Supertree Observatory and OCBC Skyway: two ways up, and only one is worth it

There are two paid ways into the Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay, they cost the same, and they do close to the same thing. Most visitors do not realise this until they are standing at the ticket counter.

Supertree Observatory — the platform at the top of the tallest Supertree, 50 metres up, reached by lift, with a bar. S$14 for a non-resident adult, S$10 for a resident.

OCBC Skyway — a 128-metre walkway suspended 22 metres up between two Supertrees. Same price band: S$14 non-resident, S$10 resident.

Buy one. Buying both is paying twice for the same idea.

Which one

The Observatory if you want the view. It is more than twice as high, it looks across Marina Bay properly, and it looks down onto the Grove — which is the angle you cannot get anywhere else.

The Skyway if you want to be among the trees rather than above them. Walking between two Supertrees at canopy height is a different sensation from standing on top of one, and for some people it is the better twenty minutes.

Neither, if what you actually came for is Garden Rhapsody. That show is designed to be watched from the lawn.

What you are standing on

Eighteen Supertrees stand across Bay South, twelve of them forming the Grove. They rise up to 50 metres — about a sixteen-storey building — and they are working vertical gardens, carrying 162,900 plants of more than 200 species on the structures themselves.

Seven harvest solar energy. Several handle rainwater collection and venting for the conservatories underneath. The canopies are not decoration; they shade the Grove during the day and they are what the lighting runs through at night.

Knowing that changes the twenty minutes. You are not on a viewing platform that happens to be tree-shaped — you are on top of a piece of infrastructure.

Timing is everything

Go at dusk or do not go. This is the whole argument.

Singapore's sunset lands between about 6.55pm and 7.15pm year-round, and blue hour runs roughly 7.10pm to 7.35pm. Fifty metres above Marina Bay in that light is worth S$14. Fifty metres above Marina Bay at 1pm, in haze, is not — the height is too low to impress on its own and the light is flat.

Last admission is 8.30pm for both, and the Supertree lights stay on until 11.30pm.

The sequence that works: conservatories from 5pm, up the Observatory around 6.45pm for sunset, down by 7.35pm, on the lawn for the 7.45pm Garden Rhapsody. Everything in one continuous line.

For photographs, the Observatory gives you the Grove from above with Marina Bay Sands behind it, which is a shot you cannot take from the ground. The Skyway gives you Supertree canopies at eye level. Both need the twenty-five minutes of blue hour; neither works at noon.

The free alternative, stated plainly

Supertree Grove is free. Open 5am to 2am. No ticket, no queue.

From the lawn you get the Supertrees from below, which is the view they were designed for, and Garden Rhapsody twice nightly at 7.45pm and 8.45pm for nothing.

The Dragonfly Bridge gives you the Supertrees with Marina Bay Sands behind them — the most-photographed angle in the park — and it also costs nothing.

So the honest framing of the S$14: you are buying a downward view of something you can see for free from below. For some visitors that is worth it. For a lot of them it is not, and the money is better spent on the conservatories.

How to save

Pick one, not both. Observatory or Skyway. Same price, same idea.

Check the resident rate. S$10 for adults and S$6 for children at the Observatory against S$14 and S$10 — a substantial reduction, bought at the counter with an NRIC rather than through a reseller.

Buy it bundled with the conservatories rather than as a standalone. If you are paying to be at Gardens by the Bay at all, the combined ticket is the sensible unit.

Skip it entirely for the light show. The lawn is free and better.

Go at dusk. Same price, and the difference between a good twenty minutes and a wasted S$14.

How to get there

Bayfront MRT (CE1 on the Circle Line, DT16 on the Downtown Line), Exit B, then the underground link and over the Dragonfly Bridge — about eight minutes from the platform.

Gardens by the Bay MRT (TE22) on the Thomson-East Coast Line arrives at the eastern end of Bay South, roughly twelve minutes' walk through the gardens and a quieter approach in the run-up to the evening show.

From Marina Bay Sands it is about ten minutes on foot through The Shoppes and the underground link.

The address is 18 Marina Gardens Drive, Singapore 018953.

What is nearby

Everything at Bay South. Cloud Forest and Flower Dome are a two-minute walk and open until 9pm. Garden Rhapsody runs free at 7.45pm and 8.45pm directly below.

Further out, Marina Bay Sands and its SkyPark deck are ten minutes away — and if a high view is what you actually want, that is the one that delivers it. The ArtScience Museum sits at the water's edge between them.