Your Cat Hotel Tour Checklist: What to Look For Before You Book
A vet-nurse-trained guide to touring cat boarding facilities in Singapore.
The short answer
Always tour a cat hotel in Singapore before you book, and go without your cat. On the tour, ask to see the actual rooms rather than the reception, check whether there are any shared spaces - even consecutive use counts, and look for natural light, clean stainless steel litter boxes and an absence of ammonia smell. Ask who who administers medication and what training they have, what happens in a veterinary emergency, and whether the facility is AVS licensed. Find out whether the person showing you around is the person who will actually care for your cat. The answers that should worry you are vague ones: a facility that cannot say who is on shift, will not show you the rooms, or says yes to everything. A good facility will also tell you when boarding is not right for your cat.
Tour first, book second, and go without your cat
A tour is not a formality. It is the only way to know whether the photos match the place.
Two ground rules. First, book an appointment rather than dropping in or attending an open house. A cat hotel full of resting cats does not want unannounced visitors, and a facility that lets in too many at once may lead to stressed residents. Second, leave your cat at home. Every cat entering a boarding facility should have to meet the full health requirements with records on file, and a hotel that would let you bring an unvetted cat through the door is telling you how seriously it takes disease control for everyone else's cats.
At Shangri-Paw, tours are free, by appointment, and we run one at a time so guest cats are not unsettled. Visitors are never left unattended, and we do not hold open house days for the same reason.
What to look at, room by room
Reception areas are decorated for you. The rooms are where the truth is.
Are the stays genuinely private? This is the biggest single difference between facilities in Singapore. A private, self-contained room with solid walls and a glass door is not the same as a cabin in a bank of cabins, and neither is the same as a shared communal space. Shared spaces mean shared air, shared surfaces, and a stranger's cat on the other side of the window.
How big is the space, really? Look for enough room for a cat to move properly, with vertical space as well as floor space. Ask how many cats that room can take, and whether they will be from your household only.
Is there natural light? Cats regulate on daylight. A windowless box under fluorescent light is a poorer environment, and rooms with outside-facing windows are worth asking about specifically.
What does it smell like? Ammonia means litter boxes are not being cleaned often enough. A well-run boarding place smells of very little - yet better you detect the faint smell of cats or cat food than strong air purifiers, Dettol, bleach or scents that could be offensive for your cat.
What are the litter boxes made of? Stainless steel can be properly disinfected. Plastic scratches, and scratches harbour bacteria.
What is the furniture made of? Ask. Non-toxic, sealed wood that can be wiped down is what you want. At Shangri-Paw the catification is high-end birch ply built by local cat carpenters Little People Woodworks and The Cat People, with perches spaced so both a kitten and a senior can use them.
Is there somewhere to hide? A cat with nowhere to retreat is a cat under stress. Look for a covered space, not just an open shelf. Note: even hiding spots need to be easily accessible (i.e. visual on the cat, can be cleaned and the cats can be accessed in an emergency).
Can you plug things in? If you want to bring your own fountain, feeder or camera, the room needs a power point.
The questions to ask
Take these with you. What you are listening for is specific, confident answers rather than reassurance.
About the people
Who will actually be caring for my cat day to day, and are you that person?
What training does your team have?
How long have they been working at the premises?
About care
How often will someone go into my cat's room, and for how long?
Do you feed my cat's own food, and can you follow their usual schedule?
What happens if my cat will not eat?
Do you handle cats who do not want to be handled, and how?
About medical
Who administers medication, and what is their training?
Can you give injections and subcutaneous fluids, not just tablets?
Which vet do you use in an emergency, and can you use mine?
What happens if my cat becomes unwell?
About safety and hygiene
Are you AVS licensed, and may I see the licence?
What disinfectant do you use, and what is the contact time?
Do you board dogs, or house cats for sale cats on site?
How do you handle a cat with a contagious illness?
Is the facility escape-proof? Show me the double doors.
About communication
Will I get photo and video updates, and how often?
Am I able to visit my cat during the stay?
Will you contact me if something changes, or only if it is serious?
About the booking
What is your cancellation policy?
What are the add-on costs on top of the room rate?
What happens if I am delayed getting home?
How to check a cat hotel is AVS licensed
Every commercial pet boarding facility in Singapore must be licensed by the Animal & Veterinary Service. Licensing is not a quality guarantee, but its absence is a hard stop.
Worth knowing as an owner too: from 1 September 2026, your cat needs a valid AVS cat licence, which is free to register until 31 August 2026. Send us a soft copy upon booking.
Ask the facility directly for its licence number, and check the licensed premises listing on the NParks website. A reputable operator will give you the number without hesitating. If someone deflects, that is your answer. Please be aware that boarding places listed on petbacker and similar websites may be illegal home boarding and highly discouraged.
Shangri-Paw operates to AVS licensing standards. Even if they can be inconvenient to some owners - those regulations exist for the safety of all cats in boarding.
Licensing rules also cover medication handling. Our guide on whether a cat hotel can give your cat medication goes into that in detail.
The answers that should worry you
"You can't see the rooms today." There is no good version of this. If the rooms are not viewable, do not book.
"All our staff are trained." In what? By whom? Vagueness here usually means the training is informal.
