Our second time staying at Grand Park City Hall, after our wedding, so it brought back wonderful memories. For most parts of the pandemic, the hotel remained closed to leisure tourists as it functioned as a quarantine place.

We waited in line for about 5 minutes before it was our turn to check in. During one of the flash sales on 3.3, I bought this deal for a staycation in Grand Park. At that time, Singapore was not fully open for travels without restrictions so I decided to have a relaxing time at a local hotel. The package was $190 for a junior suite, with breakfast, afternoon tea and evening cocktail benefits, which I thought was a very good deal. I also chose to celebrate my wife’s birthday during the staycation.

We went to our room to put down our stuff. There was a partition from the door to conceal the bedroom area for more privacy. We had a king bed which was super comfortable. However, due to the shape of the building, the TV was not directly in front of the bed and had to be placed at an awkward angle.

There was a smaller living room area with sofa and couch for us to relax. The view from our room was not that great, and it was facing a carpark. It felt weird to see people standing around their car and smoking, so we drew the blinds most of the time.

The bathroom was very spacious. There was no bathtub unfortunately, so we could not use the bath bombs. However, there was a nice, big rain shower and also a sauna facility installed in this bathroom.

Amenities from Appelles. Its products offer a modern take on apothecary and science. Combining the latest technologies with vitamins and extracts, it offers luxurious skin and hair formulations designed to deliver results and indulge the senses. I love the fragrance of its products, from the conditioner to the body wash. It is an Australian owned brand.

The toiletries was placed in a bright, yellow box, which contains toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, shower cap etc.

As for the tea selection, Grand Park uses 1872 Clipper Tea Co, which has a boutique at ION Orchard. A heritage tea brand, focused on providing fresh and high quality tea products through exciting customer experiences at an affordable price.

After a short rest, we went down to the third floor Crystal Club Lounge for this special suite members to have our afternoon tea. I thought we could go to the club lounge on the top floor, but it was not accessible to us as we did not have the status.

Afternoon tea consisted of a simple tray with sweet and savoury items, such as chocolate eclair, chocolate ganache cake, lemon meringue tart, cream cheese tart, smoked salmon on graham cracker and many other delectables.

The scones were pretty decent too, they were buttery and crumbly. It was served with clotted cream and jam on the side. We also had a pot of tea each, one camomile and one earl grey.

After the afternoon tea, we went back to the room, only to come down to the exact same place at 6pm. It was my favourite moment as it meant free flow drinks during the cocktail happy hour. I had a few glasses of champagne, white wine and Prosecco.

As part of the cocktail happy hour, we were served some finger food. There was red bean buns, the smoked salmon from tea, cream cheese tart and squid with ikura on rice cracker.

Sweets included the same desserts from afternoon tea, so it felt like it was a repeat of the previous stuff we had eaten. It was too much sugar so we did not finish all of them.

Breakfast was served at Tablescapes restaurant, and again we were seated at Crystal Club Lounge. The waiters were quite busy so they took a long time to serve us and to take our orders. We chose the Eggs beendict for the customised egg menu. We had to go to the buffet spread to take the breakfast items on our own. The breakfast items had a good spread, with a spread of continental, American and local dishes. It boasts a wide selection of food such as cornflakes, salad, nasi lemak with fried chicken wings, hash brown, roti prata, waffles as well as dim sum. 

To maximise our stay, we relaxed at the pool after breakfast, before heading to the shower and getting ready for our checkout. It was a short one night stay at Grand Park, but very relaxing for us. Even though we had just come back from our trip to Fiji where we stayed at DoubleTree Hilton, having a staycation in Singapore was different because we are in close proximity to many malls and restaurants. The scenery is different and I would not hesitate to stay at this hotel again, but probably will like to try their Oasis Junior Suite.