When I arrived to Singapore for an impromptu weekend trip in September 2010, it was with the knowledge that I’d be staying my first night in a hotel, rather than with the friend of my ex-roommate who’d offered to put me up. Said ex-roommate’s mother, I would learn, had won a free night’s stay while gambling in the hotel’s attached casino. What I didn’t know, however, is that I was about to set foot into one of the most talked-about new hotel properties not only in Singapore, but also the world — and spend the next morning swimming in the property’s stunning “infinity” pool that appears to spill over into the harbor below.
With its bougey price point and clientele, the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino isn’t a place I’d ever have found myself of my own accord — but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t cool to cross over to the proverbial “other side” of traveling, if only for a night.
The Giant Surfboard
“Just ask anyone where the ‘Marina Bay Sands’ is — they’ll know.”
Having wound up in Malaysia following a would-have-been two-week trip to Vietnam that turned into an Austin-bound escape route, I took the advice of Kenneth, the roommate I left behind in Shanghai, and booked a flight to Singapore to coincide with his own visit there to see his family. After dropping the heavier of my two bags off at the home of his friend Yazid, who’d agreed to put me up for the duration of my stay, I boarded a SMRT train bound for City Hall station.
After arriving at my destination, I disembarked and made my way down to street level. I began walking toward what I perceived to be the southernmost extent of Singapore’s tiny landmass. You literally can’t miss it, Kenneth told me. And if you do, just ask anyone where the ‘Marina Bay Sands’ is — they’ll know.
During the first several minutes of my trek, I began to wonder whether or not I’d understood his instructions wrong. Then, I saw an illuminated structure that looked roughly like stone columns holding up a giant surfboard. I knew I was in the right place.
Oddly Otherworldly
This is called a skyline.
Having spent the preceding two weeks sleeping in a friend’s bed in his very local Malaysian home, my standards prior to my arrival at the Sands were admittedly low. As I entered into the hotel lobby to meet Kenneth, my heart began to race a little bit — and this would have been the case even if my standards had been as high as the Sands itself.
After my first hot shower in two weeks, Kenneth and I pretty immediately headed out on the town. It wasn’t until we returned just past six in the morning that I got my first good look at the room itself. To be honest, it didn’t end up winning me over as much as the S$350 per night price tag should have made it do. Following three hours of sleep,we darted up to the roof to drown our hangovers in the Sands’ massive rooftop infinity pool, alleged to have a footprint large enough to fit an Airbus A380 — that sits atop the tower.
Would you even know a pool sat atop this building?
It goes without saying that the Marina Bay Sands is stunning from ground level — and in spite of how neutral I felt about the suite, not even bed bugs or anthrax could have spoiled the view from the top of the hotel. I can’t stress enough how profoundly different it was from any view I’d previously experienced. In spite of all the mountains, hills and ski lifts I’ve scaled in my life, there’s something oddly otherworldly about seeing a city (and in particularly, a hugely populated one like Singapore) from literally thousands of feet off the ground — and without an obnoxious “safety barrier” of any kind à la the Empire State Building or any other skyscraper equipped with an observation deck.
A Place You Sleep
If you know me at all, you know I have neither the funds nor (usually) the desire to procure luxurious accommodation when I travel. As far as I’m concerned, a hotel or hostel is a place where you sleep, shower, use the Internet — and do dirty things with boys, if you’re lucky, or in Brazil. With this in mind, the Marina Bay Sands is almost identical in function to every budget hotel, guest house and hostel I’d ever stayed in. It just looks a bit fancier, is all. In fact, as I mentioned before, I only slept three hours there.
One of the additional rests I tend to prefer budget accommodations is that in spite of — and maybe even because of) — their sometimes dingy furnishings, the environment is so social and welcoming, which adds a subsequent layer of “I’m just gonna crash here, so who gives a fuck if it isn’t nice?” to my usual view on the purpose of lodging. In spite of the Sands’ swank, no one spoke to one another — at all. For example, even when Kenneth and I traded the cool waters of the pool for a warmer, bubblier Jacuzzi, the older couple sitting just inches away from us didn’t so much as make eye contact the whole time we were there.
Schmoozy-looking, without the schmooze.
Of course, none of this is to say that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy my stay at the Marina Bay Sands and that I don’t owe a huge debt to Kenneth, his mother and her gambling habit. I’m beyond grateful, if only for the fact that I now have a frame of reference from which to think and write about accommodation that I could only imagine before.
Plus, I’m not gonna lie: it”s pretty cool to have pictures of me shirtless and swimming with Singapore’s badass skyline in the background.
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Robert Schrader is a travel writer and photographer who’s been roaming the world independently since 2005, writing for publications such as “CNNGo” and “Shanghaiist” along the way. His blog, Leave Your Daily Hell, provides a mix of travel advice, destination guides and personal essays covering the more esoteric aspects of life as a traveler.
