Photo: wilford peloquin / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Having booked a lot of these, the upgrades that change how a Singapore trip feels are consistent — and they are not the ones being marketed at you.
Singapore is an easy place to spend a great deal of money and a surprisingly easy place to waste it. The city sells luxury enthusiastically, and a good deal of what is sold does not change the holiday at all.
Having priced a lot of these trips, here is where the money genuinely goes further — and where it simply goes.
The upgrade that matters more than everything else
The room, and specifically the view.
Singapore is a skyline city. A high-floor room facing Marina Bay is not a marginally nicer room — it is a different experience of the place, and you will spend real hours in it because the middle of the day is too hot to be outside anyway.
Three tiers worth knowing:
- Marina Bay Sands — the icon, with the infinity pool that only guests can use. That pool is genuinely the reason to stay, and it is busy; go at 7am
- Sentosa resorts — Capella, Sofitel, Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa. Quiet after 8pm when the day-trippers leave, which is the closest Singapore gets to a resort holiday
- Orchard and the Civic District — Raffles, Fullerton Bay, St. Regis. Better located for dining, and Raffles in particular is a piece of history rather than just a hotel
If you take one thing from this page: put the budget in the room before anywhere else.
Worth paying for
Private transfers, both ways. Landing after a long flight and being driven, rather than waiting for a shared coach to fill with nine other families, sets the tone of the entire trip. Modest cost, disproportionate effect.
A car with a driver for a day. Not for the whole trip — the MRT is genuinely excellent — but for one day of Mandai, the Botanic Gardens and the east coast, where the connections are awkward.
One properly booked dinner. Odette, Burnt Ends, Les Amis, Waku Ghin. Book weeks ahead. One outstanding meal beats four merely expensive ones, and Singapore has enough Michelin coverage to make it worth the planning.
Club or executive lounge access. Underrated. Breakfast, all-day refreshments and evening drinks included often costs less than paying for those things separately, and gives you somewhere civilised to retreat to at 2pm.
Not worth paying for
Premium attraction tickets. Express passes at Universal Studios help on a peak-season Saturday and are wasted on a Tuesday. Most "VIP" attraction upgrades buy you a lanyard.
The Singapore Flyer's private capsule. The Marina Bay Sands SkyPark gives a better view for a fraction of the price.
Most "romantic" or "luxury" package add-ons. Rose petals and a bottle of prosecco at a significant markup. If you want the hotel to make a fuss, tell them the occasion — it is frequently free.
Helicopter tours. Singapore is 50km across. You will see all of it and be back before the novelty lands.
Shopping, honestly
Orchard Road is a very good mall street and not a bargain. Luxury goods are priced comparably to other Asian hubs, and the 9% GST refund on departure is real but modest.
Where Singapore is genuinely strong is anything Japanese, tech, and the multi-brand designer floors at ION and Ngee Ann City. Where it is not: anything you could buy at a similar price in Dubai or Bangkok.
Time it with the Great Singapore Sale in June and July if shopping is a real motive.
What a comfortable trip costs
| Land package, 5 nights, 5-star | from ₹1,15,000 per person |
| Business class return from an Indian metro | ₹90,000–1,60,000 |
| Economy return | ₹18,000–32,000 |
| Dining, per couple per day | SGD 200–400 |
| Private car, per day | SGD 400–700 |
A couple doing this properly with economy flights lands around ₹3–3.5 lakh for five days. With business class, ₹5–6 lakh.
The luxury nobody sells you
Space and quiet, which in Singapore means timing rather than money.
Gardens by the Bay at 7am is empty and beautiful. The Marina Bay Sands infinity pool before 8am is nearly yours alone. Merlion Park before sunrise has no crowd in the photograph. The Botanic Gardens at opening are silent.
None of that costs anything, and all of it delivers more than the add-ons being marketed at you.
Dining, ranked by whether the booking effort is worth it
Singapore has serious Michelin coverage and a food culture where the SGD 6 stall and the SGD 400 tasting menu are both taken seriously. Both are worth your time; the mistake is doing only one.
Book weeks ahead: Odette, Les Amis, Waku Ghin, Burnt Ends. These do not take walk-ins and the tables go early.
Worth a reservation but not a campaign: CUT at Marina Bay Sands, Candlenut for Peranakan, Labyrinth for a modern Singaporean tasting menu.
Go anyway, no booking: a good hawker centre. Do not skip this because you are travelling at a luxury level — Singapore's food culture lives here, and eating exclusively in hotel restaurants means missing the thing the city is actually famous for. Maxwell and Lau Pa Sat are the civilised introductions.
Budget SGD 200–400 per couple per day if you are eating well, which is a wide range because one big dinner can equal three ordinary ones.
Getting around at this level
A car and driver runs SGD 400–700 a day, and for most of a Singapore trip it is money wasted — the MRT is fast, clean and air-conditioned, and traffic here is not the problem it is in Indian metros.
Where a car earns its cost: the day you do Mandai, the Botanic Gardens and the east coast, where connections are awkward and you would otherwise spend an hour in transit each way. And arrival and departure, always.
Otherwise, take the train and spend the difference on dinner.
What "luxury" cannot buy here
Two things, and it is worth setting expectations.
A quiet beach. Sentosa's beaches are engineered and busy, and no amount of money changes that. If a genuinely private beach matters, add Bintan or Bali — an hour by ferry or a short flight — rather than paying more in Singapore for something the country does not have.
Exclusivity at the major attractions. Universal Studios, Gardens by the Bay and the Night Safari are busy, and premium tickets shorten queues rather than removing crowds. The luxury version of Singapore is timing and neighbourhoods, not paying to skip a line.
See our luxury Singapore packages, including the Sofitel Sentosa stay, or ask us to build a split city-and-island itinerary.
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