Hotel Review: Conrad Singapore Orchard
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We recently took a vacation to Singapore, our first visit since 2020 right before COVID. We’d already seen the Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by the Bay, so we decided to stay in a different part of town this time around and get more of a feel for the city.
We chose the Conrad Singapore Orchard because we’re Hilton loyal and they were offering a 4-nights-for-the-price-of-3 deal. We’ve stayed at some other Conrads, most notably some fancy ones in Thailand. How would this one compare?
Arriving in Singapore and the hotel
We flew Singapore Airlines SQ631 from Tokyo, which arrived at around 3pm at SIN. The immigration experience in Singapore was pretty painless, since we’d filled out our online immigration cards well ahead of time. The Conrad Singapore Orchard offers a pickup service, but it’s stupid expensive compared to rideshare.
We got a Grab to the hotel, which is a ways west of the Chinatown area we stayed in last time we were in Singapore. We’d actually never been to this part of town, but it’s known for fancy shopping. It took maybe 40 minutes to get there and cost around $25 ($20 USD).
The area around the hotel is quite green and filled with trees. We even saw some random chickens running around. The hotel is decently convenient for walking: if you want to get the brown line (the train that runs to Chinatown), you have to go out the side of the hotel where there’s no crosswalk on your way back. But it’s not too far of a walk to the ION Orchard shopping center and other malls, so we found it to be at least better for walkability than the Conrad Bangkok.
Prior to our arrival, I had emailed the hotel to ask a couple questions and drop hints that we now had Diamond Status (we were only in Gold when we booked) and that it was our anniversary. We were informed that we were being upgraded to an Executive Suite on the 11th floor (where the lounge is), a room that would normally cost twice as much as we were paying for ours.
A supposed benefit of the Hilton app is that you can check in via the app, choose your room, and receive a digital key that allows you to bypass the front desk and simply go straight to your room, where your phone can open the door. In theory, that’s great. In practice, I’ve never seen it work. Not once. Every time, there’s a message that says to go to the front desk when we arrive.
This time, we went to the front desk, and were told that we couldn’t have the upgraded room we selected in-app because the people staying in it before us decided to stay another night. Instead, we were being given a similar room on the seventh floor. This was fine with us because we hadn’t paid for that fancy room in the first place. We were also told that the pool was closed, but that if we really wanted to swim, they had a deal with some nearby hotels where we could do so.
The layout of the Orchard location is different from most Hiltons. It’s open, like an old Embassy Suites, with glass elevators in the middle. You can see the whole hotel by simply craning your neck. The decor was pretty inside (though the hotel looks like nothing special on the outside), and you could hear the pianist in the lobby even when up on our floor. Our room was in nice quiet corner - we never heard anyone doing anything while we were there.
Guestrooms at the Conrad Singapore Orchard
Our room was 756, a King Executive Suite. Let’s not mess about: I need you to understand just how MASSIVE this room was. We live in Tokyo, and this room was bigger than our apartment. Upon entering, you’re placed in a clean foyer, and to your left, a bathroom with sink and toilet. Does this make it a half bath? I guess. The point is, this place has TWO BATHROOMS. Our apartment does not have two bathrooms.
Past that was the living room, featuring a HUGE couch. Our apartment does not have a huge couch. The living room has a TV, as does the bedroom. TWO TELEVISIONS! Our apartment does not have two televisions. And two balconies! Our apartment doesn’t have any balconies! One balcony had a soft sofa and chair, while the bedroom balcony had two smaller chairs and a table. We would have loved to chill out there and read and sip coffee, but it rained frequently while we were in Singapore, so the balcony was wet the whole time.
The bedroom had a desk and big TV, along with a nice bed with the standard Hilton four long pillows. This bed was definitely big, but not the biggest I’ve seen in a Hilton room. It was certainly comfy, though. We got great sleep while we were there.
The closet was not just walk-in, but spend-the-rest-of-your-life in. There were also multiple places to set a suitcase, so we could both put our suitcases at reaching height. The shower had rain and clawfoot functions, and the first night, we were given aromatherapy bombs to make the shower smell extra-sweet.
We were astonished by our upgraded room. It would have been worth the money if we’d paid for it, but we didn’t. Diamond Status has its perks.
