Hotel Name: Mandarin Orchard Singapore
Address: 333 Orchard Road, Singapore
[Edit: Mandarin Orchard Singapore is now rebranded as Hilton Singapore Orchard. This review is left as an archive.]
I stayed at the Mandarin Orchard Singapore as a guest of Meritus Hotels and Resorts.
The Mandarin Orchard Singapore is a five-star hotel on Orchard Road and was awarded as the Best Hotel in Singapore at the International Hotel Awards 2013/2014.
The hotel is a landmark building on Orchard Road with its two distinctive towers. The towers were built in 1971 and 1973, and the second tower at a height of 173 metres was at the time the tallest building in Singapore.
While the tower exteriors retain their 1970’s flair, the hotel recently underwent a major refurbishment giving it a completely modern look and feel. I arrived to the check-in lobby on the 5th floor which was spacious and still felt new.
I had arrived early from an overnight flight so the hotel checked me into an available room. I got a spacious room with a huge, comfortable bed.
The room also had a cozy reading couch. I couldn’t drag myself off the bed but it was good to know it was there.
There was a work desk with a good chair to go with it, though I would have orientated the table to be facing the wall so as not to have an open space at the edge of the desk.
The bathroom was spacious and had a walk-in shower (which I prefer to standing in a bathtub).
Complimentary water is provided and snacks and other drinks are available for purchase.
Also complimentary is the wifi. One of my pet peeves of luxury hotels is when they don’t offer a free bottle of water or free wifi. The wifi was fast and worked everywhere in the hotel without having to log back in.
The hotel has a fitness centre, an outdoor tennis court, and a swimming pool on the 5th floor.
The breakfast buffet offers a huge selection of breakfast favourites, from the usual western fare of breads and pastries, a made-to-order egg chef, Asian dishes, and a chef preparing Indian breakfast classics.
There are three restaurants, a café, and a bar on in the hotel premises.
On the top floor is the Meritus Club Lounge. The lounge used to be a revolving restaurant (as was the fashion of the day when it was built). These days it is stationary but as a lounge you get to walk around and admire the view at your leisure.
Even if the hotel long ago gave up the bragging right of being the tallest in Singapore, it still provides a mostly unobstructed view of central Singapore. Up here you really get a sense of the urban density of this city-state.
In terms of location, the hotel is located between the two main metro stations that serve Orchard Road (Somerset and Orchard MRT), making it pretty much the centre of the premier shopping street in Singapore. Orchard has also been continually refurbished over the last decade with modern shopping malls dominating the area between Somerset and Orchard.
For more photos visit the photo gallery and for more research here is my guide to choose which area to stay in Singapore.
