[Hotel Review] - Conrad Centennial (Centennial Suite), Singapore (18 - 19 May 14)

Location

Conrad is located next to the Millennia Walk Shopping Mall as well as the Suntec City Shopping Mall and a stone's throw from the Marina Shopping Centre. The hotel is a great place to stay for those who prefer a convenient location with links to the subway stations and lots of shopping around. The subway station is accessible via Suntec City Shopping Mall.

Hardware

I stayed in the One bedroom Executive Premier Room, also known as the Centennial Suite. Once entering the suite, a small corridor decorated with sculptures by the wall leads guests into the living room. The first thing that would catch the eyes of patrons is the study desk. Here is where one can find a couple of powerpoint outlets to charge their electronic gadgets. Making a turn to the right, one would find the living area of the suite. The chic living room is the home of a 2-seater couch decked in maroon colour, coupled with 2 single seater arm chairs decked in olive green. Behind the 2-seater couch is where one can find the floor to ceiling windows that peeks into Suntec City Shopping Mall. Right between the 2 armchairs is a coffee table and a side table, decked with welcome tropical fruits can be found between the 2-seater couch and the armchair. There is also a small wall side table behind the armchair that is closer to the door to the bedroom. 

Study desk by the main door

Living room of the suite

Living room of the suite

Welcome fruits and chocolate with their signature Conrad Bear, one for each guest staying in the suite

Infront of the 2-seater couch is a large cabinet housing the entertainment system. The minibar and glasses are well hidden on the right side of this cabinet. On top of the cabinet is a large 46 in Sony LED TV. The TV is controlled by a all-in-one remote controller that also controls the radio, the DVD player as well as PC connections. One can also find the Nespresso single served capsule coffee machine, which is becoming increasing standard in major 5-star hotels. The living area is a great place to hang out and laze around for guests to spend some couch-potato time. There are extra blanket and pillow inside the wardrobe in the living room. This part of the room feels rather cluttered as the room is a tad too small to fit so much furnitures into. Having said that, one can still find space to manoeuvre around in this part of the suite.

Entertainment system in the living room

Between the wall side table and the TV cabinet, is a door leading into the bedroom. Here is where one would be ushered into slightly more space. Upon entering the bedroom, a 3-drawer dressing table greets guests occupying this room.  Next to the dresser is a single seater armchair, placed in the floor to ceiling window in the bedroom. The centrepiece of the bedroom is a king-sized bed. The firm mattress ensures guests get a good night's rest. There is a menu of pillows for guests to choose from.

Comfortable king bed in the bedroom

Bedroom

Awkwardly placed by the side wall is a cabinet, housing a 32 in LCD TV. The placement of the TV is rather weird as guests will not be able to watch the TV properly given its position in the room. Next to the TV is the wardrobe for guests to unpack into. The wardrobe is rather modest in size, however coupled with the dresser, there are sufficient space for 2 guests to unpack their 4 days worth of clothings.

TV in the bedroom

TV and wardrobe in the bedroom

Between the bed and the wardrobe is a door that opens into a large marble bathroom. Most of the amenities can be found in the sink area. There are ample space for one to place their toiletries and cosmetics onto. The hotel provides 3 series of bathing amenities for guests to choose from. I prefer the Shanghai Tang series which is available upon request. Just opposite the door to the bathroom is a large bathtub. The hotel also provides bath salt, which is topped up regularly and a rubber ducky for guests to enjoy while soaking in the tub. Next to the tub is a walk-in shower. The walk-in shower is very spacious and comes with massaging shower head. The toilet bowl is housed in a separate room, located in the bathroom, next to the walk-in shower.

Bathtub and walk-in shower in the bathroom

Sink area

Bathing amenities

Bathing amenities

Bathing amenities

Bathtub

Sink area

Toilet

The Suite is rather comfortable, and is a right size for party of 2. Guests can be assured of comfortable stay in the suite. However the room is not without flaws. The power points, other then that on the study desks, are positioned in rather odd places within the suite. For heavy users of electronic gadgets, one would have to plan for a charging schedule for their gadgets. There are no power points in the bedroom, other that those that has lamps or TVs plugged into. Secondly, if one were to opt for HDMI connection from their laptop to the 2 TVs in the room, one would have to stretch all the way to the rear of the TV, where the HDMI ports are usually located. There is, however, a port on the TV cabinet in the living room for guests to link their laptop to the TV. However this port is the outdated VGA port.

