I stayed at this hotel for four nights. I was on business and the hotel was a "preferred" hotel by our company, with prearranged rates.

Check in was a problem in that the clerk could not find my reservation. He was unapologetic when I produced the confirmation number and he searched for several more minutes.

The hotel lobby is on the 7th floor, necessitating an elevator change whenever entering or leaving the hotel. I found this quite inconvenient.

The room was small with two twin beds very low to the floor. The bathroom was likewise small. Sufficient for a single person but not luxurious by any means. The room was clean and tidy.

I was on the side of the hotel facing Clarke Quay, with its large number of restaurants and night clubs. I was disturbed one night (Saturday) from 2am to 4am by the noise from the clubs.

The breakfast and internet service were not included in my rate and seemed rather steep ($30S each). The breakfast did provide a good variety and selection.

The location is good for night life, but is not much in the daytime. The MRT system is a short walk from the hotel.

I would only stay there again if I were on business.

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.