voco Orchard Singapore opened in January 2022 as the first property in Southeast Asia under IHG’s upmarket voco brand. The hotel occupies the former Hilton Singapore building, which was replaced by a larger Hilton hotel – confusingly also located on Orchard Road and itself a rebrand of the old Mandarin Singapore. Dating back to 1971 when it first opened as the Hilton International Singapore, the voco retains much of the original hotel’s design and layout, offering 423 guest rooms.

Booking voco Orchard

I booked my stay at voco Orchard through agoda.com, which for me offered the lowest rates for my travel dates. For my two-night stay, I paid a tax-inclusive nightly rate of SGD 250, equivalent to USD 192 or GBP 146. This seemed like a standard rate for a relatively upmarket hotel, especially considering the extraordinary inflation of Singapore hotel prices post-pandemic.

Still, I had no idea what sort of stay the voco would offer, especially compared to other renewed older hotels nearby like the Goodwood Park or Royal Plaza on Scotts. While the hotel’s website suggests some minor touchups have been done to the hotel, not much has appeared to change from the days of Hilton Singapore. It becomes more confusing considering voco markets itself as a young-minded lifestyle brand of sorts, exactly the antithesis of the old Hilton.

Location

True to its moniker, voco Orchard is located on the far end of Singapore’s main shopping belt, close to its intersection with Tanglin Road. As such, this puts it in a relatively quieter section of Orchard Road, within the vicinity of several lesser-visited shopping malls and buildings. Despite that, the hotel remains within walking distance of the throngs of shopping centres, restaurants, and entertainment hubs scattered along this 2.5-kilometre-long thoroughfare. Orchard MRT station, located by ion Orchard, can also be reached within a 10-minute walk.

Check-in

After flying into Singapore on a mid-morning TransNusa flight, I took a Grab ride to the voco Orchard, arriving after midday. At the porte-cochère, the scene was busy, and no one was on standby to greet guests or assist with bags. No worries, especially since the reception is right past the entrance.

The scene at lobby was rather chaotic, with groups of airline crew checking out mixed in with children on summer holiday running around. While there was a bit of a queue, an agent soon became available and waived me forwards into the empty IHG Rewards One line, thankfully. Despite arriving a tinge before check-in time, I was told a room was ready. Soon enough, the friendly staff member handed me the key following the standard registration process.

I was assigned a Deluxe High Floor Room on Level 11. If that doesn’t sound like a misnomer, bear in mind that the hotel has 24 floors and rooms start on Level 7; as such, I’m not sure how this qualifies as a high floor room. Oh well, I did get an early check-in, after all.

Deluxe High Floor Room

Sized at a comfortable 32 sqm (344 sqft), the Deluxe Rooms at voco Orchard are basic and unremarkable. Even with their sparse selection of furniture, the rooms feel surprisingly stuffy and uninspiring. This atmosphere isn’t helped by the dark black motifs and dull grey accents that have merely repainted over the Hilton’s pale wood palette. While there was an opportunity to inject more of Singapore’s character into the design (in line with voco Hotels’ supposed individuality profile) the result instead strips away the old room’s International Style charm.

Apart from some minor furniture rearrangements and the removal of a few storage consoles, little has otherwise changed since the hotel’s Hilton days. The same carpets, the same general styling, but with less soul. In fact, the old Hilton rooms arguably looked nicer, thanks to their more cohesive design. The current iteration feels like a quilt of mismatched furnishings loosely held together by a weak theme of “generic business hotel” theme – a purely cosmetic exercise, at best.

Bedroom

As you can probably tell from the pictures, the room is quite basic, furnished with only a few essential pieces of furniture. At its centre sits a large king-sized bed, both firm and comfortable, and dressed in impeccably soft linens and pillows that complement the cold air conditioning. Facing a large wall-mounted television, the bed is flanked by personal reading lamps, which are a convenient touch.

By the window, the room is fitted with a small low-rise leather armchair with an accompanying side table, along with a disproportionately large desk fitted with universal power outlets. Unsurprisingly, like much of the room, these furnishings are inherited from the Hilton days, with only minor rearrangements. Still, the large desk surface does provide some welcome table surface space to put things down.

Elsewhere, storage space is notably lacking. By the entryway, there’s a small open closet and a built-in luggage rack with a single drawer and a safe; that’s it. It’s a pity, considering the old Hilton rooms once featured both a television console and a separate luggage rack across from the bed, which have since been removed during the hotel’s light ‘touch-ups.’ I’ll also note the presence of an illy coffee machine at the minibar – a nice addition, if it weren’t for how difficult it was to insert the flat E.S.E coffee pods.

