After the long-awaited reopening of the Horizon Club Lounge at the Tower Wing (it remained closed for a while even after the pandemic lifted), my husband and I finally got a chance to check off our trilogy stay at this hotel! I say trilogy because this hotel has three separate wings with very different interiors and vibes, of which we’d already experienced two (throwback to our time at the Valley Wing and Garden Wing).
As a self-confessed completionist, I found it highly compelling to eventually do a Tower Wing stay at some point. Purely by chance, a friend spotted a fantastic deal on Trip.com for his birthday stay here and notified the rest of us, so we each ended up booking ourselves a room as well to celebrate the occasion with him!
- Inclusions:
- 1-night stay in Horizon Club Junior Suite
- Horizon Club Lounge access
- Breakfast and evening cocktails (as part of club lounge access)
- Spent: SGD$311.79
Check-in
The main reception counter caters to guests checking into both the Tower and Garden Wings so I’ve seen this area get quite crowded sometimes. Thankfully, it was mostly empty when we were there so it wasn’t much of a wait. Club guests do have the option to check in at the lounge but since we were headed for lunch at one of the restaurants, we decided to just complete the process at the reception.
Andreas, the staff registering us, had a warm demeanour and came across as very ready to assist (: He handed us an early check-in card so we could access the hotel facilities even though our room wasn’t ready.
Room
Our sizeable room was located on level 17 (out of 23 levels). I much prefer this contemporary aesthetic to the Valley Wing’s old-world charm as everything here looked a lot sharper and cleaner. It is so spacious here that the sofa can be opened up to become an additional bed to fit two young kids comfortably. There is also an induction stove and a microwave (though I thought it rather odd that there were no cooking utensils to be found anywhere).
The long but narrow bathroom comes with double vanities, a tub and a separate shower (hidden behind the door). It was a little dim in there but at least it was hygienic.
The hotel provides turndown service upon request, from which we received a set of bookmarks that were left on our bed. I appreciated the firmness of the bed and the pillow I requested for too. Furthermore, requests over the phone were met with incredible promptness, very impressive!
Facilities
As I’ve detailed the hotel’s myriad facilities in an earlier post, do refer to that if you’d like more information (:
Since I had a 25% discount dining voucher to burn (from their free-to-join Shangri-La Circle loyalty programme), we planned to have lunch at Waterfall Ristorante Italiano, a cosy yet elegant restaurant situated at the Garden Wing. They specialize in southern Italian cuisine, making their own fresh pasta too (always a good sign!). As we only made a reservation here just a week prior, the indoor seats were completely booked out so we had to make do with outdoor seating. This wasn’t ideal as there were birds that kept swooping in on unattended food (along with some visible bird poop stains on the seats).
After a simple bread starter, we dug into our orders of truffle cream pork sausage pasta ($38++) and crab meat pasta ($36++). The pork sausage pasta was creamy and flavourful, with the mushrooms adding a mild crunchy texture. Alas, the pici pasta itself was a tad thick for my husband’s liking. As for the crab meat pasta, it had generous chunks of crab in a delicious tomato sauce that evenly coated each pasta strand, yum! Unfortunately, cleanliness was an issue as I found a dried rice grain stuck in-between the teeth of my fork, pretty icky.
Nestled on level 24 is the Horizon Club Lounge, an expansive space flooded with natural light and furnished with a variety of seating. It also offers lush city views and makes for a beautiful space to work from or simply unwind in ❤
Evening cocktails are served at the lounge between 5pm to 7pm. Sadly, the spread was on the smaller side and fairly disappointing in terms of taste and quality. Many items were bland and flat in flavour, as if they weren’t seasoned properly.
Having said that, the alcohol options seemed pretty decent. It was a self-service affair so I got to mix my own mimosa with my preferred ratio of Prosecco to orange juice.
Club guests can opt to have breakfast at the lounge (7am to 10.30am) or at The Line restaurant downstairs on level 1 (6am to 10.30am). Given our sorely underwhelming experiences at the latter, we didn’t even consider it a viable option.
At the lounge, we were pleasantly surprised by the non-standard items that we haven’t come across in other local hotel breakfasts, like soy beancurd, donuts, bratwursts, chwee kueh, golden kiwis and grapefruits. There is also a live station where a chef can whip up your choice of freshly prepared eggs. But again, the food mostly tasted mediocre and nothing stood out in particular.
Despite not having an afternoon tea service, there were still some very subtanstial treats served during the day for light refreshments. For most lounges, these refreshments typically comprise nuts, cookies and other small snacks, but there were actual sandwiches and tarts (on top of local cookies and granola bars) served here, which I appreciated. The turkey ham cheddar sandwiches were my favourite of the lot!
My overall rating of the experience: 4 out of 5 stars. Of all the three wings at this hotel, this wing is undeniably the best one in my books! I do prefer the modern design of the spaces here, plus our room was clean and sizeable too. Also, the Horizon Club Lounge was a bright and breezy space to relax in and had friendly and polite staff. It was a pity that, while some breakfast items were rather unique compared to those at other local hotel breakfasts we’ve been to, the food in general was largely unmemorable in taste. At the regular price point for a room with lounge access, I do think the quality of the offerings can afford to be of a higher standard. On the other hand, the food from Waterfall Ristorante Italiano was tantalizing and delightful. However, hygiene levels were slightly questionable given the dried grain of rice I found stuck on one of our forks. All in all, it is still a hotel that I can foresee us coming back to in the future should the right opportunity arise (:
If this post helped you in some way and you’d like to buy me a coffee, I’d be incredibly grateful (:
Dania Experiences 