Review of the Crowne Plaza Changi Airport Hotel

As a traveller in Singapore, one of the places I’m most happy to see is Changi Airport – it signifies both the start of exciting travels ahead, or the happy-sad feeling you get when you come in to land at the end of a trip. So when Crowne Plaza Changi Airport invited me to check out their hotel, I was quite stoked indeed – even though i wasn’t actually travelling out of the country, I was just happy to go check out this cool looking airport hotel that I’ve always bypassed on my way in and out of the terminal. Check out my review below.

Head over to booking.com if you want more information – note that this is an affiliate link and I may get a small commission from it.

LOCATION

Crowne Plaza is at Changi Airport’s Terminal 3; for most Singaporeans, getting to the far eastern end of Singapore is already a trip in itself so that should put you into a staycation mood! It is a little out of the way, but given that it really only takes half an hour to get from east to west in Singapore, it’s not so bad. It’s also really convenient if you have a long stopover or you’re meeting someone who only has a very short amount of time to spend in Singapore given that it’s practically in terminal 3 itself.

THE ROOM

I was given a King Bed Club Room on the club floor level 3, which is also the same level as the pool, gym and club room. The room itself is quite spacious and comfortable, with a leather couch at the end of the bed so you can watch TV. There’s quite ample table and bench space, so you can get work done if you need to.

I was actually pretty stoked at first to find the swimming pool right outside my door – it’s the feeling of being able to just step out my door and jump into the pool! However, the door of the room is such that while you can go out, there isn’t a door handle on the outside for you to come back in, so unless you leave the door propped open, you will have to go around the front again. Another drawback is that people from the pool tend to wander around outside your doorway, so keep your curtains drawn!

The bathroom is also quite spacious and comes with both a bathtub which fills relatively quickly and a rain shower. No complaints there – I had a good soak in the evening after my rather cold swim!

I couldn’t find the safe at first as it wasn’t in the cupboard like most hotel safes are. Only after a bit of searching around did I realize it was actually quite well hidden in the side of the desk, and it’s one that opens from the top and spacious enough for my 13″ MacBook Pro.

THE HOTEL

The swimming pool feels like the main centerpiece of this hotel in which the rooms are build around – I love the wooden decking and there it feels like you’re exploring an island, very pretty indeed. It’s not very deep, about 1.2m at the deepest part but man is the water COLD. I like to think I’m pretty resilient to cold water, but I couldn’t swim for very long because my teeth were chattering.

I took a walk around the hotel to explore – it has over 300 rooms and the highest floor is the 9th storey gives you a glimpse of the airport runway from the right angle. The facilities are mostly on the 1st-3rd floor.

I had privileges for the Club Lounge and the room is accessed via tapping my keycard at the door; feels kinda special to have the glass door slide open for you! Usual club lounge privileges apply – you can eat breakfast up here and have evening cocktails as well. This lounge is quite large and not very crowded while I was there, so I had a lot of space to myself.  It also has 2 nice meeting rooms with proper facilities that a business person could use to conduct meetings.

I did head over to their in-house restaurant Azur on level 2 for the Weekend Changi Brunch from 1230pm – 330pm on Sunday afternoon. Pretty crowded, but I managed to find a seat and try a range of food, both Asian and Western. Quite a good spread and though I was still a tad full from breakfast, I made sure I ate my fill!

AROUND THE AREA

The hotel’s entrance is at the link-bridge of Terminal 3, and I never realized this but the airport actually has quite an active retail scene in Basement 1 that sees a lot of families and local Singaporeans visiting on the weekends. It gets quite crowded! Since I was on my own and feeling kinda tired that day, I ended up grabbing some fast food and enjoying dinner in my room, catching up on TV shows and just relaxing, but even if you don’t want to eat at Crowne Plaza’s in-house restaurants Azur or the Chinese dim sum place Imperial Treasure on level 1, there’s a lot of options to consider.

I wish I tried the Changi Airport slide though – it looks kinda fun :)

To get anywhere else, you will need to take public transport or drive out of the airport. East Coast Park and Pasir Ris Park are nearby, as are Singapore Expo Convention Centres.

PRICE

For my room, the King Bed Club non-smoking room, the usual rate is S$360/night. The cheapest rooms are the deluxe ones that go at S$260/night, while suites cost up to S$530/night. Late check out at 6pm is available but at a higher cost. Check out more information at booking.com [affiliate link]

All in all, I really did enjoy my stay there! It really is a pretty fancy hotel given that it’s at the airport – my past experience with airport hotels in the past is that they’ve been a little cramped and more functional than pretty, but Crowne Plaza definitely isn’t built like that.

Thanks again to Crowne Plaza Changi Airport for the complimentary stay. All views are my own.