Without knowing your budget, I am scared of making a reccomendation.
Still. I transit SIN a couple-three times a year, and I place a very, very high value on sleep, enough that I will only fly Y transpac if it's the
only seats available. So that gives you an idea of my budget/value priorities.
My personal litmus test is layover time - 11 hours or less, stay at the transit hotel; longer, go off-airport.
Less than 11 hours
The
Transit Hotel is a great short-term stay, when all you need is a quiet bed and a shower. The quality isn't great but not bad; think Holiday Inn Express. The good: you never clear customs, so you get off the flight at 11:00 at night and can walk straight to your bed. The bad: you never clear customs, so any longer than 9 hours sleep + 1 hour shower + 1 hour to board the next flight is waaaayyyy to long to be in the secure area of an airport.
More than 12 hours
Because you're 20 hours layover, I'd be off the airport.
I've stayed at the
Changi Village Hotel, which is very nice, quiet, and ultra-modern. This used to be a Sofitel but was sold. Advantages are quiet, free shuttle, and great decor. Disadvantage is that there's really nothing around, so you are stuck in the hotel. <shrugs> It's okay if you get a screaming deal on the room price.
For your stay -
I would be at one of three hotels:
Raffles/Fairmont (the Stamford),
Swissotel (the Stamford), or the
Pan Pacific. The reason is these are at opposite ends of the nice giant underground mall, CityLink. With 20 hours you'll need to do more than sleep and shower.
All three hotels are a $20SD taxi ride from the airport and take about 15 minutes in rush hour traffic. Add 45 minutes for check in and you can be in crisp sheets in an hour after clearing customs.
Raffles and Swissotel are also parked directly over the City Hall subway station, the Singapore subway is very clean and safe, and a cheap easy way to reach the rest of the city easily, so that's an up-check for those two hotels.
Raffles is expensive. If you have to ask "how much" don't bother. It is my favorite for 3-day stays, though, as then you can really get the service you're paying for.
Swissotel and the Pan Pacific are comparable quality and service, with a 20% higher cost with the Swissotel. What you're getting is easy access to the City Hall subway and the Starbucks.
With all that said, for the last year all we've been staying at has been the Pan Pacific. There's deals to be found on the internet, quality (since they completed renovations late last year) is just as good as the Swissotel, and actually, the Pacific Floor is just the same incredible quality and (literally) personal service as the Raffles. If you're more budget-sided this would be my reccomendation.
As a last thought, for layovers of less than 24 hours, you can have your luggage interlined to your next flight, so you don't have to pick it up in SIN.
Hope this helps!
All the best, James
