Fairmont Singapore vs Swissotel The Stamford: Which One Should You Book?

Introduction

Fairmont Singapore and Swissotel The Stamford are sister properties which opened together in 1986 under the Westin brand. After a series of rebranding, today 778 rooms sit under the Fairmont name and 1,252 under Swissotel. Both are Accor 5-star brands, so which one should you book?

After staying at both, I scored Fairmont Singapore at 8/10, and Swissotel Stamford at 6/10. The takeaway: Fairmont is the better hotel by a distance. Book the Stamford only if you specifically want a high floor and the view that comes with it.

Location

Easiest section I will ever write. The two hotels sit on top of Raffles City, which means you can reach the MRT and an entire mall of shops and food without stepping outside. Both City Hall and Esplanade stations are directly below. Marina Bay Sands, the Esplanade, the Padang and the National Gallery are all a short walk or a single stop away, and City Hall makes Orchard Road or a run out to Changi painless. This is as central as Singapore gets.

Arrrival

Fairmont's front desk behaves like a hotel front desk. Someone looks up, you get a name, you're upstairs in five minutes.

The Stamford's lobby has twelve hundred rooms above it and a convention centre bolted to the side, and it feels like it. There's a queue at three in the afternoon. There are forty identical lanyards waiting for a coach. The lifts run in floor zones, so first you learn which bank goes to your floor, then you learn that yours is the slow bank, and then you're standing in a marble hall doing arithmetic about whether the low-zone lift plus a climb up the fire stairs beats waiting for the right one. A cool note though: there's a massive TWG tea salon at the Swissotel lobby.

Staff are friendly in both towers and nobody was rude to me anywhere. But Fairmont staff is just quicker, with a touch more warmth.

The rooms

Fairmont rooms are quite new after the renovation - with a very pleasant earth and beige design tone. Entry rooms run about 45 sqm, larger than most lead-in rooms in this city. I'd recommend paying up for a Marina Bay Sands view - there is nothing better than seeing it from your bed. Some of the minor drawbacks are structural: low ceilings and small bathrooms, both inherited from a building that went up in 1986.

The Stamford's rooms are still the shape they were when this was the tallest hotel in the world. Long, narrow, aimed at the window. The Marina Bay Sands view is the selling point, and on a high floor it genuinely delivers. The bathrooms give the age away - tight and with the shower standing in the bathtub, an arrangement I associate with a guesthouse in Scarborough rather than a five-star hotel.

Dining

This settles less than you'd hope. The everyday cooking is on the Fairmont side: Prego for Italian that's been good for four decades, and Anti:dote downstairs for cocktails and cozy live music every night.

Up in the Stamford, JAAN is the standout option: 2 Michelin-star British cooking played completely straight on the 70th floor - one of my best meals in Singapore. You should book it from whichever hotel you're sleeping in.

Both breakfasts kinda suck, mine at Fairmont was free with HERA rates, otherwise I'd definitely not recommend paying for it separately. The exception I keep hearing good things about is the Fairmont Gold Lounge on Level 25 of the South Tower. Access requires a Fairmont Gold room or suite, or Diamond status in Accor's loyalty programme. I had neither, so I can't tell you whether it lives up to it.

The pool and the spa

Both hotels use the same two freeform pools on the podium, the same Willow Stream Spa, the same tennis courts, the same gym. One of my biggest gripes is that you have to share a pool with 2000 other rooms in total. The pools are pleasant but forgettable, a leafy deck with offices looking down into it. The spa is the genuinely good part, one of the biggest in Asia and my girlfriend loved the body massage.

Pricing - the main problem

If the Stamford undercut its neighbour by a third, this would be a genuinely hard choice and I'd be writing a different article. It doesn't. They usually run about the same and occasionally the Stamford comes out higher because somebody has decided a high floor is worth more than a good hotel. Not to mention the Stay 3 Pay 2 deal at Fairmont which makes the decision, in my opinion, a no-brainer.

Choose Fairmont Singapore if

- You want one of the best locations for first-timers in Singapore

- You want the newest rooms in the complex, with Marina Bay Sands in the window

- You have never once described a good trip by talking about the hotel breakfast

- Your holiday plans do not include standing in a marble hall at twenty to nine doing lift arithmetic.

Read my full review of Fairmont Singapore here

Choose The Swissotel Stamford if

- You want a high floor and the view is genuinely the reason you're booking

- Fairmont Singapore is sold out

Booking Fairmont Singapore

As a Accor HERA travel agency, MT Luxury Travel secures exclusive benefits for our clients at Accor properties worldwide, at no additional cost:

Complimentary daily breakfast for two adults

$100 USD property credit per stay

Priority room upgrade, subject to availability

Early check-in and late checkout priority

VIP recognition and exclusive promotions

Booking is simple: send us a quick message with the hotel, your dates, room type and number of guests, and we'll take care of the rest.

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