Gardens by the Bay [Singapore 2018]

Next up on the itinerary was an attraction that didn’t exist the last time I was in Singapore. Gardens by the Bay opened in 2012 and consists of outdoor gardens, two conservatories (the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest), and a grove of giant metal trees (Supertrees). We began by taking the MRT (Mass Rapid Transport, Singapore’s rail system, featuring much less rattling, shaking, squealing, and rats than the New York subway) to Bayfront Station. The Bayfront station serves Marina Bay Sands, the shopping center/casino/hotel that looks like it has a spaceship on top of it. Marina Bay Sands was in Crazy Rich Asians and is otherwise famous for the infinity pool on the roof. An MRT station at Gardens by the Bay is planned for 2021, but for now Bayfront is the closest option, so we made our way there and walked the rest of the way to the gardens.

Overview of the Flower Dome and Christmas decorations

The outdoor gardens are free, but the conservatories, where we were headed, are ticketed. We passed through a few of the outdoor gardens on our way to the conservatories, and started with the Flower Dome. Unlike greenhouses that keep plants from freezing in temperate climates, both conservatories keep the plants inside them cool. The Flower Dome contains hundreds of plants, flowers, trees, etc., from non-tropical climates. To attract repeat visitors, they also decorate for different holidays and have a large central area that houses changing displays. When we were there, it was Disney Tsum Tsum themed for Christmas. Since they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Singapore, I was subjected to had the privilege of listening to Christmas song remixes/covers the entire time I was there.

Plants

Again, with my vast knowledge of plants, I can say that we saw a lot of them. I know there were olive trees, some orchids, poinsettias and some sort of evergreen brought in for Christmas, and a bunch of cacti. The Tsum Tsums were a fun addition, and I could actually recognize and name them, unlike, say, 99% of the plants I saw.

Cacti

After enjoying the Flower Dome, we moved on to the Cloud Forest. This conservatory’s main attraction is a 115-foot manmade waterfall in a 138-foot also-manmade structure that you can ascend via elevator and descend via a walkway. They try to add educational facts about the tropical mountain climate, cloud forests, environmentalism, and such, but most people are there for the waterfall and the views of Marina Bay.

Cloud Forest waterfall

In total, we took over two and a half hours to see both domes, about an hour and forty-five minutes for the Flower Dome and an hour for the Cloud Forest. By that time, it was too late to do the Skyway walk between the Supertrees, but we decided to stay for the Garden Rhapsody, a fifteen-minute light and music show at the Supertree Grove. If you’ve been wondering what a Supertree is, wonder no longer. The Supertrees are giant metal tree-like structures that are part art installation, part environmental promotion, and part utilitarian. They generate their own power for the light show through solar panals as well as function as giant chimneys for the conservatories’ exhaust and cooling systems. On the night that we were there, the music show was Oldies themed, with songs from the 60s and 70s(?). Overall, Gardens by the Bay feels well-executed. They have a variety of plants in a number of different garden settings, and they manage to make the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest two completely different experiences instead of plants in two different glass domes.

Lighted Supertree