Of all the new hotels/ resorts/ casinos built over the past couple of years, Marina Bay Sands is the one that stands out the most to me. I'm impressed by the design of the hotel; three elegant towers with an astronomically large surfboard balanced on top. It's so beautiful to look at.
The first thing during the stay that stopped us in our tracks (literally) was the hoards of people in the lobby. It was so crowded that there was a jam in the driveway. We jostled to make our way through the doors to face even more people, and there were no busboys to give you a hand with luggage. It was like being at a very noisy zoo. Good thing we got our keys quickly enough and we hurried upstairs to serenity.
Our room was spacious, well designed and I appreciated the quality marble finishing in the bathroom and the rain shower. Pity there isn't a bathtub, because it makes showering Chubbs much easier. It also makes me very happy to find my favourite TWG tea in the coffee drawer and hand-made chocolates on the dresser.
Chubbs digs the marble sink too.
Hazy, but still great, view from the room.
The main attraction of MBS is the Skypark. It basically spans the entire "sail" of the hotel on the 57th floor. It houses observation decks, a 150m long pool, a cafe, a soon-to-be-opened restaurant, and a bar. Pretty swanky place, and since it's also opened to the public, it was also extremely crowded. I almost tripped a couple of people because I stepped on their shoes. It was that bad. But the view from the 57th storey was glorious, despite the haze, and Chubbs had a great time paddling around with us.
The pool looks empty from the pictures, no? But I actually kept them framed and had my finger on the camera for a total of 30-min, waiting for the opportune time to snap a good shot without too many bobbing heads in the photo. It was so packed that I couldn't swim a few metres without bumping into someone.
A nice warm bath was indeed necessary after the swim, and we prepared to go for dinner while Chubbs watched TV alone in the big plush bed.
We took a 15-min walk through the casino in search for the food kiosks at the basement, so that we could grab a quick dinner.Though tired, Chubbs had a lot of fun during the walk.
Admiring the interior design of the casino wing.
Watching dancers on 5m high poles.
Gondola ride through the shopping mall.
Unfortunately, when we got to the food kiosks, we couldn't get any seats, and there were only about five food stands serving food that did not look appetising at all. So we scrapped the plan and headed back to the coffee house of the hotel, thinking of splurging and buying ourselves a buffet dinner. But we were told very rudely, that the wait to get a seat at the coffee house was about 90-min! What!? We scrapped that plan too. Next up, we tried the very posh Chinese restaurant, and was told that the wait to get a seat was 30-min! Double what!? In the end, Chubbs' dinner consisted of a whole wheat loaf from their bakery, SweetSpot, a bowl of blueberries, a wedge of cheese, and a big cup of milk (all packed from home).
The night view from our room, taken while Chubbs was having his dinner in his stroller, in the room.
Pretending the handle bar of his stroller is his moustache.
Fuzzy and I decided to take a walk in the light rain without an umbrella via the unsheltered Helix, to Millenia Walk, to have ramen for dinner. We expected Chubbs to fall asleep in his stroller during our walk, since he went without a nap and had an activity-filled day. But this, of course, didn't go according to plan. He was wide awake the entire time, and even had ramen with us :/
The 9.30pm bowl of ramen was so good that Fuzzy and I forgot to snap any pictures of it. It was a generous serving of well-cooked noodles, thick slices cha-shu, tamago that was done perfectly, and lots of shredded spring onion and beansprouts. Utterly delicious, and just what we needed after a long day and a long walk. And everything got washed down nicely with a few bottles of ice-cold Asahi. That hit the right spot.
Taken from the Helix on our drizzly walk back to the hotel.
The next morning, I was crazily optimistic and give the coffee house another shot for breakfast. It costs $38++ per person, and there was a 30-person queue to get a table. That was the final straw; I gave up. We had coffee, tea, bread and butter cake in the comfort of our room before preparing for another swim. The water and wind was so cold, even at noon, that Chubbs' lips turned blue upon getting out of the pool :/ We wrapped him up in a towel, threw on a shirt for him, and roasted him under the sun on the observation deck for a while. It was a great view to end the stay with.
Dripping wet, in his swimmers on the observatory deck.
Very happy after his morning swim, in spite of the cold. We were very tickled to find tan lines on his thighs, biceps and forehead. My little tan baby!
After checking out; us, having a good cuppa and him, a madeleine, at their in-house cafe, SweetSpot, just before leaving.
For lunch, we checked out the very old, but quaint, Sloane Court Hotel, which supposedly serves pretty decent food. But my roast beef was way too salty, the oxtail stew was too bland, they serve Campbell soup, and the fish and chips came out of a frozen package. Disappointing :/ But Chubbs enjoyed himself exploring the grounds.
In all, we liked the stay at MBS, but the food situation has got to improve leaps and bounds before we would even consider visiting it again. I never thought that I'd be so hard-pressed to look for a meal in Singapore; much less in a 5-star hotel. They are simply not ready to handle maximum occupancy considering a bulk of the restaurants slated to be housed there, are not in operation yet.
