Staycation at Village Hotel Changi

My #1 was a bit disappointed to learn that we weren’t planning any holiday trip this December. We did go somewhere in June, and although we did consider something for December, it was eventually postponed. So anyhow, the wife suggested booking a staycation, and so we got ourselves a room at Village Hotel Changi.

Our kids have simple likes. While we had stayed at numerous hotels at Resorts World Singapore several times, the only thing that they truly loved seemed to be the swimming pool cum artificial beach at the Hard Rock Hotel. If it’s just swimming pools and beach that we need, I’m sure Village Hotel Changi would prove to be equally enjoyable.

We drove to the hotel, and went straight to park in the dinghy car park. I’ve often wondered why so many hotels look pretty all over, in and out, but just except the car park. Check-in time is from 2pm, and we were there a little after that.

The hotel lobby was a little smallish, but functional. There are several restaurants on the ground level, one of which, the Saltwater Cafe, we’ll be patronising a few times in the course of our stay.

Village Hotel Changi seems to be doing well. There were quite a number of other guests checking in at that time, so it took a little while before it got to my turn.

I booked a Deluxe Room, and the total cost after taxes is S$177.13 per night. I was given a room on the 5th level of the 7-storey hotel. The 8th level is sort of the roof top. The outdoors infinity swimming pool is there. There is, however, an indoor restaurant and some other facility with two additional covered floors there as well.

At just 25m², the Deluxe Room isn’t big. Fortunately, the space is used wisely, and can accommodate my family of five.

Instead of clunky sofas that occupy too much space, Village Hotel chose to go with a simple bench against the window. The cushions can be removed, so you can redesign the room to your needs. We did remove the cushions, and realised that housekeeping has probably not removed them to do any cleaning ever since the room was refurbished.

The bedside tables take the form of a simple platform bench too. Perfectly functional.

The five of us, unfortunately, couldn’t fit on a single king-sized bed. But that’s another matter altogether, of course.

The in-thing nowadays seems to be for bathrooms to have see-through windows. That’s what Village Hotel Changi has done here. There’s a roller blind that you can pull down to cover the window if you don’t wish for your bath time to be observed.

Speaking of baths, I am disappointed that the room came with only one set of towels (bath and hand towel). There wasn’t even a floor towel provided. Considering that they know from the room reservation that there will be four persons (the system did not let me put in five persons in the reservation), surely I’d expect the room to be prepared with four sets of towels.

If the hotel did not think to look into the reservation record to prepare the room, then surely having two sets of towels would be a minimum to expect? There was also only one bathrobe provided in the cupboard. I imagine this must be an oversight of housekeeping.

There’s a bath tub, which has one of those rain-effect kind of shower head. The tub itself, however, seems to suffer an installation problem. When water gets sprayed onto any of the walls, it runs down to the edges of the tub, and eventually drains out over the open edge onto the floor. The floor gets very, very wet.

Other fixtures in the bathroom are otherwise functional. I do wish for more towel rails and/or racks. There is only one rail good for just one towel. It seemed like this room was designed for single occupancy. (Maybe that’s why there was only one set of towels to begin with.)

Back in the room, there’s a LCD TV (probably 42″ size?) and a mini-fridge in the cabinet below it. The fridge is stocked only upon request. The TV programming is, I believe, from SingTel Mio. There’re channels like HBO Movies Premium to keep you entertained throughout the day, if you’re going to just stay in the room.

Complimentary instant coffee and tea is included, and there’s also an electric kettle available.

There’s both a data port and a LAN port on the desk. I’m not sure if they work. I didn’t need to use them as Wi-Fi is provided free-of-charge. Wi-Fi works great, not just in the room, but also anywhere in the hotel.

I’ve no photos of the wardrobe. It’s good sized, with a number of drawers to store your clothes. There’s also a safe provided, the kind that you can lock/unlock with the magnetic stripe on your credit card.

This is a sea-facing room. Unfortunately, there’s not much of the beach or sea that I could actually see. The 5th level isn’t high enough, and the Civil Service Club opposite us sort of blocked off the beach view.

