We’ve been married twelve years this date. As is becoming our little ritual each wedding anniversary, we elect to stay at a different property in a different part of Singapore each time. Though given how small the island, I reckon we’re fast running out of distinctive regions to explore haha. Our 2018 place of stay this year was the One Farrrer Hotel situated in the Serangoon stretch of Little India. We actually go past the main artery – Serangoon Road that is – fairly often to and fro church or town on weekends, but haven’t actually explored most of the area otherwise on foot. There’s a small number of fairly decent hotels in the immediate vicinity, and we decided on One Farrer Hotel on account of its attractive rates and also that it garners praise from most of its guests.
So, our comments after a short one night stay. The short version: pretty good, and we can easily recommend this place for guests not wanting to spend a ton of money on hotel accommodations.
Like our other anniversary events, the property for us is just a place for us to pass the night – what counts more is the vicinity and accessibility to transportation. The room we selected is named an ‘Urban‘ , and of size of 38 m². The room we were initially assigned was on the 14th floor. But apparently on account that the room itself was not available at the point of check-in, reception bumped us to a Loft Suite, a two floor small apartment of 48 m². That was a terrifically nice gesture on the hotel’s part and a really pleasant if unexpected surprise!
Check-in took a while as there was quite a bit of paperwork to do, and the hotel reserved the cost of an additional night’s stay for incidentals – but this was returned with no trouble on check-out the next morning. The hotel lobby and reception also not crowded at all the couple of times were were on the ground floor.
The Loft Suites are located on the 16th floor, and the two floors in the unit are connected by a flight of slightly steep stairs. The king-size bed and bathroom is on the lower floor, with the fully complimentary mini-bar, business and work table, living room sofa, and a small kitchen – with oven, coffee maker, electric stove and fridge – located on the upper floor. Both floors have their own flat-screen TV – I reckon about 49″ or so – and equipped with the usual range of cable channels and also pay-per-view films.
The suite has modern decor with earthen colors, is very clean, and Ling got a good kick fiddling around with the smart lighting features of the suite. The room has full height windows that stretch from the first to second floor, and offers an uninterrupted view of the area. The evening view of the Farrer area would probably had been fantastic, though it was mostly pitch dark by the time we returned to the hotel after a late night screening of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald @ City Square Mall. As with most of Singapore’s properties, there were no issues with Internet access: connection was quick, stable, and I was even able to download a gob of apps from Google Play to setup the new Samsung Note 9 phone that I picked up in the afternoon (review to follow soon!).
The toilet is equipped with a bidet, though the shower stall itself doesn’t have a partition. So you’d need to exercise a bit of care where you’re pointing the shower head, lest you come out of the stall to massive ponding.
The hotel has a carpark, but parking isn’t complimentary. But there are a couple of public car parks nearby with prevailing HDB/URA rates. We had no problems finding free car bays at Perumal Road multi-storey car park, which is a quick 2–3 minute walk from the hotel. For those not driving, the hotel also directly faces Farrrer Park MRT Station. Super convenient!
We had an early breakfast at about 7am, and there were few other patrons besides ourselves at our timing. There was a range of Asian and International food types. The offerings aren’t different from what we’ve observed in properties here, but a special mention goes out to the attentive wait service, very fast clearing of used plates, and finally also the very delicious duck porridge and nasi lemak.
All in, this was a lovely and incident-free stay, made the even better that we were in a Loft suite at the already attractive rates we paid for a standard-type room. Recommended!
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