I was excited to stay at the Andaz this trip to Singapore, we had stayed at the Andaz in Tokyo and had a splendid stay (despite the location not be the best). My expectations were set high with this hotel and to be honest, we were a little let down by a few things.
The location of the hotel is actually pretty convenient. It is on the subway system, it is close to Kampong Glam where you can get some great Turkish food. It is also near Suntec City, a large mall complex and also the hub for the hop-on-hop-off busses.
Three of us were staying in the room this visit so we secured us a corner suite. It is over 800 sq. ft. with 1.5 bathrooms and a separate living room. This worked out perfect for the cot we had rolled in for our friend and gave him a separate space. We were on the 28th floor facing south with an obstructed view of the marina.
The room itself is nicely appointed. I did some re-arranging of the furniture and made myself a desk so I could putz away without waking our friend.
There were some strange things with the room though. Light switches were really hard to navigate. We would find ourselves trying to figure out through trial and error numerous times throughout the visit. The switches are not illuminated so at night it was especially hard and a few times we did trigger the “master” switch which would turn on or shut off the entire suite.
The bathroom was lovely, and we had a rocking view from the bathtub/shower area. A huge walk in closet. A [first world] complaint I have is that they give you only 3 towels, and the lack of turn down service (we’ll get to that later), meant we had to make sure we recycled our towels properly. Not a bad thing for the environment, but when in a humid climate, one finds himself showering quite a bit.
Another [first world] problem was the slowness of the hot water. I’m not sure how it is managed in this building but it would take a good 5 minutes to get to a comfortable temperature.
The room had lots of USB plugs for our convenience and that was appreciated. The Andaz does offer free mini bar snacks, Nespresso, and non-alcoholic drinks but the selection of snacks wasn’t as great than the Tokyo Andaz.
One last complaint about the room, but this is less of a hotel problem than a building problem. The windows that gave the greatest view were covered with little dots to add to the design of the building. It may look good from the outside, but taking pictures of the view from inside the room was not doable.
The pool was an infinity pool located on the 25th floor. It is a lovely pool with a few flaws. So some more [first world] issues that we took note of.
1. There were not enough chairs! There were maybe 10 lounge chairs and 8 regular chairs at the pool. So if you went during a somewhat busy time there was really nowhere to sit or bask in the sun.
2. The attendant was pretty much non existent. We were at the pool one morning around 8:30 and towels ran out quickly and didn’t get restocked for quite some time. So people had to go without as they starting coming to the pool.
Maybe we were just spoiled from being in Japan, but the regular service wasn’t as stellar as the Tokyo Andaz. We were in the lounge area and our friend asked for a coffee cup that was for a bigger coffee and the attendant gave him a strange look and said they didn’t have bigger coffee cups only espresso cups. The employee was proven wrong when our friend pointed out the bigger saucers and the bigger cups left on the tables. The employee was a little confused but then returned with the bigger cups.
I mentioned above about the turn down service, well we didn’t get turn down service at all. After speaking to the manager, he informed us you only get turn down service if you are in a suite (which we were) and if you had status (which we do). Even after this discussion with the manager we still neglected to get turndown service that night.
Note: When we brought the issue of the pool towels and the lack of turndown service to the front desk manager he did seem genuinely concerned and provided us with a free transfer to the airport upon checkout, so that gesture was appreciated.
One positive experience we did have was that when we arrived at the hotel at 9AM, our room of course wasn’t ready. They were gracious enough to provide us a temporary room so we could store our luggage, shower and get comfortable after our very long 18 hour flight.
Would we stay here again? I think there were a lot of awesome things with this hotel. The service is the glaring issue and maybe some of the things that they will work out as time goes on. This location is a newer one and maybe they just don’t have the kinks worked out. The hotel is beautiful and the location was great for what we were looking for. It was also nice that the hotel never felt busy... unlike Marina Bay Sands which is equal parts hotel and tourist destination.
This article is in the category: Hotels.