If you remember nothing else I tell you today, make it this: ALWAYS tell hotels and restaurants that it’s your honeymoon or anniversary, regardless of whether it actually is. You can say “We’ll be celebrating our anniversary,” so you technically won’t be lying, because you can celebrate that thing whenever you want. Because we’d told them it was our anniversary, we got some baller gifts:
There was a fruit plate, some tasty pineapple cookies, and in the minibar/fridge, a cake! The chocolate cake was really good. They’d also removed all the alcohol from the room like I’d asked. The minibar stuff is mostly reasonably-priced, though we didn’t try any of it. But that chocolate is super expensive so watch out.
They gave us a ton of Nespresso pods and Bacha Coffee pour-over bags. The Bacha coffee smelled good but was a bit of a letdown on taste. However, the TWG tea bags were delicious. There’s also a filtered water tap so you can fill your stuff at any time without going through that is-this-water-free mess that always happens in hotel rooms.
Overall, we were REALLY impressed by the room, which was bigger and nicer than where we live. And Eriko’s dream is to banish me to the front bathroom while getting the entire big bathroom to herself, so this basically allowed her to live her best life.
The Executive Lounge at the Conrad Singapore Orchard
The next morning, we went up to the 11th floor to try breakfast at the Executive Lounge. The front desk clerk had told us that it was basically the same buffet as the one downstairs, just with only three kinds of pastries instead of five. We’ll come back to what a lie that was.
The lounge is much smaller than the one at the Conrad Bangkok. We were helped to a table, but our first table was freezing cold, so we asked to move. There were a lot of business people in there seemingly having meetings around us. This is a theme for Singapore. If you look at most Singapore-related travel content, you’ll see that it all focuses on the same stuff: hawker centers, Gardens by the Bay, Marina Bay Sands. That’s what tourists do here. Everyone else is here to work. The malls were basically empty. The art museums were actually empty. At night, the cheap food places blow up, but for the most part, central-east Singapore is a working town. Eventually we went to the Arab Quarter and actually found some culture, but it took us a while.
There seemed to be only one or two people working at the EL breakfast. When we wanted to order coffee, we had to wait a while until the guy was free. It wasn’t his fault: he was clearly working hard, but he shouldn’t have to tend to so many tables himself. They had oat milk, which is more than I can say for the Umana LXR Bali. The buffet had an omelet guy, and he made a decent omelet. It wasn’t too runny, wasn’t too burned. Just a little bit of liquid in the middle.
They had the standard English breakfast stuff, a limited number of Chinese things, some pastries, and a smattering of cereal (the granola looked weak). The juice selection was definitely sub-par compared to the Conrad Bangkok. The things I did like were the little cups of acai bowl (I am an acai bowl guy) and Museli. Those, along with the omelet, were the big winners. When we went back to the lounge for breakfast a couple days later, I stuck to these favorites.
Compared to the Executive Lounge breakfast at the Conrad Bangkok, this was definitely a letdown. Bangkok has a bigger lounge, more juices, and a menu of both Thai and Western selections you can choose from, while Singapore Orchard has only the buffet. It’s okay, and nice if you don’t want to deal with the crowd downstairs, but in the interest of research, we went downstairs the next morning to try the big buffet.
Breakfast buffet at the Conrad Singapore Orchard
The big breakfast buffet is located on the second floor, inside Basilico restaurant. As I mentioned previously, the front desk clerk told us the buffets here and in the executive lounge were basically the same, but for a few extra pastries. It’s comical just how wrong he was. I mean, look at those pictures: they have Singaporean dishes, Nasi Lemak (crispy Malaysian shrimp-fried chicken that it says is a breakfast food but I’m pretty sure they’re lying who cares it was great), like 10,000 yogurts, fruit, juices, and even a gigantic pastry and pancake bar in another room that I didn’t even notice was there! The guy had to tell me about it! The pancakes were good!
And I’ll say it: the omelet here was better than the one upstairs, too. If you’re in a rush or want to relax with less noise, I guess you should go to the lounge, but if you have time, go downstairs and check out this massive buffet. It’s fantastic. Better than a lot of Hilton breakfast buffets I’ve seen. You will definitely find something you want here.
Basilico restaurant and the Thursday steak social
After trying Kafe Utu our first night and Satay Street (Eriko’s highlight of our Singapore stay) our second night, by night three, we were tired. Walking around all day in 400-degree heat with 800% humidity can do that to you. We didn’t want to leave the hotel, and Diamond Status was giving us 25% off hotel restaurants. And Basilico, the hotel’s Italian buffet, was having its Steak Social night where you get unlimited steak. So you know we had to do it.
