Feeling Like Royalty at Raffles
One of the three imposing doormen at the entrance to Raffles
[UPDATE: Raffles Singapore is launching a Walk of Fame History tour of the hotel. The 45 mins tours will take place every first Saturday from February until August 2017 conducted three times a day at 10am, 2pm and 5pm.
Restoration of Raffles Singapore will begin in January 2017. The hotel’s Arcade, including the Long Bar, will close for refurbishment followed by some of the guest rooms in the middle of 2017. The hotel will close fully at the end of 2017 for a further revamp and expected to re open in mid 2018.]
Checking into Raffles is an uplifting experience. When you pull up the gravel driveway outside the white wedding cake of a hotel in the heart of Singapore, you’re greeted by a toweringly tall sikh doorman, bearded and turbaned and wearing an imposing sashed uniform. He ushers you into the lobby, all cool marble flooring and fluted columns that reach up three lofty storeys. There is none of the hubbub of other hotels – only guests or “residents” are allowed inside – so the atmosphere is reassuringly calm and rarified. To borrow from Holly Golightly, you feel as though nothing bad could ever happen at Raffles.
Chopstix & the City 