Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road Staycation Blog Review

Posted on August 20, 2013 by missuschewy

– Sponsored Staycation –

In July this year, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) opened the first ever Holiday Inn Express in Singapore, located in the heart of the country’s vibrant shopping district and entertainment hub, Orchard Road.
Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road is the first of two Holiday Inn Express hotels planned for Singapore during the brand’s rapid expansion across South East Asia. With so many hotels concentrated in Orchard, it is needless to say that travellers will inevitably be spoilt for choice.

I was invited to discover the Holiday Inn experience for myself and since misterchewy was working that day, I checked into the hotel on my own that morning. I wasn’t the least bit worried about not being able to locate the place since I had been told that Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road is situated in between The Heeren and Paragon. Talk about prime location!

Upon stepping into the hotel, I was warmly greeted with a smile at the 24-hour reception. Check-in procedure was straightforward, swift and hassle-free.

Our room was on the 15th floor, highest being the 16th. There are 221 queen-bedded and twin-bedded rooms with complimentary in-room wifi. In fact, the hotel offers free and fast Wi-Fi access throughout the hotel, so guests can stay connected all day, every day. In this day and age, not many of us can survive without Internet connectivity!

Holiday Inn Express’ STAY SMART concept revolves around making sure that every valued guest can expect a fuss-free and refreshing stay with guaranteed comfort and convenience at a reasonable price.

A panorama photo of our queen-bedded room taken with my iPhone 5.

All rooms feature high quality bedding with pillow top mattress and duck down duvet.

Interestingly, guests have a choice of soft pillows..

..or firm pillows. We preferred the firm ones!

To my delight, there is also a comfy couch for people like me who abhors lying on the bed before taking a shower. To me, the bed is sacred. I’m not joking. Haha.

There are also 40 inch LCD televisions, ergonomic desk chairs and efficient work stations in every room.

Tea and coffee making facilities

I was quite surprised to find an un-stocked mini bar but honestly, with so many supermarkets and convenience stores around the vicinity, I would rather choose my own selection of drinks and snacks.

In-room safe

En-suite bathroom

Holiday Inn takes pride in its green initiatives and Holiday Inn Singapore Atrium recently received the Singapore Green Hotel Award 2013.

Pleased to find liquid handwash instead of bar soap!

Silly me, I was busy taking photos of the bathroom amenities and then realized in a state of shock that I had not seen the shower area. I was almost ready to believe that there could be another shared bathroom within the hotel.. until I saw the handle of the door! Phew!

Guests can recharge after a long day exploring Orchard Road by utilizing the refreshing power showers in the bathrooms with three-head massage showerhead.

There was a tour around the hotel and the first thing I noticed was “SMART is having your own set of wheels”. So there you have it, Holiday Inn Express provides trolleys for guests to conveniently wheel their luggages into their rooms.

Complimentary internet stations and self-service business centre

Complimentary Express Start breakfast is made available at the Great Room.

There is also a Grab & Go option for guests who do not have the luxury of sitting down to enjoy their breakfast. More on this later.

On the 4th floor of the hotel, a compact meeting facility for 12 persons can be booked, subject to availability.

The self-service laundry and and ironing facilities are also located on the 4th floor.

After the tour, I bought McNuggets’ meal at Cineleisure, which was about a 10-minute walk away, and enjoyed a quiet lunch in the comfort of the hotel room.

Watched a couple of movies while resting on the couch before meeting misterchewy, misstamchiak and her fiancé for dinner. There will be a separate post for this!

Featuring our OOTD! Hehehe.

Breakfast ends at around 10am each day and we made sure that we got there by 9.30am.

Scrambled eggs

Chicken sausages

Fried beehoon

Prawn dumplings

Besides the usual coffee and tea, you can also have hot chocolate. Kids will definitely love this.

This is the Grab & Go breakfast option which consists of a cup of hot beverage, muffin and fruit. Busy guests don’t have an excuse for skipping breakfast. Very thoughtful of the hotel!

Packed our stuff and spent a relaxing moment in the room before checking out at 12pm.

The new Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road is the smart choice for savvy travellers who are looking for the best location combined with the best value. The Smart Stay experience offers value-conscious guests everything they need and nothing they don’t. We personally felt that everything that was provided during our stay was adequate and we were very satisfied!

Stay connected with us on Facebook www.facebook.com/missuschewy and on Instagram @missuschewy and @misterchewy 🙂

Click here to check out our list of Singapore staycation reviews!

Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road
20 Bideford Road
Singapore 229921
Tel: +65 6690 3199

Movenpick Heritage Hotel Sentosa Singapore Staycation Blog Review

Posted on July 1, 2013 by missuschewy

Whoohoo! The husband and I were lucky enough to win a two-night stay on Sentosa Island after getting the most number of votes for an Instagram contest, thanks to the support from our friends and readers. It was our very first staycation at Sentosa, and also our first local hotel stay of 2013! 😀

The hotel was not revealed in the intial stage, but only after I won the contest. Was hoping W Hotel or Capella but I was also contented with Mövenpick Heritage Hotel Sentosa la! 😛 We chose to split our stay so we only stayed for one night. Will be going there again a couple of months later! We like how convenient it was because the hotel is located right next to the Sentosa Express monorail station. Highly recommend this hotel to all, especially tourists visiting Sentosa! You can also get to take tons of photos with our iconic Merlion YO!

The hotel reception was actually located downstairs and one of the female service staff promptly took our bags from us and led us the way to do our check-in at the counter.

We were given a room on the sixth floor, which is also the top floor.

Immediately after we putting down all our stuff, we headed to Tanjong Beach Club in our beach wear for some drinks and truffle fries. Oh yeah, all guests staying in Mövenpick Heritage Hotel Sentosa are given complimentary monorail passes in case you wanna get out of Sentosa during your stay. Appreciate the thoughtful gesture!

The only thing we did other than eat at Tanjong Beach Club was to fall asleep on the sand for about half an hour (believe me, it was not part of the plan) and then we returned to our room to shower and change. Didnt have time for other beach activities because we had a dinner tasting at about 6-ish.

Let me give you guys a little virtual tour of our hotel room! Ours was a 30sqm Deluxe Room with a king size bed, which felt reasonably spacious for the both of us, as evident in this photo. The room features natural wood furnishings and warm neutral colors which create a calm and tranquil atmosphere.

The LCD flat-screen television comes with Bluetooth connectivity but our only gripe is that wifi is chargeable.

The granite bathroom is equally spacious and has a contemporary vibe which I like.

With a see-through bathroom door like that, I think it’s gonna be awkward for non-couples to be staying together. At least there is a separate shower room (pictured above) but that would mean you have to change in and out of your clothes in the shower room which can be a tad inconvenient.

I find that granite is a good idea because its coarse-grained texture gives relatively more friction as compared to some bathroom floors.

Dim Sum in the toilet? No laaaa. It’s cute though! Guess what’s inside? 🙂

The bamboo steam baskets contain bathroom amenities like toothbrush, toothpaste, cotton bud, etc.

The loofah certainly came in handy in scrubbing away the suntan oil which we had applied earlier.

Besides the standard minibar and complimentary bottled water, there is also a Nespresso machine, a CitiZ 110 – Fire Engine Red, to be exact.

Pulling out the drawer reveals an array of drinking utensils. Nice to find wine glasses in there because you will need them if you are celebrating special occasions over a bottle of wine!

I’m not addicted to caffeine and coffee has absolutely no effect on me. Not sure if that’s a good thing but oh wells. Made a cup of coffee for the fun of it 😛

The yukata matches the bedroom slippers. Cute huh?

Featuring my OOTD! Bought this navy blue maxi dress sometime back but didn’t get the chance to wear it. There’s a peekaboo area around the small of my back. Hahaha. Since we’re on the topic on clothes, Zalora is having a GSS meltdown sale on over 8000 items, and up to 80% off! Often times, I find myself browsing through not just the women’s clothes collection but men’s as well because the clothes are really fashionable and trendy.

Not forgetting misterchewy’s OOTD! Love the color combination.

This is the view of the swimming pool that greeted us the moment we stepped out of our room and looked down. I immediately went, “Wah! So nice leh!”

And so, we went down to check out the swimming pool.

The gymnasium looks well-equipped.

We took one of the Sentosa feeder buses to Quayside Isle and it was our first time there! Kill two birds with one stone since we were already at Sentosa.

Such a pretty sight in the late evening! Kinda like Keppel Bay.

Our dinner tasting was at Museo, which will be featured separately in another blog post 🙂

Earlier in the day, we were toying with the idea of catching a late night movie at VivoCity but decided against it because old people wanna go back and sleep liao. LOL. Anyway, we thought that the Merlion looked kinda scary here! Hahaha! Wonder what would tourists think if they came here at night.

Was quite amazed that the Merlion changes into a myriad of different colors at night! This is my favourite color!

Showered and hit the sack! The husband and I slept really really soundly. Mine was quite extreme because I had a horrible nightmare. Shall not tell you what I dreamt about but I was crying in my sleep! Woke up and almost drowned in my own ocean of tears. I’m not exaggerating. On a positive note, it shows that the bed was really too comfy that I just continued crying and crying in my sleep, not being able to wake up earlier. LOL. The best part was waking up next to misterchewy and discussing if we should go for a swim or eat breakfast first.

