The Ritz Carlton Singapore (proper name The Ritz Carlton Millenia Singapore) is located in Marina Bay on Raffles Avenue. I don’t think I’d call this the best location to be in, but it’s an easy walk or at most a short taxi ride to a lot of Singapore’s major attractions, financial district and shopping.
First impressions weren’t that great, took about 15 minutes to get a key card despite the wife already having checked in and left my name at reception. One of my pet peeves about hotels is waiting eternity to check in. I can imagine Seinfeld doing a piece on this, you’ve made the booking, it’s in the system, surely it must just be a case of looking for your name and getting the room assigned, in addition to the mandatory photocopy of your passport. Anyway, there were a lot of people doing god knows what around reception and it took ages. Right throughout the stay, there were a lot of people at this hotel. Like a lot of Ritz Carlton’s, they seem to be popular with rich locals who over-dress and spend way too much money on lunches and afternoon tea.
Anyway, rooms at the Ritz Carlton Singapore are fine, not what I would call spectacular by any means, but nice, everything works fine, beds are comfy, large bathroom and massive hot tub that takes 14 years to fill up. Don’t be fooled by the photos, not every room has views overlooking Marina Bay. Our room had what I call “View Over Highway” which was crap. We only stayed here 2 nights on the way back from Bintan Island and didn’t spend much time in the room anyway, but overall, nice, and nothing to complain about here as you’d expect from any Ritz Carlton.
One of the best things about the Ritz Carlton Singapore is the breakfast. Absolutely massive selection of everything you can imagine from my favourite Eggs Benedict, to bacon and eggs, breads, fruits, chinese/asian stuff and one of the better breakfasts I’ve had at any hotel. I’m not a big breakfast guy but if you are, you can absolutely stuff yourself here and not bother with lunch. Again, lots of people here and lots of locals.
The next best thing at the Ritz Carlton Singapore is the swimming pool. Ground level, but huge pool with stairs on both sides making it ideal for kids. It’s not that deep, again, probably better for kids than adults, but you don’t really need 2m deep pools at hotels anyway, so no big deal for me. There’s some comfy loungers although it’s a bit hard to get one with shade in the afternoon. Only downer again, is the amount of people. I mean they ran out of towels and you can’t really have a nice relaxing afternoon by the pool because there’s loads of people here. Not overwhelming or crowded, but too many people for my hermit-like tastes.
Loads of things to do around the area, including a few restaurants in the nearby mall, which are ok, but rather mediocre. The staff were pretty food, I didn’t have much interaction with them but the few times I did they were friendly and again everything you expect from a Ritz. I’d have no problems staying at the Ritz Carlton Singapore again, but at the same time I’d be happy to try somewhere else in a different part of town. I much preferred this location to either the top end of Orchard Road or Sentosa Island, although it depends what kind of holiday you want. For kids, Sentosa might be a better bet – you can read more about that in our Singapore Travel Guide for kids and Families here.
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