Our second staycation for 2021. While there are still a large number of properties in Singapore that we haven’t sampled a stay at, when we take onboard requirements and preferences like location, pricing and value for money – since every stay we’ve blogged about here are out of our own pockets – the pool of possibilities is slowly shrinking. One property that’s seen a bit of hype though is Lyf Funan, a hotel that’s inside the newly refurbished Funan Mall that opened in June 2019. Lyf Funan has become quite talked about for it being big on co-shared spaces, great rates, and of course that it literally is on top of a mall that we’ve enjoyed going to since it’s re-opening. So, with my Singapore Discovery Vouchers still unspent, we went for it for a Labor Day weekend stay to use up those vouchers.
My comments!
Lyf Funan has a small range of rooms in the about eight-nine floors of accommodations, and we opted for the One of a Kind Studio. The advertised rates for it starts at SGD100 per night, but the rate we got our stay at was higher than that – around SGD150 with taxes included, and I suspect that this was a holiday weekend stay. Nonetheless, once the SGD100 voucher was applied, our actual out of pocket expense for the room was around SGD50.
Check-in was smooth. The entrance is tucked at a level four corner of Funan Mall – where the indoor gym outlets are – and as our room was already ready before the usual check-in time of 3PM, we were able to get to our room an hour before that. To be sure, we’d adjusted our expectations on account that many guests had commented that the property has University hostel-vibes. To our pleasant surprise, yes the general layout and furnishing does remind me of my hostel rooms at NTU all those decades ago. Nonetheless, the room was very clean, efficiently laid-out, and reasonably lit – compared to the dark and gloomy vibes we got at our last stay (AMOY Hotel) last month.
The hotel also has a young people vibe. In fact, I reckon we might had been the only uncle-auntie types staying for the weekend. We saw a lot of young people and couples about!
The room has plenty of storage spaces designed into furnishing: not for huge luggage cases – those can’t be sequestered away – but if all you have are smaller luggage cases or backpacks and the like, there are lots of floor and elevated shelves for you to put them in and away.
The queen-sized bed sits on a platform, not unlike what we had at our first apartment at Rivervale years ago.
The room has bath and face towels, and also dispenser type toiletries (shower foam, shampoo, conditioner), and a hair dryer. For other items like cotton buds, and tooth brush/paste, you can request for them at the Reception counter. I actually prefer this type of arrangement: it seriously cuts down on waste.
The hotel doesn’t offer complimentary parking, but they do offer an overnight parking pass that costs SGD17.66. You can buy that at Reception. The staff there remarked also that there are limited passes that they can sell, but we couldn’t verify the veracity of that. Do note though that this pass is for a single-exit only, but it was super worth it in our case. We drove into Funan Mall at 10AM – there were plenty of lots available for the Saturday morning – and drove out at 9:45AM the following morning.
Our room package also came with dining credit: basically, three SGD20 vouchers that can be applied at the three different restaurant menus offered in the hotel. There are no catches: you just need to order at least SGD20 worth of food to enjoy the voucher. The online menu was a little confusing for us, but the Reception staff readily helped us with that: and we ordered around SGD61.30 worth of food, and yep, paid just SGD1.30 for the lot. We joked that if we put aside the overnight parking pass, the SGD60 food credit and application of the SGD100 Singapore Discovery Vouchers, it basically meant that we came out SGD10 ahead in this stay! The kitchen where the food is prepared is at level five. After placing your order through an online system, you basically just have to wait for a system notification telling you that the food is ready for collection at level five.
To be sure: the quality of food is good but not fantastic and out of this world ‘good’. But it was free, and extremely filling – and we had zero complaints about it.
As for areas that didn’t work well, there were just three: two minor, and the other potentially more serious if you’re unlucky.
The view from our room was the unglamorous side of the adjacent block – Peninsula Shopping Center I reckon. Our blinds ended up getting drawn down for the entire stay. If you’re not spending that much day time in the room, then this won’t matter.
The glass partition separating the shower stall and toilet bowl only goes about half-way. You’re not gonna be able to keep the bowl area dry when you shower.
The fire station – Central Fire Station – just across the road is a working establishment, and the sirens that signal departing engines could be heard from inside the room. Not deafening, but it’s not muffled either – semi-loud is how I’d described it. The well-liked Japanese blogger – Ghib Ojisan – commented that he was woken up from sleep by the sirens, so this might indeed be an issue for light sleepers. We got lucky though: there weren’t any sirens sounding off when we slept through the night, or maybe there were but we just slept like the dead!
In all, we enjoyed our stay, made especially attractive given the rates we paid and also the dining credit. And there’s a reasonable amount to see and do in Funan Mall, especially if you’re a camera and gadget gear head like me. Recommended!
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