The honest review of Raffles Singapore

I found the check-in and check-out experiences genuinely poor, and dinner at the Tiffin Room was disappointing — beautiful room, but the service and food didn't match the setting.

I appreciate a thorough review but I think this one bent over backwards to give underwhelming service a generous score. The check-in was disorganized, there were no directions for navigating an event that was happening on property, and nobody was positioned to help. Tiffin Room for dinner is gorgeous to look at but the food and service fell flat. The breakfast experience and butler interactions clearly saved the overall impression for this reviewer — but those shouldn't have to compensate for fundamentals.

Their breakfast buffet is the best I've ever had — and I don't say that lightly. The staff clocked my drink preference on day one and it was waiting for me every morning after that.

The combination of variety, taste, and service at breakfast is genuinely unmatched in my experience. The staff learn your preferences immediately and make every subsequent morning feel effortless. The fresh coconuts are a lovely touch. It's the kind of breakfast that makes you want to linger rather than rush off to sightsee.

I've had breakfast in a t-shirt and athletic shorts and been to the Writers Bar in not much more — and I've never felt anything less than warmly welcomed in any part of the hotel.

The dress code exists on paper but hotel guests simply aren't held to it in any meaningful way. I suspect it's there to give staff a mechanism to redirect non-staying tourists who flock to the property, rather than to police actual guests. If you make any effort toward casual chic — even Hermès Orans — you will have absolutely no issue anywhere on property.

For a proposal setting in Singapore, Raffles is the clear choice — the heritage and atmosphere create something the newer properties simply cannot manufacture.

I compared Four Seasons, Capella, and Fullerton Bay and kept coming back to Raffles. There's a quality of romance embedded in the place itself — the courtyards, the history, the colonial grandeur — that newer hotels can't replicate no matter how well-designed they are. For Singapore, it's unbeatable as a milestone setting.

Coming in with high expectations from other top-tier properties, Raffles Singapore still delivered something special — that balance of colonial charm and modern luxury is harder to pull off than it looks.

The suite was exceptional in every way, and the service felt effortless rather than choreographed. The location puts you right in the heart of Singapore while the hotel itself creates a genuine sense of sanctuary — you step through the entrance and the city recedes. It's expensive, but the value is there if you're the right traveler for it.

Afternoon tea at Raffles was already wonderful — harp music, gorgeous champagne, melt-in-the-mouth scones — but LuLu made our honeymoon treat genuinely unforgettable.

The setting is beautiful and the food was exceptional, but what we'll remember is the warmth of individual staff members who made us feel genuinely celebrated rather than processed. The scones in particular were extraordinary. If you're in Singapore for a special occasion and considering afternoon tea, this is the place.

We arrived after an exhausting journey and our room wasn't ready until two and a half hours after check-in — and the wrong room configuration had been booked on top of that. We lost our entire first evening.

The hotel manager apologized and promised to make it up to us. We never heard from them again. It's a real shame because the hotel itself is beautiful, but operational failures at check-in that cascade into losing a whole evening — with no meaningful follow-through — are hard to forgive at this price point.

A professional critic who stayed at sixty hotels in a single year chose Raffles Singapore as the one she can't stop thinking about — that's not a line a seasoned travel editor uses lightly.

Travel + Leisure·Nov 2023·

The editorial verdict centers on the rooftop pool, beautifully appointed suites, and a guest roster that speaks to the hotel's enduring cachet. For a property of this age and reputation, Raffles Singapore holds up to professional scrutiny in a way that very few heritage hotels manage.

I stayed in a Palm Court suite right after the renovation and the hard product was genuinely stunning — but the service made me feel like I didn't belong there, and that's not something I can overlook.

The suite itself was beautiful and the food was excellent throughout. But I was approached by staff on four separate occasions and essentially told to leave areas of the hotel, despite being a paying guest. It happened enough times that I can't chalk it up to misunderstanding — it felt like the hotel was vetting for a certain type of guest and I didn't fit the image. For a honeymoon stay at this price, feeling unwelcome in your own hotel is disqualifying. We won't be back.

The bathroom was roughly the same size as the bedroom and had a deep soaking tub — and the mee goreng at breakfast was genuinely as good as some of our restaurant meals in Singapore.

We stayed in January and the renovation really delivered — historic feel with every modern touch integrated seamlessly. The breakfast buffet was outstanding; the mee goreng in particular rivaled casual restaurant meals around the city. Service hit the right note: present when you needed it, invisible when you didn't. The history tour was a genuine highlight — we wished we'd done it on day one rather than day three. If you're going, schedule that first.

I had an accident mid-stay that could have derailed the whole trip — instead, the way every single person in that hotel rallied around us was something I've never experienced at any other property in the world.

We've stayed at many wonderful hotels and I went in with high expectations. What I didn't expect was how the team would respond when something genuinely difficult happened. Management, concierge, butlers, doormen, housekeeping, pool staff — every single department showed up with warmth that felt completely authentic, not procedural. Nothing was ever too much trouble. Raffles isn't just a beautiful building; it's the people who make it exceptional, and I mean that literally, not as a cliché.

The breakfast team had our favorite table reserved and our exact orders memorized by day two — and when my partner's voice went hoarse, three different staff members showed up unprompted with hot honey-lemon water.

From the doorman who greeted us by name every single time we returned to the hotel, to the butler Q who delivered anything we needed at remarkable speed, the service here operates at a level of genuine attentiveness I haven't experienced elsewhere. The Writers Bar team made excellent cocktails and actually wanted to talk. The Tiffin Room was so good we went back on our last night. Our suite had flawlessly functioning iPad controls, Frette bedding, and an extensive pillow menu — everything arrived almost instantly. The hotel historian's tour was the perfect way to start the stay.

Raffles is not simply a luxury hotel — there's a sense of calm, elegance, and heritage here that I find genuinely difficult to locate elsewhere, and the restored colonial architecture is maintained to an impeccably high standard.

My suite was immaculate and spacious, beautifully designed with every comfort thoughtfully in place. Housekeeping was exceptional throughout. What makes this hotel special is harder to quantify: a feeling you get walking through the courtyards, or sitting in the bar, that you're somewhere with genuine history and genuine care. It is absolutely deserving of its iconic reputation.