During our last stay at Regent Hotel, my husband and I enjoyed the warm hospitality and quality offerings of the Regent Club lounge, which left us with a good impression of our time here. As a result, when a promotion came up on Trip.com, I decided to bring my dad and uncle along this time to check it out too (: Even though this hotel has officially ceased its operations since the tail end of 2022, I thought this would be a nice way to commemorate our family experience here. One last hurrah!
- Inclusions:
- 1-night stay in Premium High Floor King Room (upgraded from Classic King Room for my husband and I)
- 1-night stay in Premium High Floor Twin Room (upgraded from Classic Twin Room for my dad and uncle)
- Breakfast
- Spent: SGD$486.20
Check-in
At the reception counter, we were greeted by Micah, who was courteous and professional. He informed us that we’d been upgraded to the Premium High Floor rooms (yay!) but only my dad and uncle’s twin room was ready at that point. No matter, we swiftly put our bags down in their room and headed out to The Orchard Cafe at Orchard Hotel nearby for a hearty buffet lunch.
Room
My dad and uncle’s twin room was located on the 10th floor (out of 12 floors). It appeared very dated, as with most, if not all, the rooms in the hotel but it was generally clean and well-maintained. The bathrooms seem quite standard across the first few base room categories.
Our initial room was on the 10th floor as well with a similar mirror-imaged layout of the room we had for our previous stay. Unfortunately, we found ourselves an ant problem as there was a whole army of them crawling out of the dislodged wallpaper in the corner. When I flagged it up, the housekeeping manager came to inspect the room and informed the duty manager, Sufri, who then arranged for a room change to one on the 12th floor. The room configuration there was exactly the same, with the only difference being the additional Nespresso machine (I presume this floor was exclusively for club rooms with such inclusions). Sufri also sent up a box of chocolates and a card to convey his apologies for the inconvenience.
I was pleasantly surprised to get a welcome call from the concierge team acknowledging our return stay and IHG membership status before confirming our 2pm late check-out for both rooms, a nice touch that I appreciated. My firm pillow was delivered quite quickly too and the bed was wonderfully firm for a great night’s sleep.
Facilities
For photos of the pool and gym, do refer to my previous post as I won’t be rehashing them here (:
Come evening, we had a reservation for dinner at Basilico, one of the hotel restaurants that is still currently in operation. With the IHG membership, we were able to shave 20% off our total bill! As we placed our orders, a staff went to the buffet display to pick out a bread starter platter for us on the house. I loved how generous he was with the portions (:
My golly, the food was delicious! My dad and uncle both went for the seafood stew ($48++) chockful of goodies like prawns, scallops, fish and more. The ingredients were well-cooked and the stew itself was super flavourful.
My husband ordered himself a carbonara spaghettoni with crispy pork guanciale, parmesan and black truffle ($45++). This was indulgently thick and cheesy, which could swing either way depending on how much you like cheese. I don’t think I could’ve finished it on my own but from the few bites I had, it tasted really creamy and good.
My prosciutto and arugula pizza ($33++) was an insane portion with generous strips of prosciutto. Its crust was fairly thin and had a nice balanced texture in-between crispy and chewy. This was so yummy but due to the lack of stomach space, I was sadly unable to finish it.
The restaurant manager, whom I’m guessing is Italian, was very proactive in checking in on guests. He came to us a few times to ask how we were doing and whether we needed anything. I was really amused by his accent and that slight growl in the way he spoke as it reminded me of Lumiere from Beauty & The Beast 😛
The next morning, breakfast was served at Basilico as well. This time, I felt that the food was so much better compared to our previous run here. The curries were fragrant and went splendidly with the beehoon. My omelette was slightly runny on the inside (just the way I like it), the hashbrowns were crispy and the chicken was tender. I liked the bread with chocolate streaks too. As for the pancakes, even though I wouldn’t have gone for seconds, I’d say they were still softer and fluffier than the average hotel breakfast pancake.
Interestingly, I observed the staff replacing items with alternative options once they’d run out. The beehoon and custard buns were replaced by fried rice and barbecued pork buns respectively by the time we went out to get our third round of food.
Service, too, had improved by leaps and bounds as opposed to the abysmal experience we had the last round. Staff were all smiles this time, promptly clearing finished plates off the table. One lovely staff thoughtfully asked my dad whether he would like more orange juice as she cleared his empty glasses, and then proceeded to bring two fresh glasses of it to him.
When I asked about the change from Dilmah tea packs to Gryphon loose leaf tea, she also patiently explained that they’d run out of Dilmah tea and even asked if I would’ve preferred that instead. As we were leaving, the staff bid us farewell as they did for all leaving guests, rounding up an enjoyable breakfast with a hearty dose of hospitality (:
My overall rating of the experience: 4 out of 5 stars. I’m glad that the aspects that were lacking in our previous stay, like the mediocre food and poor service standards at breakfast, had been greatly improved during this stay! The room interiors were undeniably dated and we even had an ant cluster in our room, but the swiftness of the team in responding to and rectifying the situation was truly commendable. I do hope that the wonderful team here were retained despite the property’s change of management. Nevertheless, Basilico has remained as is in the newly rebranded hotel so that’s definitely a compelling reason for a revisit!
If this post helped you in some way and you’d like to buy me a coffee, I’d be incredibly grateful (:
Dania Experiences 