We decided to eat breakfast first because the buffet closes at 10am! A copy of The Straits Times was found at our door. Can catch up on the news while having breakfast!

Breakfast buffet was at Mövenpick’s flagship restaurant, Tablescape.

The full International buffet includes an egg station and in keeping with the hotel’s promise to deliver the best of Swiss hospitality to guests, diners can also select from the Chef’s a la minute menu options.

The egg omelette was really good! We will definitely eat this again the next time!

Equally worthy of mention are the roasted potatoes, sausages and sautéed mushrooms! Mushrooms were so delicious that I had seconds!

The husband offered to take a photo of me but I refused because my eyes were kinda swollen from crying. FML. Later people think I siao. Go staycation should be happy why cry until like that. LOL. Ok la you will see some photos of me later 😛

Perfect weather for a morning swim! 😀

Towels are provided so you don’t have to bring along the towels from your hotel room.

No goggles also can swim! Don’t play play. I started learning how to swim when I was four years old and I have a National Survival Swimming Award (Gold). Ok la don’t haolian already 😛

Our staycation at Mövenpick Heritage Hotel Sentosa was quite a relaxing one although the next time round, I think I wanna go to Wave House Sentosa! Click here to read about our staycation reviews on Grand Park Orchard, Wanderlust Hotel, Oasia Hotel, Porcelain Hotel and Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel! 🙂 July is gonna be awesome because we will be celebrating our 3rd year dating anniversary and my birthday!

Stay connected with us on Facebook www.facebook.com/missuschewy and on Instagram @missuschewy and @misterchewy

Click here to check out our list of Singapore staycation reviews!

Mövenpick Heritage Hotel Sentosa
23 Beach View, Sentosa
(Next to Imbiah Station)
Tel: 6818 3388

Grand Park Orchard Hotel Singapore Staycation Blog Review

Posted on December 10, 2012 by missuschewy

–Sponsored Staycation–

Hola chewy chewy friends! The kind folks from Park Hotel Group invited misterchewy and I for a staycation experience review at Grand Park Orchard Hotel about two weeks ago! Guess what? This is our fourth staycation this year! 😀

Grand Park Orchard is situated in the heart of town, right smack in the middle of where all the bustling activity is! Its strategic location makes it a very popular hotel choice among locals and tourists because there are so many shopping centres nearby. Do you know that the hot and half naked bodies of the A&F guys are just downstairs?!

Lobby is on the 4th floor and Grand Park Orchard’s hotel ambassador had already positioned himself outside the lift, waiting to greet us with his dazzling smile. We were promptly showed to our room on level 9.

We were given an ultra swanky room with high speed Internet access simply by logging in with my name and the password written on the card.

Our 29 to 32sqm Premium Room was simply gorgeous! We love the floor-to-ceiling glass windows which gave the lofty room a more dramatic and posh feel. And not forgetting the artistic designer wall mural! <;3 – sure beats turning up to the office in downtown Singapore!

A large glass window for your viewing pleasure. Oh no I meant that you could soak in the tub and watch TV at the same time! What a brilliant idea! 😉

Can the hotel be any more generous than this?! It’s as though someone went grocery shopping at the supermarket and picked up every single variety of fruit that she saw. If you like fruits, good for you! If you don’t, I’m very sure there must be something on that plate that you will fancy.

A handwritten welcome card from the General Manager, which is a really nice gesture 🙂

The hubs was trying to use the hotel wifi while I continue snapping photos in our room.

Shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and lotion. All lavender! I like!

Just about everything that you need, it’s in there.

I was telling misterchewy that if the bath tub looks enticing enough, we could go shop for a nice shower gel for our bubble bath 😛

I knew I didn’t have to worry about misterchewy feeling bored about being left alone because the reclining sofa (not sure what’s the exact term for it) looked really comfortable and he was already glued to the LCD TV.

Oh let’s backtrack a bit. The hubs wore another set of clothing when we travelled to the hotel and he wanted to change into the set which I had picked out and packed for him. However, the shirt had some creases and I took the chance to use the iron and ironing board in our room to prove my caliber as a good wife. *AHEM*

A quick look at the mini bar. Only the bottled water, tea and coffee are complimentary.

The fridge certainly is very well-stocked with most of our favorite drinks in there!

Takashimaya Shopping Centre is just across the street! I told you Grand Park Orchard’s location is awesome, didn’t I?

Photo taken by misterchewy using iPhone 5’s panorama function 🙂

Our outfit of the day! Both our clothes were gotten during our recent trip to Bangkok. I wore a light yellow dip hem maxi dress and paired a metallic gold bangle to go along with it. Cheery colors! 😉 The hubs is usually seen wearing jeans because he works as an engineer so I made him wear shorts this time. Totally love the white long sleeved shirt with navy blue anchor prints that I chose for him! 😀

We were totally famished and decided walk over to Mandarin Gallery for late lunch at Ippudo because misterchewy was craving for ramen.