The setup was basically the same as breakfast, with the difference being that the food was, you know, not breakfast food. While it was an Italian buffet, they didn’t have a ton of Italian food. There was ravioli, which was okay, and meatballs, also okay, but also plenty of other stuff that didn’t necessarily scream Italy.
Our server nicely gave us a tour of the buffet, and took extra time at the Wagyu lasagna. He told us this was the one to get, and to get it now, because it wouldn’t be as good in an hour. I got it, and oh, man. This stuff was great. Not as big of a variety of cheese as you sometimes get in lasagna, but I doubt there’s too many lasagnas in Asia as good as this. Creamy, cheesy, beefy, wonderful.
The steak was good, especially after I put some salt on it, but I wasn’t in a cram-as-much-steak-in-your-face-as-possible mood, so I sampled a lot of stuff. The lamb was a bit tough, definitely not as good as the steak.
There was a cheese room where the pancakes were in the morning, but I avoided it because I scared of cheese. The ribs and chicken were good, but I was really impressed by the salami. Really high quality for a hotel buffet.
And then there were the desserts. Creme brûlée, panna cotta, bread pudding, chocolate cake - all delicious. We were stuffed. We’d jammed food in our bodies. But our waiter would not be deterred. He told us to chill a bit and then get back at it. He would not rest until we died from food. Who am I to argue with him?
Oh, and when booking our table online, I’d clicked the box for anniversary. So guess what? Yeah, you know. Another cake. We did our best, but there’s only so much cake someone can stomach.
The price of this buffet is normally $98 ($77 USD). That’s a lot for a buffet that was good, but not over-the-top amazing. We could have eaten like eight meals of kaya toast for that much. But with our 25% off, it was only $57. That’s still a lot, but probably a good deal for a Hilton buffet in 2026. The only thing that bugged me was that we were charged for water, and a high price at that. With drinks and coffee and everything, the meal ended up being pretty expensive, even with our discount.
If you’ve got the energy to go out, you’re probably better off experiencing Singapore’s many cheap foods. And if you’re not staying here, I’d say it’s not worth the trip. But if you are a guest of the hotel, get a status discount, and are too tired to go anywhere, this buffet is a pretty durn good one.
Verdict: is the Conrad Singapore Orchard a good choice for your Singapore trip?
There were some negatives to our stay. For starters, both TVs had motion smoothing turned on, making movies look terrible. You also can’t use Wi-Fi while on the toilet in the front bathroom, which is a real bummer for a poo boy like myself. There’s no ice in the room and no ice machines on the floors. Housekeeping sent us some ice one night, but in a place like Singapore, it’d be nice if it were more accessible.
Another minus was the fact that the pool was closed. When we were told about it, we didn’t care, because we planned to be seeing the city the whole time, but once the sun came out and it was scorching, we really wished we could visit that pool.
The location of the hotel is decent for walking to public transit and shopping, but isn’t in the coolest part of town. It’s more of a convention hotel - there was a dairy convention when we were there, a bunch of milk boys partying it up in the big city.
Our last day, we left for the airport too early for breakfast, so they delivered some baskets with juice, yogurt, fruit, and pastries. This was really nice. Definitely a bright spot and left us on a good note.
It’s also important to remember that we not only got an upgrade, but even paid less-than-full-price for the room we booked. Hilton was offering a deal that if you booked four nights, the last night was free. This made the hotel affordable when it otherwise might not have been.
Overall, the hotel is super fancy, the room was wonderful, and the staff was top-notch. We might not stay here again simply because it’s situated for a shopping trip, and we’ve now seen all the malls, so next time we’re in Singapore, we may choose a hotel closer to other stuff we want to do. But for the things IN the hotel, there’s very little to complain about. One of the best Conrads or Hiltons I’ve stayed at. ROOM SO BIG!
Where to find the Conrad Singapore Orchard
Address: 1 Cuscaden Rd, Singapore 249715
Website: Conrad Singapore Orchard
The walkability of the hotel is so-so. Better than the Conrad Bangkok, but it’s not like you’re in a bustling city neighborhood. You have to trek a ways to get to the fancy malls, and take a (probably almost empty) train to get anywhere else. If this is your first time in Singapore, you can probably find a better location. Bustiness travelers and those in town to shop or see the west side of town: this is the hotel for you. It’s fancy.
