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Treadmills (no)
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Its Deluxe Room is the cheapest in Resorts World Sentosa but almost as good as the others. The pool isn’t bad either. Other facilities are available in Hard Rock Hotel.
Festive Hotel is the cheapest of the many hotels at Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) — exactly why you should consider staying there, especially if you’re also looking at Hotel Michael. The Festive Hotel’s Deluxe Room is similar or close in quality to the more expensive Deluxe Rooms at Hotel Michael and the Hard Rock Hotel Singapore. We also liked its swimming pool better than Hotel Michael’s, though not as much as the Hard Rock Hotel’s. Here’s the catch: there’s no gym, bar, or breakfast restaurant at the Festive Hotel. But so what? They’re all available and accessible at the Hard Rock Hotel just five minutes away on foot. The Festive Hotel’s location in RWS leaves it within easy reach of its many attractions and restaurants anyway.
We review anonymously and pay for everything. All opinions expressed here are our own and all information is correct as of our last stay or visit and subject to change without notice.
The Festive Hotel has multiple versions of its Deluxe Rooms, configured with different furnishings and decorations. We observed that the Deluxe Rooms on the lower floors tended to be more colourful. Those on the higher floors — like the one we stayed in — tended to feature a cleaner and more minimalist look. Due to the lack of furniture, our room felt spacious despite its relatively small size of 32m2. There was still enough space left for a small balcony with a clothes-drying rack.
Entertainment: 37-inch TV with 32 channels (HBO for English movies; no pay-per-view or movie rental options).
Sips and nibbles: The complimentary in-room coffee and tea selection was basic: Nescafe classic instant coffee and TWG Tea.
The bathroom was basic with just a shower room, but spacious. There’s no privacy in here so don’t expect to leave the bathroom door open — the shower room walls are clear glass and the toilet is next to the sink.
Toiletries: Vitamin Spa shower gel and Resorts Work Sentosa shampoo.
See our in-depth review and pictures of this breakfast buffet.
The Festive Hotel doesn’t have its own breakfast restaurant. As an alternative, the hotel staff redirected us to the Hard Rock Hotel Singapore and its Sessions restaurant just five minutes away. That’s not a bad idea as we found the breakfast buffet there was good overall. While we felt the variety of food was limited compared to other hotel breakfast buffets in this price range, we were pleasantly surprised by how good most items were. The live egg station produced one of the best omelettes we’ve tasted in a buffet. We also enjoyed the bah kut teh herbal pork rib soup which came with vermicelli (bee hoon). These, and other highlights like the congee, nasi lemak, and fried vegetarian vermicelli (bee hoon), make this one of the best breakfast buffets we’ve reviewed, second only to the Capella Singapore’s.
The Festive Hotel doesn’t have its own bar either and the hotel staff again redirected us to the Hard Rock Hotel Singapore and its Rock Bar just five minutes away. While the Rock Bar is also located in the lobby like its neighbour Hotel Michael, it is far enough from the path of most passers-by to avoid their stares. If sitting at the circular bar doesn’t strike your fancy, you can take the party to the pool table or dart machine in the bar area. A door on the wall next to the bar leads to the Terrace lounge, separated from the lobby and featuring views of the swimming pool. The drink selection here is massive and includes a music-themed cocktail menu featuring unique concoctions.
The in-room dining menu was limited and largely similar to the one we saw at Hotel Michael which left us unimpressed. For example, the RWS beef burger came with a little red flag with the RWS logo and name, but we found its patty dry and overcooked. We weren’t impressed by our breakfast order of eggs[1] either, which seemed more congealed than scrambled.
Drinks: Soft drinks, juices (fresh and chilled), water, coffee, and tea. The alcohol selection includes beer, red and white wines, and champagne.
Outside of its swimming pool area, there’s not much to explore at Festive Hotel apart from the lobby area. Despite the playful and colourful artwork by Romero Britto, we struggled to find reasons to linger in the lobby area. It’s not especially large or even private, serving also as a corridor between the Resorts World Sentosa Convention Centre and the retail stores of the Luxury Fashion Galleria. There’s a small seating area for hotel guests in front of a florist shop called the Garden, though this is more of a waiting area than a lounge. We’d recommend relaxing at the cabanas in the swimming pool area instead. The entrance to the swimming pool also has vending machines selling not just snacks and drinks but also a limited selection of toiletries, mosquito repellent, sunscreen lotion, and such.
While the Festive Hotel lacks many facilities, it does retain a swimming pool area — and a decent one at that. Apart from the main swimming pool, there’s a smaller jacuzzi pool, a shallow kids’ pool (depth: 0.5m), and a splash pad with water jets for the kids. Try to get here before the crowds to snag one of the poolside cabanas.
Food and drink is available poolside from 11:00am–7:00pm (last order: 6:30pm), but we feel we need to manage your expectations. There isn’t actually any service here, even if someone is at the towel booth. You have to use the phone at the towel booth to call the hotel’s in-room dining service to deliver food and drink to the pool. In our case, the food didn’t show up even after an hour, well beyond the 45-minute wait we were expecting. When we called the in-room dining service again, we discovered they’d tried to deliver our food to our room instead of the pool. When it finally arrived cold and soggy, there was zero attempt at service recovery — not even an apology.
If that doesn’t dissuade you, the poolside menu is limited, though the mini-buckets of fries, onion rings, potato wedges, and spicy chicken wings should be safe choices. The seafood and chips tasted fine, if soggy from the wait. The prawn fried rice was a little under-seasoned and flavourless for our tastes. There were no dessert options, though the kids’ menu included a scoop of Häagen-Dazs ice cream. The alcohol menu was also limited: just beer and wines.
The Festive Hotel doesn’t have its own gym either and the hotel staff again redirected us to the Hard Rock Hotel Singapore just five minutes away. Its 24-hour Body Rock gym is located on the lobby level and isn’t very big. The gym is bright and well-lit, helped by its big windows allowing natural light in. However, the glass wall on the other side of the room allows passers-by in the corridor — which leads to the Hard Rock Hotel’s swimming pool and Resorts World Sentosa — to gawk inside freely. While there was plenty of cardio equipment, there were only two selectorised weight machines for strength training.
There was no spa at the Festive Hotel. Instead, guests were directed to the 10,000m2 ESPA at RWS, which was the Luxury Resort Spa country winner for Singapore in the 2017 World Luxury Spa Awards. Located near Equarius Hotel and the Beach Villas, it’s quite a distance away — about 5 minutes on foot without shelter — though there’s a shuttle bus. A 60-minute personalised massage — aromatherapy, Chinese, Thai, Balinese, hot stone, or Swedish — costs SGD235[1]. A treatment of at least 60 minutes also provided access to its spa and wet facilities. These included rock saunas, crystal steam rooms, ice fountains, experience showers, vitality pools, outdoor plunge pools, and forest onsen-style pools. These weren’t complimentary even for RWS hotel guests without a treatment. Festive Hotel guests have the exclusive option of purchasing a SGD118[2] day spa facility pass for three hours of access.
8 Sentosa Gateway, 098269
+65 6577 8888