We were walking around aimless and then misterchewy suggested that we go to *SCAPE to catch some toys! But nothing caught my eye 🙁 Or am I too old for this? LOL.

*SCAPE is also one of the more popular locations for casual outdoor wedding photoshoot! I’m giving you people some ideas ok? 😛 Oh yeah, misterchewy was carrying a Sephora paper bag because we bought a really sweeeeet smelling shower gel! 😉

Was tired from all that walking and decided to head back to our hotel room for a short rest before dinner. Took a mini tour around first. The gym faces the swimming pool so if you need some motivation on the treadmill, there you have it! 😛

How nice and thoughtful of the hotel to supply gym goers with towels, bottled water and energy drinks. Yes the energy drinks are free!

Bar Canary is located right next to the pool.

I think I had stretched my walking limits and was really eager to head back. Sky was turning dark too, from what we see when we reached our room.

LOL! The hubs was already waiting for me to turn around when I was done with taking photos and was waving at me from the toilet. He then proceeded to act as though he was surprised. -_-

Besides the hotel stay, we were also welcome to try the dinner buffet at Open House Restaurant.

Here’s a sneak peek!

I will be sharing more about the dinner buffet at Open House in my next post 😉

After dinner, we decided to take a long leisurely stroll outside Grand Park Orchard and soak in the Christmas atmosphere! The entire Orchard Road lights up beautifully at night.

At last! I’m as tall as misterchewy! Hahaha.

Time to chill out with some drinks at Bar Canary, which is located on the same floor as the lobby.

Shall tell you guys more about the drinks we had in the next post 🙂

Earlier in the day, we stopped by Sephora at Takashimaya and bought this Caramel Toffee bubble bath and shower gel. There were about 10 different ones for us to choose from. We smelled every single one and this is the one we liked best! Highly recommended if you and your partner like really sweet scent. A bottle costs only $15 and we used a third which was more than enough 😀

The hotel provides bedroom slippers and bathrobes too. So there’s no need for you to pack your pyjamas along for your staycation! The bedroom slippers are of really good quality and very comfy too.

Good morning sunshine! We were supposed to wake up at 8am but overslept and woke up at 9plus instead! :O By the time we got dressed and reached Open House downstairs, it was nearly 10am. Good thing the buffet line closes at 11am during weekends! Phew! Hey, we both agreed that our bed was really way too comfortable and we had a really good night’s sleep! 😀

Selection of bread and pastries are constantly being replenished. Everything is warm and toasty!

This was misterchewy’s favorite station! We had scrambled and poached eggs.

You can choose either plain or pork congee and various condiments are available.

Below are some of the a la carte buffet dishes that we had that morning. We were totally spoilt for choice and tried a bit from each station. My favorite dishes were the mee siam, eggs and waffles! 😀

After a hearty breakfast, we just wanted to laze in bed. Good thing it had been arranged for us to check out at 4pm instead! We borrowed Crazy Stupid Love DVD from the concierge at the lobby. There were many other movies but most were already loaned to other guests in the hotel. But it’s ok because I love romantic comedies! 😀

We had not watched Crazy Stupid Love before and had a really good laugh at some of the scenes. Ryan Gosling is sooooo suave and hawt! *Drools* 😛

The hubs continued to laze in bed and read soccer news on his iPad.

Made a cup of Gryphon Earl Grey Lavender tea from the mini bar for myself!

We found that a copy of The Sunday Times had been delivered to our room early in the morning. Decided to make myself comfortable on the reclining sofa and catch up on the news with my cup of hot tea in hand. 🙂

All in all, the husband and I had a pretty marvelous staycation at Grand Park Orchard and managed to spend quality time with each other over the precious weekend. Currently, Grand Park Orchard is having a Christmas Escapade promotion from 15th to 30th December. Receive your last night free simply by staying for 3 consecutive nights or more! There’s no better way to spend Christmas with your loved ones than a luxurious staycation at Grand Park Orchard. 😉

Thank you Park Hotel Group for the kind invitation!

Click here to check out our list of Singapore staycation reviews!

Grand Park Orchard
270 Orchard Road
Singapore 238857
Tel: 6603 8888
Email: info.gpor@parkhotelgroup.com
For room reservations, please contact 6603 8829/6603 8830 or email
rsvn.gpor@parkhotelgroup.com

missuschewy

Singapore Lifestyle and Travel Blog

Tag Archives: couple Singapore staycation ideas

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