Marina Bay from the Water and the Lawn

Come to Marina Bay in the late afternoon, once the glare has come off the water. Most of the postcard is free: the outdoor gardens, Merlion Park, the Helix Bridge, Marina Barrage and Spectra, the light show over the bay. The paid layer, from the two big glass domes to the Flyer, is worth it if you choose one thing, maybe two.

With one evening, we'd take the free night walk along the waterfront at golden hour, watch the Supertrees light up at 7.45pm, then cross to Event Plaza for Spectra at 9pm. It costs nothing but your feet. What you give up is the view from above and the domes. If you want one paid thing, spend the heat of the day in a dome and keep the evening for the lights. The other way to do it is from the water, on a sunset sail out of Keppel Bay.

Cloud Forest and Flower Dome

If you buy one ticket, we'd make it Cloud Forest, for the 35-metre waterfall that falls inside the dome. Flower Dome is its neighbour, the gardens of the Mediterranean under glass. Both are cooled, which makes them the best place to spend the midday heat. They open 9am to 9pm, with last admission at 8pm for Cloud Forest and 8.30pm for Flower Dome.

Each dome closes for maintenance on a few set days: Cloud Forest on 26 October and 17 November, Flower Dome on 6 October and 16 November. From 9 October to 9 November, Sunflower Surprise fills Flower Dome, 9am to 9pm. That's a good reason to buy the conservatory ticket in October, though we'd still see Cloud Forest first.

Floral Fantasy is the third paid garden, smaller and scented, open daily from 10am to 9pm with last admission at 8.30pm. If you've done Cloud Forest you can skip it, but it's a useful hour when it rains.

ArtScience and the SkyPark

The ArtScience Museum is the lotus-shaped building seven minutes from Bayfront MRT, Exit D. It's open 9am to 6pm with last entry at 5pm, and on Fridays and Saturdays it stays open until 9pm, last entry 8.15pm, which makes it easy to fold into an evening on the bay. Hours change, so check the museum's page before you go.

SkyPark takes you up 57 floors, though if you're on the barrage lawn around 6.30pm you'll get much the same skyline from the grass. Up top, CE LA VI has a dress code it sticks to and a queue to match.

Merlion Park to the Helix

Start the walk at golden hour, when the towers catch the low sun. Merlion Park is about 10 minutes on foot from Raffles Place MRT, and the 8.6-metre Merlion is worth half an hour once. From there the step-free Jubilee Bridge carries you over to the Esplanade, the spiky theatre everyone calls the durian.

Keep to the water as far as the Helix Bridge, then on toward Bayfront. The stretch takes about 15 minutes if you walk straight through and 40 if you stop, and you'll stop. The picture everyone wants is from the middle of the Helix, the bridge shaped like a strand of DNA, looking back at the three towers of Marina Bay Sands. Near Promenade MRT, Youth Olympic Park is a small art park left over from the 2010 Youth Olympic Games, with 27 sculptures made by students.

Marina Barrage at sunset

For sunset, Marina Barrage is where Singaporeans go: people fly kites on the grassy roof and eat takeaway dinners on the lawn, with the whole skyline in front of them and no ticket. Weekday sunsets are almost empty. It's about 15 minutes' walk from the Supertrees, longer with a picnic or a stroller. The Sustainable Singapore Gallery inside is closed on Tuesdays. Tickets for the National Day Parade on 9 August are balloted, so the lawn is also where you can watch the fireworks without one.

While the Bay South–Bay East bridge is being built, cyclists can't use the Waterfront Promenade. Walkers still can, following a signed diversion around the perimeter if they're heading for the barrage.

The Supertrees after dark

Garden Rhapsody is the free show in Supertree Grove, about 10 minutes of lights and music on trees 16 storeys tall, at 7.45pm and 8.45pm every night. The soundtrack changes with the season. From 1 October it's Opera in the Gardens, a Romantic-era programme at the same times. The outdoor gardens are free and open from 5am to 2am, so the grove is yours long after the show, and Bay East Garden never closes.

On Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays there's a second free show in the same grove. Borealis usually runs from 8pm to 8.30pm and is called off in rain. On those nights we'd watch the 7.45pm Rhapsody, stay on the grass for Borealis, then walk through Marina Bay Sands to Event Plaza for the 9pm Spectra. The OCBC Skyway is the paid walkway strung between the Supertrees. It's a fine view, but the shows look best from the ground, standing in the grove. Christmas Wonderland can turn the grove into a ticketed event when it arrives. The rest of the year, the grass is free.

