singaporecity360° Raffles Hotel
Raffles Hotel stands at 1 Beach Road in the civic district, a colonial-era hotel that opened in 1887 and was restored and reopened in 2019 after a two-year overhaul.
Two things to know first
Do not plan on wandering the hotel. Raffles publishes no lobby or public-areas policy for non-guests, and the main building is residents-only in practice.
The Long Bar queues heavily in the afternoon and takes no small-group bookings, so a mid-afternoon Singapore Sling can mean a long wait.
Since that restoration the main lobby has been reserved for hotel guests, so day visitors go instead for the Raffles Arcade of shops and boutiques and for the bars and restaurants, all of which are open to the public. The draw for most is the Long Bar, the birthplace of the Singapore Sling, which pours the cocktail from around SGD 39 before service charge and tax; it runs 11am to 10.30pm Sunday to Wednesday and to 11.30pm Thursday to Saturday.
Smart-casual dress is expected throughout. It sits a short walk from City Hall MRT, next to Raffles City. Come out of City Hall MRT Exit A, cut through Raffles City and cross Beach Road — the Long Bar is reached through the Raffles Arcade on Level 2, not the grand Beach Road portico, which now admits hotel guests only.
The Long Bar is the one place in Singapore where dropping litter is part of the ritual — monkey nuts come free with your drink and the shells go straight on the floor. The catch is the Sling itself: at roughly SGD 39 plus service charge and GST it lands near SGD 46 a glass, and the bar takes no bookings, so a weekday mid-afternoon avoids both the tour-group crush and the wait.
Rain, heat, and what to do about it
Live readings and forecasts from NEA. Four days is the limit — past that, nobody is forecasting, they are showing you an average.
Southwest Monsoon
June to September
Short, sharp early-morning showers and occasional squall lines. Drier overall than the northeast wet phase.
The other good window. Rain tends to arrive early and clear, leaving usable afternoons. This is also when haze can occur, which is worth checking rather than assuming.
Plan your Raffles Hotel stop
Straight-line distance from the three places a visitor has already heard of.
1.5km
north-west
2.6km
east
16km
south-west
What costs money inside
| What | Adult | Resident | Child |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long Bar — where the Singapore Sling was invented Sunday to Wednesday 11am to 10.30pm last seating, Thursday to Saturday 11am to 11.30pm. Walk-ins only. Raffles does not publish the price of a Singapore Sling on its own site, so we hold no official figure. | — | — | — |
| Raffles Courtyard — alfresco garden bar Daily noon to 10.30pm, with happy hour from 3pm and drinks from S$14++. Open on public holidays, and dogs are welcome here. | — | — | — |
Raffles Hotel, in every light
Nearby, on foot
In Civic District — close enough to collect on the same trip out.
Contains information from Tourist Attractions accessed on 2026-08-01 from data.gov.sg, made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0.