The Singapore Novotel is very much in the Novotel corporate 'style'. The room we had was small, as was the bathroom, with minimalism taken to an extreme - no-where to sit other than on the bed and not enough room to put down our suitcases. In fact if there had been a chair we would had to have left our suitcases in the corridor. In other words exactly the same as most other Novotels in the UK, France etc. I know we could have paid for a room up-grade, but for only two nights we did not think the expense was justified
Having said that, the location is excellent with regards to Clarke Quay, although this area is relatively 'dead' during the day. In retrospect we probably would have been better to have stayed nearer Orchard Road,to be nearer the main shopping malls.
The buffet breakfast, which was included in our room-rate, was excellent, with plenty of choice. I would also mention that all the staff we met, from the front-desk through to the door-men, were friendly and helpful.
Overall not a bad hotel for a brief stay, but I would suggest you look elsewhere if you are planning on staying for more than a few days.

The Good:

Location is excellent. Clarke Quay is a great place to be around as its vibrant and happening with a plethora of nightlife spots and restaurants. You are also within walking distance of Boat Quay with all of the eating places on the water. There is a shopping mall in the same building as the hotel and a 7-11 on the ground floor. The rooms are spacious (at least the ones assigned to us were) and the breakfast is quite nice (it was included in our package rate).

The Bad:

Service is really really bad. Check in took ages plus the staff seem to have an attitude problem. Not a single smile anytime you approach the counter. I would agree with a previous poster that they seem to have issues with brown skinned individuals. Room service is slow and it takes ages for house keeping to resolve any problem. The internet PCs are always occupied and business center staff have an even worse attitude than the front desk staff.

On the whole, this location is ok from the perspective of location and the rooms but you have to be willing to put up with the attitude!

Have just come back from 8 days at the Novotel Clarke Quay and found the hotel to be great. We stayed on the 12th floor overlooking the road and had no problem with noise, could hear a bit of noise but nothing to distrub us. The location of the hotel was great. A easy walk to the MRT, which we use a lot for getting about.
A big bonus was the supermarket in the basement of the hotel building. We could just take the lift down to the supermarket, it was open from 10am to 10pm and had everything you could want. We plan to go back to Singapore and would certainly stay at Clarke Quay's again.
There was building work going on in the shopping centre attached to the hotel but that had no affect on the hotel. The shopping centre also had a McDonalds and a Starbucks for those that need their caffine fix.

We were first time in SG on vacation and a local friend confirmed that Novotel is well located for tourists. She was right - the hotel is right next to the Clarke Quay area with dozens of restaurants, bars and discos. The nearest MRT station is underneath The Central shopping mall across the river, 5 - 7 minutes (hot!) walk. We preferred using the metro during the day for sightseeing / shopping etc. and being able to have dinner at a walking distance from the hotel.

Room: We had booked a standard queen room but after 1st night decided to upgrade to a bigger room (+85 SGD/night) with more closet space and better view. The closet in the first room was absolutely tiny! Standard queens overlook the pool + next hotel and not the city skyline. The second room on 25th floor was much better and the view was really good (my photos are from the 2nd room). As we stayed for 6 nights we preferred a larger room and view. Bathroom was big with bath and shower.

Service: The staff was friendly but quite neutral, nothing special. We had to call maintenance 3 times to our rooms. In our first room the main light did not go off at night, staff came in 10 minutes and fixed it through the ceiling. In our second room TV remote was not working properly, sink was not working well and the desk light was not working. These were all fixed as well, but made me think that they could check these things every once in a while by themselves without waiting or the guests to inform that the sink is not working (which housekeeping should notice!) etc.

Hotel: We did not take the expensive breakfast nor did we use the restaurants so we cannot comment on that. There are so many restaurants right next to the hotel that we did not consider eating at Novotel. The pool is rather big and with app. 20 - 30 sunbeds. I went to the pool a couple of mornings around 9 am and it was reasonably busy already in the morning (but still got a good sunbed facing the morning sun). There are towles ready on the beds and extra towels on the side. They are renovating something by the pool so you will see some construction issues going on but they did not make any noise at all. The Clarke Quay discos, on the other hand, play music quite loud late at night and we could hear the disco beat to our room on 25th floor at night (didn't bother me but my light sleeping spouse mentioned it a couple of times).

There are 2 complimentary computers with internet in the lobby but they were always occupied - we used them only once for that reason.

There is a 7-11 next to the lobby which was very convenient for little daily shopping and cheaper beer / drinks before dinner time. The hop-on hop-off sightseeing bus has a stop right in front of Novotel - I reccommend taking those tours!