Gardens by the Bay

Earlier this week and also today we visited the Gardens by the Bay. It’s a massive botanical complex that has a number of different free walks or paid displays, most of them require a seperate ticket. Strolling through the gardens is free, but you will have to pay to :-

Ride on the shuttle

Walk on the skyway between the giant steel trees (OCBC Skyway)

Go up inside one of the steel trees to the observation deck (super tree observatory)

Visit the flower dome

Visit the cloud forest.

Sometimes you can get combined tickets or do them individually. When we visited on the first day the cloud forest was closed for maintenance which is why we came twice. We will likely visit a third time just to see the garden lit up at night. Both times when we came there were not a lot of people, but it can get crowded and when that happens you will only have a few minutes on the OCBC skyway.

The shuttle will take you around the park, in a hop on hoo off style, and three dollars will buy you one round trip. We did the OCBC skyway, then the Sky-tree lookout then the Flower dome.

The Sky-tree gives a better vantage view than the skyway, although you will have to navigate around dozens of people trying to get that Instagram perfect shot. The top of the Sky-tree has a small cafe selling coffee and cold drinks. Nothing spectacular but ok. It seems a little hidden but the lift only takes you to the second floor, to get to the roof is one more small flight of steps. Do this, the view is worth it as you can get pics without any obstructions.

I loved the flower gardens, it’s split into different zones from different geographic areas of the world. Both the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest are air conditioned which is a welcome respite from Singapores humidity. I specifically loved the Dahlia display in the flower dome since I’ve been growing some at home.

Today we did the Cloud Forest which has a spectacular indoor waterfall and towering tropical style cloud garden. Every hour the mist spray comes on creating this amazing indoor cloud / mist everywhere. Whilst we were here there was an Avatar movie tie in with all these fake plants and animals about. Personally I thought it was a distraction and the garden would be better off without it.