas to stay, most of our time spent was around here, so this would all be considered central.

For us, having that central location, a well-reviewed hotel, whilst keeping the price in check meant staying in this tiny room, but it still ticked all our boxes.

They do have larger rooms available but since we were only sleeping here, it was a fair trade for what was important for us.

I've again linked where we stayed and some alternatives below.

It was a brand new hotel so was really clean and being situated in Bugis, which is a really good area in general, the location was perfect.

Not only walking distance to Kampong Glam, but also great transport links to the airport, Orchard Road, Chinatown, or being a single train ride away.

If you google when to best visit Singapore, you'll find little consistency with the answers and that's because largely it is a year-round destination.

And that is a seamless segue into this Englishman's favourite topic, the weather.

Statistically it rains the most from November to January, which is when we were there.

So maybe we were off peak, I guess just keep that in mind when I'm talking about wait times in this video.

But looking back, inclement weather probably only impacted our plans for maybe 5 hours the whole week.

In Singapore, there's almost always the chance of rain, to the extent that we stopped even looking at the forecast, mostly though because it was inaccurate.

The predicted rain mostly just never materialised.

Maybe it would rain for a few hours and then it was gone, but it was usually pretty refreshing afterwards.

A grey cold English drizzle this was not.

Except for this one exception where it was just too crazy to be outside, the country is built for rain.

Walkways are largely covered and there's an abundance of malls and indoor activities for a reason.

Maybe just think twice about the second half of September when the Grand Prix is in town, but outside of the normal obvious peaks in travel prices, it's pretty open.

So I wouldn't worry about it too much, and definitely don't panic when you see this the day before your arrival.

I might have panicked just a tad.

The Night Safari is one of the most popular Singapore attractions, especially with children, and makes for a unique, enjoyable evening.

We only visited here, but next door they do also have the Singapore Zoo itself and River Wonders, a zoo aquarium with a boat ride which seems fun enough, so you could spend all day here if you wanted.

For the Night Safari, there's three things to look forward to.

A 40-minute tram ride which is the main attraction, 4 walking trails which take around 1-2 hours to complete in all, and a 25-minute live show.

Something I read multiple times before arriving and then saw with my own eyes is how best to avoid the tram queue.

When the park opens, everyone heads straight there, so for us this was a half an hour wait.

But if the lines are long, you can just do one or two of the walking trails first which will then loop you back to the main tram entrance and by that point you can just walk on with no wait.

It's suggested that you pre-book a time slot for the night show.

Just before and after the entrance, you'll see a QR code which lets you make that free reservation.

Although, to be honest, without children the show was just okay for me.

It was a bit too much "oh, look at his little face" for me, but it might just be that I'm dead inside.

Next, a few saving tips.

It's easy to let spending run away with you in Singapore, so here's a few simple ways to keep that in check.

If you are planning on visiting a bunch of the main attractions, definitely consider getting the city pass.

Again, I'll leave a link in the description for the one we used, but long story short, we saved a third of what it would have cost when visiting 7 attractions, so it's almost a no-brainer.

There were two attractions we needed to pre-book once we had the pass, and that was the Michelin food hawker tour which was excellent and was suggested a couple of weeks before.

And then the night safari which was about one week before, so just keep that in mind.

But all the other attractions were just walk up and your digital tickets are scanned on entry.

There's either the explorer pass where you can choose how many attractions you want to visit, from 2 up to 7.

They can then all be visited over a 60-day period, allowing flexibility if you fear commitment.

Otherwise, you can just get the all-inclusive pass.

This comes with the added bonus of including Universal Studios and is for back to back days.

This is obviously best if you want to squeeze lots and lots out of Singapore and comparatively, you're likely to save a small fortune in the process.

Relatively, we found food here to be a lot less expensive than we assumed for such a city.

You could eat at a mall food court for as little as 6 and a half dollars and still have a good meal.

And then a good restaurant main dish could be starting from 15 dollars and then the sky's the limit.

But overall, I don't think we had a single bad dish during our time here.

In our previous Singapore vlog, we showed what a perfect 3-day itinerary might look like.

Since we were here for a whole week though, there were a few things that didn't quite make the cut but still might be good options for some of you.

We really enjoyed our few hours walking around the free botanical gardens, the country's first UNESCO site and 60 acres of land in all.

In a city that doesn't have many open spaces this is a really nice change of pace.

The hop-on hop-off bus is a good way to see parts of the city that you might normally miss and that was actually what took us to the botanical gardens in the first place.

Little India gives a different flavour to the rest of the city and we enjoyed an hour wandering around its streets.

The art science museum is more famous for what it looks like on the outside, but inside, there are a bunch of exhibitions.

We only had the time to visit the one included on our pass but it was a good 30 minutes.

Again, better with children I'd say, but maybe not worth the full price without the pass discount.

One hawker centre that I didn't cover in the previous video but we really enjoyed was the Newton Food Centre.

The main reason is that I am a massive fan of the movie Crazy Rich Asians and this is actually the first location their friends take them to after landing at the airport.

So that alone was reason enough to visit for me but it's also a nice open space with some cover if it rains so I enjoyed the fresh air experience.

And of course, the food.

Again, I'll share all the notable links and places featured here in the description below along with a written pdf travel guide which I know some of you have found useful from previous videos.

To watch what we actually got up to whilst in Singapore, do check out part 1 to this video; otherwise, I'll throw up something else here that I think you'll enjoy next.

Let me know any thoughts or questions you have and as ever, thanks for watching, I'm Suitcase Monkey.