One of the highlight features of Village Hotel Changi is their infinity swimming pool, located on the 8th level of the hotel. It’s nothing like that of Marina Bay Sands, of course, but it is an infinity pool nonetheless.

The 8th level isn’t very high, but it’s the near to the sea, and with no other taller buildings obstructing your view, you can easily look out and see the neighbouring islands like Pulau Ubin and Pulau Tekong. There’s not much of Singapore you can see from Village Hotel Changi, but perhaps if plane spotting is your cup of tea, or star gazing, the view from the infinity pool should be quite good.

There is a children’s wading pool at one end, and a jacuzzi at the other end.

There’s also an open deck to host functions. They hosted a marriage solemnisation event in that afternoon we checked in. There’s an Italian restaurant, La Cantina, at the far end.

Apart from the infinity swimming pool at the top floor, there’s another pool on the ground floor. It’s elevated above the ground, with a glass wall on one side, so you can see under the water. It sort of looks like an aquarium to me. The hotel calls this the Creek Swimming Pool.

There are deck chairs lined up on the other side of the pool, and still more around the area for you to relax. This hotel sounds like a great destination to relax and unwind. It would have been really nice had they been truly a beach front property, with a parcel of private beach on the hotel premises itself.

Moving on, there’s an outdoor koi pond located on the 6th level. They do sell packets of fish feed at S$2 each to feed the koi. My kids enjoy feeding the koi, it’s one of the activities they looked forward to. The koi weren’t terribly hungry on the first day, though we had slightly better luck with hungrier koi when we came back the second day.

The 6th level also has more lounging options in the outdoor area for you to relax or chit chat. There’s no F&B outlet here, so bring your own.

All the dining we had in the hotel was at the Saltwater Cafe on the ground level. We went for the weekend international dinner buffet. It costs S$48++ per adult and S$24++ per child over 6 years old. This is their festive pricing. According to the poster board at the lobby, the price ought to have been S$42/S$21, since it wasn’t considered a festive day when I was there. The lobby staff, however, confirmed it to be S$48/S$24, and that was what I got charged. Someone or other must be wrong.

If you’re the kind to look forward to great variety at a buffet, this one will disappoint. If you’re looking for oysters, like it seems to be a particular favourite that many Singaporeans zero-in on, you’re also out of luck. This may be an international buffet, but perhaps the only Japanese in there is a messy presentation of salmon sashimi.

At the starters section, you’ll find salads, and a ice bed of crabs, prawns and scallops, among others.

The mains are mostly local dishes. For example, they had lor mee, laksa, mutton rendang, chicken curry, and several other local favourites.

There’s an outdoor BBQ station with meat, crayfish, satay and sausages. The food is barbecued to order. The crayfish was quite nicely done, and I had second helpings of that.

If you’re a durian fan, you’ll be delighted to know that durian pengat is on the desserts menu, as are ice cream and ice kachang. Durian pengat, in case you’re wondering, is sweetened durian pulp blended with coconut milk. It’s quite good.

Since it’s still the Christmas season, the obligatory ham and turkey is on the table too.

Overall, I’d say the food quality is average. Some of the items were good, but overall there wasn’t anything outstanding. In my opinion, even the non-festive S$42 buffet price seems to be slightly pricey, considering that the hotel is in a somewhat out-of-the-way location. Not surprisingly, the restaurant wasn’t crowded. I imagined the only diners were hotel guests.

We also had breakfast at the same Saltwater Cafe for two days. The breakfast buffet spread was rather average. You have the typical selection of cereals, bread, pastries, and other hot items. I don’t understand why the standard pork bacon had to be replaced with turkey bacon. It’s not like this was a halal establishment. There’s an eggs station, and a miserable selection of dim sum.

Breakfast was priced at S$18 per pax.

There are a couple of other amenities in the hotel that I’ve not yet mentioned:

• Spa facilities
• Gymnasium
• Club Lounge (for club room guests)
• Japanese restaurant
• Vau Wine Bar
• The Wine Company

We did go out of the hotel to enjoy other activities around Changi Village. I’ll post about that another day. Village Hotel Changi is right in the heart of Changi Village, so it is really convenient to walk around the area.