Bathroom

The bathroom is located just off the entryway, enclosed within a compact marble-tiled space featuring a bathtub-shower combination, a toilet, and a large, old-style sink and vanity. This part of the Deluxe Room has seen the least change since the rebrand – and it shows, given how much nicer it feels compared to the rest of the room.

Although it’s clearly dated, the bathroom remains in mostly good condition. It carries many of the hallmarks of an older hotel, including a built-in bathtub, a clothesline, and even the obligatory bathroom telephone. Notably, the addition of a handheld bidet and a filtered drinking water tap – part of the hotel’s eco-conscious initiative – are welcome upgrades. However, I especially appreciate the bright warm lighting, which certainly worked wonders to elevate the feel of the space.

Despite its respectable condition overall, I noticed that parts of the bathtub surface were chipped and beginning to rust. The water pressure, too, was underwhelming, resulting in a mediocre showering experience. The toiletries come in large refillable containers, as is standard at most chain hotels today. Disregarding the bottles’ suspicious resemblance to Byredo’s, the Apotheke amenities were nothing to write home about – neutral in scent and entirely forgettable, much like the rest of the room.

Fitness centre

The hotel’s 24-hour fitness centre is located on the 23rd floor and accessible at any time with a room keycard. Impressively spacious, it’s equipped with a wide range of cardio and weight-training machines – easily one of the larger and better-outfitted gyms among hotels along Orchard Road. In addition to treadmills and ellipticals, I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of rowing machines as well.

Thanks to the bright lighting and warm wood flooring, the space still feels contemporary and inviting, even though its design has remained largely unchanged for years – aside from the rather out-of-place blue paint on the walls, that is. The equipment is clean and well-maintained, though some machines are admittedly starting to show their age. Overall, a very solid gym on the part of Hilton — I mean, voco Orchard Singapore.

Sauna and steam room

Within the fitness centre’s locker rooms, there is also a sauna and steam room facility, which is a nice touch. However, as you could surmise from the rest of the hotel, they look considerable outdated. While the sauna appeared to be in relatively good working order, I had some doubts about the steam room, which looked suspiciously rundown. Either way, having seen their state, I wasn’t compelled to use either during my short stay.

Swimming pool

Located one floor above the fitness centre, the hotel’s rooftop swimming pool is surrounded by sun loungers and day beds on two sides, yet feels rather small for a hotel of this size. Adjacent to it is a small and shallow wading pool for children – a sensible addition, given how deep the main pool can be.

While the open-air rooftop offers impressive views of Orchard Road and its surrounding neighbourhoods, the pool area itself feels generic and dull. The dark blue and grey paint, seemingly intended to add a touch of modernity, instead comes across as cheap and lifeless against the drab concrete slabs that dress the pool deck. Worst of all is the lightbulb-lit ‘voco’ sign, which looks completely out of place amid the otherwise well-preserved 1970s setting.

And that, in essence, is what’s wrong with the hotel. I genuinely don’t understand why the hotel opted for a faux and generic, trend-chasing aesthetic instead of embracing the building’s inherent International Style charm. It feels like a missed opportunity and a low-hanging fruit, if you will. This is especially true considering how much of the property still carries that look and could shine again with a sympathetic renovation. In fact, with the right refurbishment, the hotel’s bones would arguably suit an InterContinental rebrand far better, in light of the imminent rebrand of their Bugis hotel. But hey, who am I to say?

voco Shopping Gallery

In addition to its location of Singapore’s primary shopping belt, I’ll also add that the hotel has a small shopping podium occupying the first two floors. Many of the tenants of the voco Shopping Gallery are high-end boutiques, a legacy of the hotel’s storied reputation during its days as the Hilton International. Curiously enough, there is also a indoor walkway within the shopping gallery that connects to the adjacent Four Seasons Hotel. While this seems quite random, both hotels are owned by Singapore Hotel Properties Limited, whose owners also run COMO Hotels and Resorts.

Service

Generally speaking, the staff at voco Orchard were reasonably friendly and well-meaning, especially at the reception area. However, the hotel appeared to me as if it were short-staffed, considering how there appeared to be a lack of staff at certain positions, rendering service to be rather slow. Perhaps they were overwhelmed by the number of guests during my late summer stay?

Concluding thoughts

For one, the hotel reminded me more of a Holiday Inn or an old East Coast Marriott than anything resembling a five-star hotel by Singaporean standards. While it’s clear that voco aimed to add a sense of ‘youth’ at minimal cost, being a brand catering to soft conversions, the result feels like a lipstick-on-a-pig exercise; the property is undeniably old and in need of an actual renovation. Still, I appreciated the general cleanliness of the facilities and the friendliness of the staff. It’s a shame, really, given how much potential the hotel has, especially with a proper refurbishment. While my stay was uneventful, I think the hotel is grossly overpriced for the rooms they offer.

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