👎 Room was only ready at 6pm, no personalization or little touches.
Our Year of the Covid 🦠 Staycay tour continues* at the gorgeous Fullerton Bay Hotel! Being perched directly on the banks of Marina Bay (opposite Marina Bay Sands), the hotel's Bay View rooms are essentially directly over the waters of the bay, so we're pretty excited about the stay!
* Hotels in the Staycay tour:
Raffles Hotel | Capella Singapore | Marriott Tang Plaza | The St.Regis Singapore | Grand Hyatt | The Fullerton Bay Hotel | Parkroyal Collection, Marina Bay | Marina Bay Sands.
First impressions were, unfortunately, quite sour as our room wasn't available even though we turned up at the 3pm check in time. We were then basically asked to leave the hotel and go entertain ourselves for the '45 minutes' it would take to get the room ready. We went to the One Fullerton Starbucks for coffee and babycino to wait for a phone call (that never came). With a cranky toddler in tow, we headed back to the hotel lobby to eventually get our keys at 6pm - three hours after check-in time / our arrival at the hotel. No service recovery was offered - we had to press the receptionist into agreeing to comp an in-room dining dinner.
Once we got our keys and got settled into the room our moods did begin to lift a little, though! At 495–570sqft, the Bay View Rooms are big enough to feel comfortably spacious, with enough free space for the little one to freely run around even with a large desk, and sofa chairs / coffee table in the way.
While I'm not a fan of the carpet design or the slightly 'old world' feel of the sofa seats, the rest of the room feels luxurious and classy. The bed / mattress are - as expected of any hotel nowadays - extremely comfortable, although the non-adjustable air conditioning vent blows directly onto the center of the mattress.
A door on the left opens up to a pretty sizeable, mostly rain-sheltered balcony, which is a great place to laze away the evenings. If you have a toddler, you might have to keep an eye on him/her though: Although the balcony area is toddler safe, there is a very small gap between the floor and the glass railing which will allow little ones to drop/throw thin items onto the units below.
The television's big enough, and has the usual complement of local and cable television channels. We also liked the Harman Kardon bluetooth speaker, which allowed us to play - at a reasonable volume - our own music while relaxing on the balcony.
Day and night curtains, and all lights are electrically controlled at the bedside (panel can be folded into the side table once you get tired of your little one constantly turning everything on and off). Plus points for the room lighting being very bright when everything's on.
The minibar is very well stocked, but anything other than water, coffee, or tea is chargeable at normal (read: exorbitant) hotel rates. How normal? Well ... the medium-sized pack of wet wipes goes for SGD8. The countertop is more than big enough to prepare milk for the little one, and fridge cold enough to store any leftovers that he doesn't drink.
Over at the desk, there are VGA and line in, and HDMI ports in addition to two universal power sockets, so you can play your own content from your laptop (or tablet) if you're not a fan of local / cable channels. Housekeeping should be able to loan you a cable or two if you don't have your own.
A special shoutout to the bathrobe in the Fullerton Bay Hotel, which is insanely comfortable: Probably the fluffiest / plushest ones we've ever tried on. It's so comfortable that if we didn't live in a 30-degree-all-year-round climate we'd have totally bought a pair for our own home use.
No bathrobes (or slippers) for the little one ... though it's not like he would appreciate it.
Moving on to the bathroom: The bathtub (and entire bathroom, really) has a large window (with electric blinds, if you aren't staying with people who you're comfortable naked with) so you can still take in that the Marina Bay (Sands) view while taking a luxurious bath-salted soak.
If you're not so interested in the scenery, the bathtub wall has a smaller television built in so you can watch TV instead.
Water temperature and pressure are really good, and bathroom amenities are pretty much complete (mostly Balmain-branded).
Of course, one main selling point of the Fullerton Bay Hotel is the view, which really doesn't disappoint whether in the day or at night.
Once you're tired of lazing around on the balcony enjoying the view, you can head up to the roof* to get some exercise in the fitness center / gym (which truth be told, doesn't seem particularly sizeable even given the hotel's relatively boutique ~100 room size).
*Note: As you might expect, bookings do need to be made beforehand thanks to covid.
The pool is much better sized, and there are (relatively) large wading areas at the sides for toddlers to wade around and play with toys or whatever with little risk of drowning. If you're not planning to actually swim, though, there are a few mini jacuzzi pools off to the side (which can probably comfortably hold a 4-6 person family).
Once you're done with gym or swim, it might probably be time for food! Room service (or I guess it's called 'in room dining' nowadays) is perhaps a little on the pricey side, but the food options are good, and actual food quality is great! We had an order of lobster roll, braised beef cheeks, and a side of mashed potato, and all came hot and delicious.
Naturally, baby / high chairs are available for loan (from room service / housekeeping).
Breakfast in the mornings is at La Brasserie, the hotel's French restaurant. The restaurant's decor is gorgeous, and the leather-topped tables are a particular luxury that we've not encountered before. Breakfast is ala-carte buffet style, with juices, coffee/tea, fruits, and bread basket accompanying unlimited orders of western and asian main courses.
Of the dishes we tried, the eggs were pretty good (though the benedict could use a tad bit more hollandaise). The Laksa was also pretty good, as was the dimsum and congee (except that the cruller / you tiao / 油条 was a little tough). Overall one of the better hotel breakfasts that we've had in recent memory, inferior only to the breakfast at the Raffles Hotel.
Overall, giving the Fullerton Bay Hotel a final score is a little tricky. We paid SGD428++ a night thanks to a Citi Prestige promo, but non-promo rates are usually 50% higher. At the price we paid, other than the 6pm room check in (which was satisfactorily compensated with the in-room dinner), we did have a very enjoyable stay and wouldn't hesitate to come back again. at non-promo rates, though, we would perhaps expect that little extra mile: For example, a simple call earlier in the day to inform us of a room delay, or a personalized welcome amenity (no matter how small).
