Everyone who has gone to Singapore will surely visit the Gardens by the Bay. This iconic Singapore destination is certainly one of the must-go otherwise your trip will not be complete. They are celebrating their 10th anniversary this year. WOW! 10 years already! I thought it was only a few years old. They are doing very good maintenance to the place.
We bought our entrance ticket for the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest on Klook. Best to buy it online to skip the queue. By the way, the entrance ticket wasn’t cheap. However, if you get it from Klook, you’ll get a further discount.
There is plenty to see in the surroundings if you don’t want to pay money for the attractions. The waterfront gardens (Bay South, Bay East, and Bay Central) are free. It’s best to go before the sun goes down. You can catch the lighting with music at the Garden Rhapsody in the evening. No entrance ticket requires to watch it. You can watch it as long you are in the garden. It’s open to anyone unless you want to go up to the observatory.
I would suggest that you go in the afternoon after 3pm. You’ll need nice natural lighting to take photos in Flower Dome before the sun goes down. After that, you can proceed to Cloud Forest in the evening around 6pm to catch the sunset and the lighting.
It was cloudy that day and drizzled on and off. It’s a bit humid. Good thing that it wasn’t sunny and hot. The walk wasn’t too bad but I’m a mosquito magnet haha… Couldn’t avoid getting sucked by those suckers. *LOL* Hence, do have mosquito repellent handy.
Flower Dome
This is the entrance to the Flower Dome. If you bought your ticket on Klook, just go straight to the entrance and they will scan your voucher. As simple as that.
Be sure to take your time to explore the place. It took us about 1 hour there. I think you might need more time if you really want to take plenty of nice photos and scrutinize the plants there. Therefore, do give yourself ample time and don’t rush through it so that you don’t waste your money because the entrance isn’t cheap at all.
Do take note that what you see in this post is different from what you will see there now. They do update the theme from time to time. This was back in October 2022.
Unfortunately, most of my photos didn’t turn out well. Not really in the mood to take any photos too. Didn’t take many photos of the place and too many people getting in the way.
We went there on a Friday evening leading to a long weekend. I guess it will not be this overwhelming on a weekday during working hours on normal days. Even though you will see many tourists there which is normal but I’m sure it will be less than what I’ve encountered.
Cloud Forest
For Cloud Forest, you’ll see many lightings in the evening while there’s not much in the day. There were so many people. Even with those lighting, it can be rather dark at night. So do be careful. Currently, they have Avatar theme here. That time when we were there, they were still setting up.
It’s actually quite dark. I heavily edited the photos. It’s quite nice if you get to catch the sunset there. However, it was overcast that day so there wasn’t a sunset to catch.
You will need to walk and climb a lot. There’s an elevator to send everyone up but you still need to walk once you reach the level up there. Then, you walked all the way down. It might be a problem if you are afraid of heights. Try not to look down.
I didn’t take many photos here. I tried to video it but it’s just too dark. This photo is extracted from the video and I had to edit it heavily.
We spent less than an hour there. When we came out at around 7:45pm, the Garden Rhapsody light show was on. We just sat on the bench and watched from afar. The first show was at 7.45pm and the second show would begin at 8.45pm. Each show lasts 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, this is the view you will see when you come out from the Cloud Forest. That’s Marina Bay Sands.
After the light show, we walked to Garden Rhapsody then headed to Bayfront MRT station and called it a night.