I Took a Cash Advance Loan to Buy a Ticket to Singapore

June 27th, 2010

This was the event of the century
I am talking about the grand opening of the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore, another grand launch by billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Too bad you missed it. I took a cash advance loan with extra easy repayment terms and flew East so I could be there.

Launching
Last week, the world’s most expensive hotel was given a launch party befitting it. Singing legend Diana Ross performed for 2,500 VIPs in the resort’s Grand Ballroom and pop singer Kelly Rowland headlined an outdoor concert.

The relay
The opening celebrations featured a death-defying relay. Seven teams of three participants each scaled the three towers before sprinting across the 340-meter long Sands SkyPark, where the infinity pool is located, to the finish line.

The hotel
The hotel, which has 2,560 rooms costing from $500 a night, was officially opened last week with a lavish concert. The Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi , estimated to have cost $3 billion when it opened in 2004, was previously the world’s most expensive hotel. But with its indoor canal, opulent art, casino, outdoor plaza, convention centre, theatre, crystal pavilion and museum shaped like a lotus flower, the Marina Bay Sands has taken its crown.

The staff
The resort will employ 10,000 people directly and generate up to $70 million each year. Entrance to the casino alone is nearly $75 a day – but an average of 25,000 people have visited the casino daily since its initial phased opening two months ago.

Guests and visitors
Thomas Arasi, president and chief executive officer of the resort, said he expects to attract an astonishing 70,000 visitors a day once it is fully open. It was due to open in 2009, but was delayed thanks to labor and material shortages, and funding problems due to the global financial crisis.

Architecture
Marina Sands resort was designed by architect Moshe Safdie who based it on a deck of cards. Inside shoppers can ride along an indoor canal in Sampan boats styled on traditional Chinese vessels from the 17th century.

Art
The owners have also commissioned five well-known artists to create works of art to ‘integrate’ with the buildings. Among these is a 40m-long Antony Gormley sculpture made from 16,100 steel rods. The whole thing weighs 14.8 tons and it took 60 people to assemble it in the hotel. Artist Chongbin Zheng created Rising Forest which is 83 three meter high pots with trees in them. The pots were so big the artist had to build a customized kiln the size of a small building to make them in.

The pool
The infinity pool on the roof is in the ‘SkyPark’ which spans the three towers of the hotel. The platform itself is longer than the Eiffel tower laid down and is one of the largest of its kind in the world.

Entry
Entry to the hotel is nearly $75 to get in and is attracting 25,000 visitors each day. Don’t forget to include for this and a couple of nights in your Cash Advance Loan!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 27th, 2010 at 3:58 am and is filed under Finance, Loans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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