Staying in this suite entitles guests to access to the Executive Lounge located on the 31 floor of the hotel. The lounge has a certain dress code for guests to abide by. There are limited seatings in the lounge, however the hotel does open up the library and the meeting rooms (if not in use) to cope with the guest volume visiting the lounge if need to. The lounge can be segregated into the lounge area and the food area where daily afternoon tea and evening cocktails are being served. Guests are welcomed to the lounge during its opening hours for drinks and cookies outside the afternoon tea and evening cocktail timings.

View from the Executive lounge

Executive Lounge

Food area in the lounge

Afternoon tea

View of the Executive Lounge

View from the lounge

Heartware

The service standards varied during my stay at Conrad Centennial Singapore. Guests staying in the Executive Premier Suite can opt for checking in at the lounge. Checking in was a breeze and I was promptly greeted by the staff at the check in counter, located outside the lounge. However when I checked for the late check out, the staff offered 2pm check out timing while the hotel website stated late check out up to 6pm. Upon asking, the staff reluctantly mentioned that she will get back to me. However an good 8 hours has passed and my late check out request seemed to turned to deaf ears. I had to resort to checking with the reception on the ground floor before being granted a late check out at 6pm.

As I was celebrating  my birthday during my stay at Conrad, the treatment for my birthday seemed underwhelmed, a stark contrast to that I read over at Tripadvisor forum. There wasn't special greeting at the point of checking in, despite my friend had highlighted the purpose of our stay weeks prior to arrival at the hotel. The hotel does provide a birthday cake, however the cake seemed to be good for only one pax.

Very small cake

The staff at the Terrace Cafe does not seemed too interested in building a relationship with guests. 3 times I was there, none of the these times does the staffs, despite appearing to be rather free, bothered to greet me nor were they seem interested in assisting me in my choices of food. There were eye contact with the staffs during my visit, all the times I was met with a cold shoulder.

My initial impression of the staffs at the Executive Lounge is negative. During my initial visits to the lounge, none of the staffs offered to help me and my friend in getting a seat. Nor were they seen to be approaching us for drinks. We had to help ourselves and figure out where the drinks are and helped ourselves to whatever is put out. The worst is there isn't too many people in the lounge during our visits. During afternoon tea and evening cocktail timings, our table is overflow with plates and none of the staffs seemed to be bothered to clear our table. We had to signal to the staffs to make space for us on our table. Staffs at the lounge are seen standing around like statues or chatting amongst themselves.

There are however, some staffs that made a difference during my stay in Conrad. We met with a housekeeping staff, Mdm Goh, who was friendly and ensured the supplies in our suite is sufficiently topped up. We were also pleasantly surprised to be offered make up room on the day of our checking out by Mdm Goh. Mdm Goh never failed to greet us with a smile and checked if our supplies are sufficient in the room for our usage. She also never fails to check if we are sufficiently comfortable during our stay whenever we bumped into her. There are also a couple of staffs in the lounge that made a difference. Ms Stacia, with her bubbly character, jumped into action and quickly offered us drinks during one occasion of our visit to the lounge. She constantly pop by our table to see if there are empty plates on our table. At the sight of our drink almost finishing, she would appear to ask if we would like to have more drinks. The other staff, Ms Christine from the lounge has superb knowledge of the hotel. From her, we came to know that there are a number of art pieces around the hotel. On our check out, Ms Christine even send us from the 31 floor to the ground floor, ensuring that our experience in the hotel is a pleasant one. The staff at the gym, Ms Isha, never fails to remind us to keep ourselves hydrated after our gym workout. She also offered to loan us sneakers and work out gears when we told her that we did not bring gym gears. 

Overall

Conrad Centennial Singapore is well appointed in terms of its location. The suite we stayed in offered comfortable and great sleep quality. The room, despite being chic, seemed to be outdated in terms of the electronics. The service offered is mixed and is really dependent on who one meets in the hotel. Overall, it is a good stay, but not great at Conrad Centennial Singapore.