Our two kids have taken a new love of staying overnight with grandparents at our family home. Besides the fact that our parents’ house is a lot bigger, they also get to play with the neighbors similarly-aged children. That’s quite a win-win – since the wife and I get to do another short couple staycation and check out another one of the 420+ hotels on the island. Over the last couple of years, we’ve stayed at properties around the Havelock, Central Business District, Robertson Quay, and Little India areas. For our stay last weekend, we decided on a Orchard Road property this time – and specifically the Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road. Yep – quite a mouthful, and I suspect on account that there are several Holiday Inn properties on the island.
Like all the stuff we write about here, this was fully paid for out of our own pocket. So, we get to call it exactly as it is. We stayed at a level 13 standard room and booked directly with the hotel web site.
The best bit I’d say about this property is its location. It’s located roughly in the middle of the Orchard Road stretch, and right behind Apple’s main Singapore store. Directly across the road are the interconnected Somerset 313, Orchard Gateway and Orchard Central malls with its huge variety of dining places, and Cathay @ Cineleisure is just across the road too.
Interestingly, despite its proximity to the main Orchard Road stretch, the hotel itself is located at a very quiet side road with little foot traffic. It’s still brightly lit at night and safe, but we really appreciated the quietness of the surrounding area once we’d ducked out from the main road.
If easy access to amenities and things to do aren’t already presenting a significant advantage, the hotel also offers complimentary parking. The covered car park itself isn’t very big – perhaps a few dozen lots – but during our weekend stay, we saw just one other parked vehicle in the park itself.
The hotel seems really catered for short stays and business travelers, and it’s apparent from the relative lack of in-hotel amenities like banquet halls, a swimming pool etc. The reception and lobby is also quite small, but check-in was fast. And as the room had already been fully paid for, a nominal SGD50 deposit was further reserved for incidentals. In a nice touch too: the lass processing us in asked if we’d like coffee – even though she was already speedily doing up the paperwork. The wife would never refuse complimentary coffee. The darn thing is that we’ve stayed in quite a few different places now, and this is the first time we’ve been asked if we’d like coffee while waiting haha. Most other times, we don’t get asked – and the couple of other times, you get served the perfunctory cold beverage instead.
The room was of average size – especially coming out of the really tiny unit we had at M Social during our last stay – and for want of a better descriptor, functional again. It’s clean, and all the essentials are there: a small mini-fridge, security box, ironing board, hot beverage corner, a decent sized flat-screen offering a good range of cable channels etc. But decor in the unit was bland – perhaps again in-line with the hotel’s apparent consumer target. In-Room WIFI was reliable, supported multiple connections, and stable enough for Netflix streaming at HD quality levels. No issues with soundproofing in the room too, though from other guests’ reviews, it was a challenge for a few persons.
This was another pleasant and low-key staycation, and our key highlights for it included lunch @ Haidilao at Somerset 313 (very fresh food but over-priced in my opinion), dinner @ K.COOK Korean BBQ @ Orchard Central (
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