For the photographer's angle, the night photography walk meets at 7pm at the grove entrance with a tripod, and an OCBC Skyway ticket is included. Gardens by the Bay currently discourages tripods inside Floral Fantasy, where the Disney Garden of Wonder display is on, so keep yours for the open air. Guided evening photography walks round the bay, past the Helix Bridge, Marina Barrage and the Supertrees, are sold through Klook as the Marina Bay night photography walk; check the route when you book. A camera beyond your phone helps, but nobody checks at the start.

For a guided evening instead, the City Photography Workshop is sold through Pelago as a walk round the bay from golden hour into blue hour, the deep-blue spell just after sunset, while you learn the settings beyond auto. The Night City Lights Tour packs Spectra, a pass through Chinatown and a photo viewpoint into one guided evening, and it suits a single night in town.

Inside the grove, the Supertree Observatory is a lift up inside a Supertree to a deck 50 metres above the grove. It needs its own ticket, separate from the Skyway, and we'd do the Skyway first and come up here only if height is what you're after.

Spectra at Event Plaza

Spectra is a free 15-minute show of fountains and lasers thrown through a 12-metre glass prism on the water in front of Event Plaza, telling the city's own origin story. It runs at 8pm and 9pm from Sunday to Thursday, and at 8pm, 9pm and 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays. There's nothing to book. You stand on the promenade and watch, and on weekends it's worth arriving 15 minutes early. If a storm has emptied the plaza, the Digital Light Canvas in The Shoppes is an indoor floor of projected light to wait it out on.

Indoors at Marina Bay Sands, The Shoppes is the luxury mall built around an indoor canal. The sampan ride along it is the best part of a visit and has its own ticket, while browsing the big-name floors on a wet afternoon costs nothing.

On Grand Prix weekend the roads around the bay close for the street circuit, and the Helix and Event Plaza both sit inside it, while the Lights Sail still boards at Keppel Bay, well away from the circuit. Check the Singapore Grand Prix race dates and road closures before you plan an evening here that weekend.

The Lights Sail from Keppel Bay

For the bay from the water, the Lights Sail leaves Marina at Keppel Bay at 5.45pm, timed so the sun goes down and the skyline switches on for the show. From the boat, Spectra is part of the skyline, a long view across the water instead of a spot at the front of the plaza. The catch is the start. Keppel Bay is at HarbourFront, not Event Plaza: 15 to 20 minutes from the mall at HarbourFront, and about 40 from the plaza if you've mixed them up. Your berth is confirmed when you book, so leave the plaza time for Spectra and the Keppel time for the boat.

If you'd rather paddle, the Singapore Canoe Federation rents double sit-on-top kayaks from Bayfront Promenade, on sheltered reservoir water that suits beginners, with the Flyer in the background.

Around the Esplanade

The Esplanade lobbies and roof terrace are free to wander, and the outdoor theatre puts on free concerts most weekends, so check the calendar and bring a mat.

Indoors, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra plays at the Esplanade and Victoria Concert Hall, with tickets from cheap seats upwards and no dress code. The halls can be chilly, so bring a jacket. The Singapore Chinese Orchestra is a separate company, playing all year at the Singapore Conference Hall on Shenton Way, and its cheap seats make an easy first try.

Two festivals fill the Esplanade's calendar. Huayi is its season of Chinese-language opera, theatre and music around Chinese New Year, with some outdoor shows free, and Kalaa Utsavam brings Indian dance, music and theatre, most years in November.

If it rains, two indoor stops are close by. The performing-arts collection that used to sit in library@esplanade is now at the National Library, 100 Victoria Street, open 10am to 9pm and closed on public holidays. The Red Dot Design Museum fills a wet hour with award-winning design in a warehouse by the water.

Walking on from the theatres, Esplanade Park holds the Cenotaph and the Lim Bo Seng Memorial, 15 quiet minutes between the Padang and the water.

A short walk inland, the Civilian War Memorial is four pillars between City Hall and the Padang, worth a quarter of an hour, and it pairs with the Cenotaph you've just passed. The Founders' Memorial is the newest addition to the bay's civic side, so check that it's open before you walk over. Then head back to the water and cross Anderson Bridge. The Formula 1 cars race over it on Grand Prix weekend, and the rest of the year you walk it.

