On my many trips to Singapore over the past 15 years I’ve probably stayed at Swissotel The Stamford 30 or 40 times. During that time you could see the hotel getting older and starting to look tired.
Swissotel The Stamford, Singapore
Thankfully the lifts, corridors and rooms have started to be renovated and are now quite fresh though the room has a number of issues.
They hadn’t renovated the whole hotel when I was there, but the new renovated rooms are listed separately on the website so you can ensure you get a “new” room.
First thing you’ll notice is the new carpet, much improved lighting, a HUGE television and modern artwork on the wall.
The old clunky wooden bedside tables are gone and replaced with a wall unit with the landline phone and clock radio. There’s also a mobile phone that you can use for making calls and surfing the web while you do the touristy stuff. But I couldn’t find a way to send SMSes, and I couldn’t set it up as a wifi hotspot. I ended up getting a local SIM and not using the phone.
The nightlights have motion sensors attached. So if you get up in the middle of the night the floor level nightlights will automatically come on – no fumbling for the light switch. Nice!
The TV isn’t in the best of locations. It’s inconvenient to watch from both the bed, and the couch.
Speaking of the couch. This is a new addition to the Swissotel rooms. They’ve replaced the desk and desk chair with a more modern table and couch combination. Not an ideal setup if you want to do some work. And if you want to charge your laptop and phone, then you’ll need to drape the cables across to the power points that are on the wall next to the couch. They do have USB charging points along with the power points which is nice, but you’ll need a long charging cable.
The whole desk, couch power point setup just hasn’t been thought through and I’m guessing they’ll be getting complaints.
The bathroom has also been rejigged. There is now a walk in shower, no bath anymore. However, the shower head in my room was playing up and leaking, and you could see the paint damage. The vanity area was well done.
My room also had a Nespresso machine, but that might have been because I am a Swissotel Circle Eleva member.
Overall, the renovation is a good start, but I think there needs to be a number of tweaks to make the room a little more functional, especially for a business traveler.