With travel restrictions still largely in-place – though there are plans to finally permit leisure travel to selected countries – we’ve been continuing to keep our eye out for staycation places for 2021. The first of three we’ve lined up so far for 2021 was at AMOY Hotel, a small boutique hotel rated #11 on Tripadvisor. The missus and I stayed for a single night over the last weekend, and post-stay, I was left uncertain about whether that fairly high traveler rating was justified. Again, like everything else we write about on our blog, this wasn’t a sponsored stay – it was paid by ourselves.
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The hotel is located near my old working area in the Central Business District: i.e. it’s pretty busy during weekdays, but much quieter on weekends. The hotel is quite small with just 37 guest rooms, and on its web site boasts of personalized service, with staff recognizing and knowing you by name. Yep, that last bit is certainly true. We also didn’t run into any other guests in the hotel during the stay even! There was also a handwritten note welcoming us to the property: not something we see at every place we’ve stayed.
Some of the photos I saw of the hotel seem to imply that the hotel entrance is along the Telok Ayer road. Oddly, I never actually saw this entrance, if there was any such to begin with. We got into the hotel via a boulevard inside Far East Square itself, and the square itself is closed to vehicular traffic.
There are two types of rooms in the hotel: Cosy Single (18sqm), and Deluxe Rooms (22sqm). Ours was the latter, and the room in actuality is pretty much exactly what you see in the web site photos: not terrifically roomy but stylized after Chinese heritage. There’s a complimentary minibar, a Nespresso coffee machine, a shower area with rainshower head, and the toilet is separated from the wash basin via partition.
The location is excellent too: it’s a short 3 minute walk to Telok Ayer MRT station, and the train line was relatively free of crowds on weekend evenings. The general area is quiet, and the roads lined with lots of restaurants and eateries for those who don’t want to dine in shopping malls. The hotel provided complimentary breakfast at Genius Central – a restaurant just next door to the hotel: you can select one of any breakfast items from their menu there, alongside also a drink.
As for the bits that didn’t work so well for us, or were just annoyances:
The hotel was undergoing some minor refurbishment, so lifts were not working. We got to our room by walking up a flight of fairly steep stairs. We traveled light since this was just an overnight stay, but persons who are stairs-adverse or have heavy luggage need to take note.
The flat-screen TV sits on the left of the bed, but can be swung out partially to face it. The range of channels however was disappointing: the selection was limited – basically local broadcast channels and also a few news channels. Worse still was the quality of imagery on the telly: it looked like we’d returned to the days of antenna-type TV reception, with noisy images and low resolution video.
The room was equipped with a queen-sized bed, but it felt fairly small for a queen-sized, even though we managed. More seriously though was the lack of adequate back support on the bed: both of us woke up with backaches after the night’s sleep.
The music that was being played at Far East Square in the night was a problem. We could hear it from our room. Not loud, but not exactly unnoticeable either. The room tries its best to be soundproofed, but our room was on the second floor and overlooking the square (i.e. you’d need to draw your day curtains to have privacy). Thankfully, the music playing stopped at 11PM, but if you’re a light sleeper and want to turn-in before that time, you’d need ear-plugs.
Lastly, the hotel provided complimentary parking at Far East Square’s carpark next door, but it was for a single-entry and exit only. We’ve stayed at properties which offered complimentary parking before this, but this is the first time where the freebie was for a single instance only.
In all, mixed feelings. The staff service is good, and location of the hotel fantastic if you want a property away from busy areas, but still reasonably close to the main retail districts in central Singapore. The room itself is OK though nothing that particularly makes it memorable for us. In all, it was a pleasant enough stay, but I can’t see myself coming back here to stay here again.
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