On the Fullerton side of the bridge, Clifford Pier is the 1933 landing pier at Fullerton Bay. Its hall hosts events only, so the free Maritime Journey heritage tour is how you hear its story. Up on the Fullerton Bay roof, Lantern is a pool bar looking over the water, and you can have that view without a hotel key if you book a slot.

In the other direction from the Esplanade, the Singapore Flyer is 165 metres tall and turns daily from 10am to 10pm, public holidays included, with last admission at 9.30pm. Sunset slots sell out, and the 6.30pm rotation is still the one to get. If you've already watched the sun go down from the barrage, you can skip the wheel. If you want both, the Gardens + Flyer combo is simply the two operators' tickets stacked, with the domes first and a sunset flight to follow.

The Children's Garden

With children 12 and under, the free Far East Organization Children's Garden is the family corner of the gardens, and adults come in only with a child that age. In school term it opens Thursday to Sunday and on public holidays, and in the school holidays Tuesday to Sunday. The hours are 9am to 7pm, with last admission at 6pm, and the water play closes at 6.30pm. The Waterfront Promenade entrance is shut for the bridge works, so come in by the Sun Pavilion entrance from Bayfront, Exit B.

Marina South Pier

The Singapore Maritime Gallery is a free indoor stop on Level 2 of Marina South Pier, open Tuesday to Sunday from 9am to 6pm and closed on Mondays except public holidays. Take Exit B from Marina South Pier MRT. The ticket booth for the Kusu Island ferry is downstairs, so if you're tired, pair the gallery with a boat instead of a second paid museum.

Stations and short walks

Bayfront, Exit B, runs underground into Marina Bay Sands and, over the Dragonfly or Meadow Bridge, into the gardens. From Bayfront Plaza by the same exit, a free shuttle loops to Active Garden and Flower Dome from 9am to 9pm. Gardens by the Bay MRT, on the Thomson-East Coast Line, comes up at Exit 1, straight into the gardens. Promenade MRT is four minutes from the Flyer and handy for the Helix, and Esplanade MRT is 8 to 10 minutes from Event Plaza along the water.

From City Hall MRT it's four minutes to the National Gallery, then 12 to 15 minutes along the water to Event Plaza.

Dinner near the bay

For satay near the water, we'd head to Lau Pa Sat, where the carts set up on Boon Tat Street in the evening. Satay by the Bay, beside the gardens, has closed to make way for Wetlands by the Bay, which is due to open in stages by the end of 2028.

Before dinner, High Tea with a Bay View is afternoon tea at The Landing Point in the Fullerton Bay Hotel, a good way to sit out the hottest part of the day, with Marina Bay outside the window, air-con inside and a pianist playing live. It runs in two daily seatings, so book ahead.

If you'd rather book a table at Marina Bay Sands, Mott 32 does Hong Kong-style Chinese, and the Peking duck is the dish to order. Waku Ghin is Tetsuya's Japanese counter, a special-occasion dinner that runs about three hours, so reserve well in advance.

CUT by Wolfgang Puck is a steakhouse below the Shoppes, for when you want a steak with a bay address, and Spago Singapore is his second room, up in the SkyPark, where the view does a lot of the work. Book the sunset sitting.

Two more rooms sit at One Fullerton, by Fullerton Bay. Shoukouwa is a Michelin-starred sushi counter with a handful of seats, where the chef picks each piece and hands it over in turn, and Saint Pierre is Emmanuel Stroobant's two-Michelin-star French dining room, with the bay outside the window. If dinner is a stretch, lunch at Saint Pierre gets you the same view for less.

On Raffles Avenue, Labyrinth is a tasting menu built on local ingredients, at Esplanade Mall, and wants the whole evening. Summer Pavilion at The Ritz-Carlton serves Cantonese in a hotel dining room that has earned its Michelin recognition, and if dinner is a stretch, you can book the dim sum lunch.

Palm Beach Seafood at One Fullerton is built around crab and suits a long sit-down dinner, though it has moved over the years, so check its current address before you go. Cherry Garden serves hotel dim sum at the Mandarin Oriental, handy when you're already at Marina Bay and want a long, unhurried meal close by.

The mistake most first-timers make is stacking the Flyer, the SkyPark, both domes and Spectra into one day, then eating in the Marina Bay Sands food court because they can't face another 400 metres. Walk the free layer, book one paid thing, and watch the city switch on from a boat or a lawn.