The one time I was unreasonable or: Two nights at the Marina Bay Sands

Some things are really hard to justify: A third piece of chocolate cake on a single afternoon, staying in bed after having slept twelve hours already, skipping the gym in order to binge-watch the third season of “Love” on Netflix – and spending six hundred Euros on two nights in a hotel in a city where you could have rented a totally fine Air BnB for ten percent of this hilarious sum of money. But sometimes you have to be unreasonable. And as so often, it’s worth it (I am virtually winking at you right now). But first let’s back up a little.

One cold winter night in Nuremberg, after having visited the gorgeous Christkindlesmarkt, I was told by a colleague that the famous infinity pool crowning the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore has recently been made accessible to hotel guests only – which came as quite a shock to me since I had planned to go up there during my vacation in Singapore and shoot some awesome pictures of all those rich people swimming 191 meters up in the air. Solution-oriented as I am (yes, I am winking again) the first thing I did back in my hotel the same night was to fire up Google and check out the prices. The second shock was not long in coming: The prices for even the most basic rooms were beyond everything I was prepared to pay. So I went to sleep, disillusioned and a little annoyed. To cut a long story short: two months later I booked a room anyway. Why? I had been carrying the thought of not seeing this gigantic pool and the view from the top of the hotel with me for two full months. And just as you should throw out things you haven’t touched or used in while, I believe you should try to make the things happen that get stuck in your mind for a certain amount of time. So I whipped out my credit card and made it happen.

The room

The most unbelievable thing happened upon checking in: we got an upgrade and were given a fancy premier room on the 40th floor with a view of the Gardens by the Bay.
A-m-a-z-i-n-g. You can see the room in the picture gallery below, it featured sand-colored interior design, a curtain that opened and closed automatically whenever you entered or left the room, a stylish lightning concept, a little balcony, a huuuge bathroom with a separate shower-room, a freestanding bathtub, well-scented organic bath products, slippers and bathrobes, free mineral water and basically everything else that makes the few times you stay at your room during a vacation and are actually awake more pleasant. Also, at night there was a wonderful peace and quiet so that one could sleep well. I loved it. Another special feature: the chambermaids created little towel elephants that they placed on the bed – check out the cutie below.

The pool

Words cannot give enough credit to what it feels like to swim in this pool and enjoy the incredible view from the top. I am not exaggerating. We were lucky weather-wise and experienced a beautiful sunset whose colors were reflected in the water and made the atmosphere even more magical. We went from blue skies to shades of bright orange and finally deep purple (wordplay not intended) with scattered clouds. It was definitely one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in one of the most special locations on this planet.

What else can you expect? The pool was not as crowded as I had feared, but be prepared to see lots of people posing and taking selfies for a tremendous amount of time. Also, do not be scared to turn into one of them yourself, since nobody should leave this place without at least one goofy picture at the edge of the pool.

The rest

Besides nice rooms and the infinity pool there a lot of other things that make staying at the Marina Bay Sands worthwile:

Since the Marina Bay Sands is right next to the Gardens by the Bay you can easily walk there, which is quite convenient and definitely a nice way to spend an afternoon.
In the food and shopping complex adjacent to the hotel you can choose between 65 different restaurants – most of them extremely expensive – and an innumerable amount of luxury brands shops. I cannot recommend any shops since shopping is not my thing, but I had very delicious dumplings at Din Tai Fung. Going there during the main lunch and dinner hours is not a good idea because people will be queuing and you will have to wait first for a table and then for your food – so try to come somewhere in between. We got a table right away at 4pm and waited for our freshly made dumplings half an hour.
Even if it should be a matter of course in such a hotel, I would like to emphasize that the service was very good. The people at the reception were very nice and helpful and also the check-out went smoothly without a long waiting time, although there were a lot of people who wanted to check-out as well. It was no problem to store our luggage till 8pm the same day and we were also offered to take a shower at the gym before the taxi took us to the airport.

And since pictures tell more than a thousand words – enjoy 🙂