"Yes, we can do that" to absolutely everything. A facility that will take a cat needing bladder expression, an actively symptomatic ringworm case and a fractious diabetic without blinking is not being careful. Real limits are a sign of competence.
"Don't worry, cats always settle." Not all of them do, and a good facility knows it.
"We'll send updates if there's a problem." Silence is not information. You want daily updates as standard.
A price that undercuts everyone else substantially. Ask what has been removed to get there. Usually it is space, staffing ratio, or both.
From Shangri-Paw's founder, Kerstin: "If we feel that boarding is not right for a cat, for health or behavioural reasons, we advise the owner accordingly. We have turned bookings away before. Your cat's safety matters more than a night's stay."
That willingness to say no is one of the clearest signals you will get on a tour.
What a good cat hotel in Singapore looks like
Pulling it together, the facilities worth booking tend to share these traits:
Cats only. No dogs on the premises, and ideally no breeding cats either, which lowers disease risk and noise.
Private, self-contained rooms. Not cabins, not shared floor space - even consecutively.
A named, trained person who is genuinely on site rather than managing remotely.
Visible hygiene practice. Veterinary-grade disinfectant, stainless steel litter boxes, high-temperature laundry, air purification.
Fear Free or low-stress handling that means something in practice: no forced interaction, no scruffing, cats allowed to approach first.
Daily updates as standard, not on request.
Honest limits, published requirements, and a clear cancellation policy.
A current AVS licence they will show you.
Shangri-Paw is a boutique, cats-only cat hotel in a characterful shophouse on the eastern edge of Singapore, at 587 Geylang Road. It has 18 private rooms across Comfort, Deluxe and Luxury tiers, plus interconnected combinations for multi-cat households, and is run by Kerstin, a Fear Free Certified Professional who is vet-nurse trained (Certificate III in Animal Studies and Veterinary Nursing, ACVN / UQ Skills). She is at the hotel almost daily and knows around 95% of guest cats inside out.
Frequently asked questions
What questions should I ask when touring a cat boarding facility in Singapore? Ask who will actually care for your cat and what training they have, whether any spaces are shared/communal (and if so how are they disinfected between animals), who administers medication, which vet they use in an emergency, whether they are AVS licensed, what disinfectant they use, and how often you will get photo updates. Also ask what they will not accept, because honest limits signal competence.
What should a good cat hotel in Singapore look like? Cats only, with no dogs and ideally no cats for sale on site. Private, self-contained rooms rather than cabins or shared spaces, with natural light, vertical space and somewhere to hide. Stainless steel litter boxes, veterinary-grade disinfectant and no ammonia smell. A named, trained person on site, daily photo updates as standard, published requirements, and a current AVS licence they will show you on request.
Can I bring my cat on the tour to see if they like it? No, and a facility that allows it is a concern. Every cat entering a boarding facility should meet the full health requirements with records on file, to protect the cats already staying. A short visit also tells you very little, since most cats need two to four days to settle.
How do I check if a cat boarding in Singapore is AVS licensed? Ask the facility for its licence number, then check the licensed premises listing on the NParks website. Any reputable operator will share the number without hesitation. Licensing is a minimum standard rather than a mark of quality, but a facility operating without one should be ruled out immediately.
Do cat hotels in Singapore offer free tours? Many do, including Shangri-Paw, though usually by appointment rather than as a drop-in or open house. Appointment-only is a good sign, since it means the facility is managing noise and disruption for the cats currently staying. Be wary of anywhere that will not show you the rooms at all.
Should I book the cheapest cat boarding in Singapore? Ask what has been removed to reach that price. Usually it is room size, staffing ratio, or both. Price differences between facilities in Singapore mostly reflect space per cat, how many cats each carer looks after, and whether trained staff are on site, all of which matter more for a nervous, senior or medical cat.
The bottom line
A tour takes half an hour and tells you more than a week of reading reviews. Book an appointment, leave your cat at home, ask to see the actual rooms, and listen for specific answers rather than reassurance. The facility that gives you a straight answer about what it cannot do is usually the one that can be trusted with what it can.
Want to see for yourself? Book a free private tour of Shangri-Paw. One tour at a time, no rush, and every question answered honestly, including the ones about what we do not do.
About the author
Written by Kerstin,
Founder of Shangri-Paw Cat Hotel.
Kerstin is a Fear Free Certified Professional and vet-nurse trained (Certificate III in Animal Studies and Veterinary Nursing, ACVN / UQ Skills), with further study in animal behaviour and years of hands-on clinical, rescue and fostering experience, including senior and medical cats. She is one of only two Fear Free Certified cat hotel owners in Singapore, is at the hotel almost every day, and is in every guest's owner chat.
About Shangri-Paw
Shangri-Paw is a boutique, cat-only hotel in Singapore, built for the cats other places find hardest: the anxious, the senior, the medical and the much-loved. Every guest has a private, catified room, never a cage and never shared, with Fear Free low-stress care, medication and subcutaneous fluids handled by trained hands, and daily photo and video updates so you are never left wondering. Cat-only, honestly run, and planned around how cats
Experience it yourself. Book a private tour, meet Kerstin and the team, and choose the room your cat will stay in.
