Located in the heart of the city, Fairmont Hotel has two massive towers of rooms and suites, and shares its facilities with Swissotel The Stamford. The last time my husband and I were here during the pandemic, we stayed in a room in the North Tower and left with a good impression of the hotel. This time, I wanted to try out the Fairmont Gold Lounge situated in the South Tower. Note that not all suites automatically have access to this lounge, so do be sure to check the room description before making the purchase. Thanks to Traveloka, I managed to snag one such room for a pretty decent price!
- Inclusions:
- 1-night stay in Signature Gold King Suite
- Fairmont Gold Lounge access
- Breakfast and evening cocktails (as part of club lounge access)
- Spent: SGD$360.79
Check-in
Our initial booking was actually for the Fairmont Gold King Room but apparently, there was the option to switch to the Signature Gold King Suite at no additional cost (maybe these room categories belong to the same tier?). I was able to do so via a phone call to the reservations department and was assisted by the very bubbly and genuinely helpful tele-operator, Yan Jie. He pre-empted that this suite we were moving to had no bathtub and triple-confirmed that we were okay with that before he made the change.
Since our stay included lounge access, the welcoming lobby reception staff, Elvie, escorted me to level 25 to check in at the Fairmont Gold Lounge. Firdaus from the lounge then took over and offered me a drink while he completed the registration process. He meticulously went through our stay inclusions and passed me two cards to be exchanged for welcome drinks as part of Accor membership benefits.
Room
Heading down to level 22 (out of 26 floors) where our suite was, I entered to find that it was an oddly-shaped room that had more of a junior suite configuration as there was no separated living area per se. With that said, I really liked the generous amount of space it offered, along with the modern interior and furnishings. Plus points for having my husband’s favourite channel, BBC Lifestyle, among the television options. There was a filtered water tap at the mini-bar with buttons for instant cold or hot water, super convenient for making tea (bottled water was still available though). Right outside the bathroom was a nook that fit a compact walk-in wardrobe.
It was great that the bed here was firm and comfortable, and the firm pillow I requested for arrived almost immediately. Turndown service was also provided when asked for, entailing the usual clearing of trash, drawing of curtains and putting out of the bedroom slippers but strangely enough, no item replenishment.
Moving over to the bathroom, it felt spacious and bright with an open layout. There was a ton of room in the shower as well, although we couldn’t really prevent water from splashing out since the glass partition only spanned half the entryway.
Throughout our stay, I noticed a few disconcerting cleanliness issues such as crumbs on the sofa, faded brown stains down one side of the the toilet bowl and on the floor, as well as orange smudges on the sleeves of one of the bathrobes. These were hard to overlook and definitely affected how comfortable I felt in the room.
Facilities
Having covered a number of shared facilities (eg. pool, gym, spa) in my previous posts, I won’t be rehashing them here but if you’d like to, you can check those out at this link (:
What was new for us this stay was the Fairmont Gold Lounge experience on level 25 of the South Tower. From the moment I walked in, I was totally vibing with the contemporary cool grey aesthetic interspersed with burnt orange accents, as well as the faux fireplace that somehow made the space feel warmer and cosier. All-day refreshments came in the form of local sweets and snacks, as well as coffee, tea and soft drinks. Unfortunately, they don’t serve afternoon tea here, unlike many other lounges we’ve visited ):
They do, however, serve evening cocktails and canapes between 5.30pm to 7.30pm. Alas, most of the food tasted mediocre. The only thing I took seconds of was the ikura and crab salad (made with pseudo-crab meat at that), which I still had to douse heavily in Japanese mayo for that much needed flavour.
One redeeming factor here was the staff’s helpfulness. As my friends were also hotel guests with lounge access as well, Howard, one of the staff, very kindly booked us a private meeting room where we could enjoy the best views of the Marina Bay area and the National Day Parade rehearsal. No fireworks, sadly, but we did manage to catch some pyrotechnics and flares as a teaser preview. That same evening, the skies turned into a gorgeous canvas of ombre hues too, absolutely mesmerizing!
As my husband had a really early appointment, we had to have breakfast super early too and ended up being the first and only ones in the lounge. Breakfast service runs from 7am to 10.30am and you can choose to have it in the lounge, at the Asian Market Cafe or at Prego. The selection here was fairly limited compared to the other two breakfast venues and once again, the food was lamentably forgettable. Even the freshly made-to-order eggs were bland and uninspiring. Only the sausages were decent as they were surprisingly juicy.
After my husband headed out, I joined my friends for breakfast at Prego. Guests can order unlimited mains from an a la carte menu and also help themelves to the buffet items that include cold cuts, fruits, desserts and more. I tried some of the items that weren’t available in the lounge, such as the waffles, pancakes and vitality juice drinks. My friends gave the eggs benedict dish a thumbs up but the rest of the dishes were average. What was most intriguing for me was the gigantic Nutella bottle and its accompanying dispensing mechanim, I’ve never seen anything like it!
During our previous stay at Swissotel The Stamford, we redeemed our welcome drinks at Anti:dote so this time, we decided to try the drinks at Prego. I ordered a Bellatanta (pineapple juice base with thyme) while my husband had a glass of apple juice. I much prefer this drink to the cloyingly sweet mocktails we had last time.
My overall rating of the experience: 3 out of 5 stars. I truly struggled to decide between 3 or 4 stars for this rating. On one hand, the hospitality and helpfulness from the staff was commendable, the club lounge had the perfect ambience for chilling out, and I appreciated the ample space in the room we were assigned to. On the other hand, there were some glaring issues that were really difficult to ignore. For instance, the cleanliness of the room (which is of paramount importance to me in any stay), as well as the overall standard and quality of the food in both the lounge and the restaurants left much to be desired. If the decision is to leave out afternoon tea from the lounge offerings, plus only offer a limited variety of food items, then at least ensure that what’s eventually being served is going to knock it out of the park. That wasn’t the case during our stay, though on the off chance, it could’ve just been a bad day for them. Anyway, I’d probably skip paying a premium for lounge access on future visits as I don’t feel it’s very worth it.
If this post helped you in some way and you’d like to buy me a coffee, I’d be incredibly grateful (:
Dania Experiences 