The best Singapore hotels for views that will take your breath away range from the unrivalled rooftop panoramas from the 57th floor of Marina Bay Sands Sky Park to the sumptuous Mandarin Oriental’s sweeping vistas of Marina Bay Sands and the city skyline.
Who doesn’t want a room with a view when you’re on holidays? As long as I’ve travelled, a few factors have guided my decision-making when it came to selecting accommodation, especially in steamy cities like Singapore and Bangkok: a central location, a swimming pool, and a room with a view, preferably from a balcony.
There are few things more relaxing after a sweaty day out and about than kicking back with a drink on a hotel balcony, or in front of a floor to ceiling window, to savour a sunset and the city lights flickering on. Sigh.
For me, Singapore, with its gobsmacking skyline and stunning architecture, requires a room with a view from where you can absorb the jaw-dropping skyline or birds-eye-views of the city, depending how high you are.
These are our picks of the best Singapore hotels for views that will take your breath away, along with the rooms you need to book.
Best Singapore Hotels for Views That Will Take Your Breath Away
Marina Bay Sands
Arguably the best of the best Singapore hotels for views that will take your breath away is Marina Bay Sands – which is where Terence shot the image above from the giddy heights of the SkyPark’s 57th floor rooftop bar of KU DE TA, now CE LA VI bar. We were lucky to gawk at similar gobsmacking vistas from our room far below. For the highest vantage point from the 50th floor up, book a Straits Suite for city skyline views or a Marina Suite, overlooking the Gardens by the Bay and Singapore Straits. For rooms in other categories, you’ve got a choice between Sky View (40th floor and above, facing the city), Harbour View (40th floor and above, facing the sea), City View (19th to 39th floors, facing the city), and Garden View (10th to 39th floors, facing the Gardens). Of course the most photographed spot from which to savour the unparalleled vistas is from the SkyPark’s 150-metre infinity pool – the world’s highest – if you can find some space in there. It was incredibly crowded when we stayed. The SkyPark platform, which connects the three towers and looks like a massive surfboard, is what makes the building so striking – which is why it’s not so bad staying at another hotel looking onto Marina Bay Sands.
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Mandarin Oriental Singapore
The sumptuous Mandarin Oriental is another of the very best Singapore hotels for views with a spectacular outlook that takes in many of Singapore’s most striking landmarks. You’ll need to book one of the south-facing rooms to gaze at the stupendous vistas from floor-to-ceiling windows. The Marina Bay View rooms and suites boasts the best view of Marina Bay Sands trio of towers (obviously), the ArtScience Museum, which to some looks like an open hand and to others a lotus flower or bunch of bananas. The Bay Suites offers sweeping city skyline vistas from Marina Bay Sands to the striking prickly domes of the Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, which resemble two halves of an enormous durian fruit, in the foreground. The Ocean View and Ocean Grand Rooms offer great views of the Singapore Flyer. The 25-metre swimming pool also boasts brilliant vistas, as does the alfresco BAY@5 lounge bar beside it.
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The Ritz-Carlton Singapore
Located beside the Mandarin Oriental, with an audacious design by architect Kevin Roche based on Feng Shui principles, The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore is another of the best Singapore hotels for views. Feng Shui elements feature throughout the 32-storey tower – from the wind that wafts through the entrance symbolising luck to the indoor water feature signifying wealth, and the octagonal windows in every bathroom that allude to the auspicious number ‘8’ – and offer seductive city views. Most rooms boast stunning city vistas of Marina Bay except the Kallang rooms, which offer less exciting outlooks over Singapore Sports Hub and Kallang River precinct. If you want to take in more than the views, the hotel has some impressive art on its walls – one of the largest contemporary art collections in Southeast Asia, with works by the likes of David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Dale Chihuly, and Zhu Wei. Some 90% of the 4,200 art pieces were specially commissioned for the hotel, while 350 works are museum-worthy. The hotel offers daily art tours.
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Pan Pacific Singapore
The Pan Pacific Singapore may be one of the city’s older hotels, built in the mid 1980s, but, being situated directly behind the Mandarin Oriental, it’s another of the best Singapore hotels for views with a similarly stunning outlook to the MO – only you need to choose your rooms carefully. The Harbour Studios don’t have floor to ceiling windows and the Deluxe Balcony Rooms have balconies that obstruct the views unless you’re actually out there on the balcony. While the Panoramic and Pacific Rooms have city views, the most magnificent vistas are from the Pacific Skyline and Harbour Suites, located on the upper floors of our hotel, which include access to the Pacific Club lounge on the 38th floor, which offers phenomena city vistas.
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Swissotel The Stamford
Across the road from Raffles and just a few blocks from the Mandarin Oriental and Ritz-Carlton, the towering 70-storey Swissotel The Stamford was the tallest hotel in the world when it opened in 1986, its lofty height ensuring that it remains one of the best Singapore hotels for views. The 1,261 rooms and suites with balconies offer some of the most breathtaking views of the city. We last stayed here for the hotel’s splendid restaurant, Jaan (when it was helmed by Julien Royer), which also offers dazzling city views from the dining tables, although the gorgeous-looking dishes provide some pretty stiff competition. The hotel is currently getting a serious refurbishment, with rooms on floors 30-48 finished, although floors 50-66, which boast the most spectacular views, are still underway and due to be completed by December 2018. If staying before then, book the newly renovated Premier Harbour View rooms for panoramic views from the floor to ceiling windows of the Marina Bay sweeping to the Singapore River.
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Fullerton Bay Hotel
The Fullerton Bay Hotel is another of the best Singapore hotels for views, but not birds-eye-views. This luxury hotel is a low-rise property on the waterfront overlooking Marina Bay Sands and the stunning ArtScience Museum, so it’s all about that sense of being close to the water and gazing up in wonder at those sky-scraping towers. There’s also a sense of history here. Located on Clifford Pier, adjacent to the old customs house where early immigrants, sailors and merchants arrived, the Fullerton Bay Hotel may be a modern building, but it tips a hat to Singapore’s past in subtle ways. The menu at the Clifford Pier restaurant, on the original wharf, gives a nod to its early hawker culture with heritage dishes such as soup kambing, a traditional spicy mutton soup, and very British afternoon teas. Book a Bay View Room or Premier Bay View – some come with a Jacuzzi – if you really want a sense of being right on the water. Make sure to sip sundowners at The Lantern rooftop bar, named after Clifford Pier’s historic Chinese moniker, Red Lantern Pier – because in the early days, the dock was illuminated by red lanterns to guide the ships to shore.
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