Jewelle Tan Personally

2 weeks before our trip to Singapore last week, I decided on a hotel which recently underwent major renovation work and was offering a special rate of $200 for their Executive Room - as per the promotional info from my booking agent.

And the Royal @ Queens Hotel on Queen Street was where we stayed for 5 nights last week.

The funny thing about the name of this hotel is that, with taxi drivers you must call it as “Royal Queens” and omit the “@”.

We took a lot of taxi and one or two were not familiar with this hotel so the best landmark guide is Singapore Art Museum, St. Joseph’s Church or Sts. Peter & Paul’s Church as this hotel is along a quiet street.

On the morning of our flight, I called the hotel to re-confirmed our late check-in and tried my luck at asking for a baby cot for Qi. When I told the staff that Qi is 2 years old (usually too old for a cot), she said that if the bed gets broken, we’d have to pay - I wonder if this means that if she’s below 2 and she broke the bed, she doesn’t have to pay?

We were happy that we checked-in at 10 pm with no problem - although they made photocopies of our passports which never happened to me before - and the baby cot was waiting in the room.

Our room was surprisingly small - for an Executive - so I can only imagine how the standard room size would be. But as claimed, our room was definitely recently refurbished because I could smell a little glue on the drawers.

The room featured touch-screen system for all its lights switches and although the idea is very novel, I prefer the ordinary flip switches. Besides having only one location from where most the switches is controlled is not convenient.

In the bathroom, I didn’t quite like the glass countertop as the sink bowl was too high even for me (what more for the kids) and the water pressure was too strong that I got water splashes a few times.

The bathtub was great for the kids and they enjoyed it more than the swimming pool which was tiny.

Allson Hotel was connected to our building via the 2nd Floor and isa  short cut to the Victoria Street, a 24hrs food court on one side and a 7-11 store on the other side.

From our window, we could see part of the Allson Hotel, Singapore Management University, the Carlton Hotel and in the far distance, the Suntec Convention Centre and the Singapore Flyer!

The nearest MRT (City Hall) is about 10 mins walk away but a new Bras Basah MRT station is under construction and is practically outside the hotel.

Besides the open air food court outside Allson Hotel, there is an air-conditioned food court a block away after the Singapore Art Museum called Kopi Tiam and this was where we had our breakfast for 2 days. Our rate actually included breakfast for two but for some reasons - they decided to charge Eu (3 years and above) after our first breakfast at the hotel at a whooping $17 (totally not worth it).

When I booked this hotel, free broadband connection was supposed to be included in the rate but the Front Office staffs told me that it’s chargeable at $6 for an hour, $10 for 6 hrs and $21 for 24 hrs (quite reasonable). Since my booking email did not include that particular remark, I could not argue on my case. However, when we checked out, we were not charged at all!

For the first 3 days, we had a musician as our next door neighbour and we’d sometimes hear him practising on his instrument which sounded like violin. However once, he had some friends over and they had a practice sessions and after 20 mins of an orchestra (lovely music if we were not trying to nap), I complained to the Front Office and had them dealt with immediately.

Basically, the wall was a little too thin and having an adjoining door made the matter worse.

One of the bellman took a liking to Qi and looked forward to meeting us whenever we return to the hotel. The Front Office staffs were helpful and friendly - and I’m pleased with how efficiently they handled my complaint about our neighbour. Our housekeeper was good.

In short, we enjoyed our stay here.