Singapore Hotel Tips by Thumbee

We moved here from our disastrous two-day one night (booked on the internet) stay at the Gallery Hotel. More on that under the Gallery hotel.
The Copthorne is just a little out of the way if you are looking for a buslting street as you step out of your hotel (somewhere on Orchard Rd. would do that for you).
But its deliciously close to Newton circus, where we spent our last night in Singapore with just 45 dollars on hand, loads of food from make-shift Bombay Chowpatty-style (for those in the know, this will conjure up the image pretty nicely) and chugging beer after beer and doing so much of people watching while slowly getting nice and sozzled, But always remembering we had to save 6$ for our taxi ride back.
The Copthorne is one of those slightly un-involved places, if you get what I mean. It runs well, one might say, and there's not too much pomp and show, if you get my drift...


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Theme: Hotel
Comparison: about average
Prices: US$40-80  » Currency Converter
Address: 214 DUNEARN ROAD, SINGAPORE 299526, Singapore null

We booked this hotel at asiarooms.com, and it's a decision we will regret for a while. We decided to book The Glazzhaus, which is a step above the standard. Looking forward to staying at a hotel as 'funky' as the gallery, we found that although the lobby is spankingly clean and funkily designed, one only needed to get to the rooms. Peeling, dirty and musty-smelling carpets in the corridors, wall paint peeling off, newpaper racks hanging off hooks on their last threads. But these are only the sights during the walk to one's room. The concierge (or whoever, seemed to us like he was a multi-tasking employee with various job-profiles including waiting on tables...) opens the door...uh...barely missing the corner of our queen-size bed. So pulling luggage in -somehow- we are looking for place to put it on....but there is none! Walking around the bed while the door is open was a bit if a juggling experience, for starters. As you can imagine, everything was cramped, and the bathroom, tiled 'stylishly' in gray -or was it black?- lacks any character, as does the room. The curtains are stained, the woodwork is coming away in layers, the room smells musty and totally lacking ventilation, and oh...I could go on. (I think the only openable vents were in the bathroom!)
The breakfast is lack-lustre (you'd do much better getting out and heading for any of the road-side stalls that offer a delectable variety of foods for any time of day), and the much harped-about swimming pool with glass walls is...err...only transparent from the walls. the water itself is a grimy green. ewww.
DO NOT believe ANY of the good comments out on the internet, please. The Gallery Hotel needs a HUGE overhaul, and the place, honestly, has a lot of potential. Just NOT in the state it is in, now. I can't deny that it has elements of it's chic-'ness' from the days gone by (you can tell by the design concept still maintained in the restaurant on the first floor and in the lobby), but it's gone now. Need I say more.

Unique Qualities: This is what the hotel thinks about itself....the stuff we got sold on:

The Gallery Hotel, right beside the Singapore river on Robertson Quay, you will find Singapore's first and only "beyond the ordinary" hotel, The Gallery. The unconventional, exciting architectural design of the building at Robertson Quay has created much interests from the general public. For example, the pool is a cantilevered lap pool with its bottom partially exposed, situated at the top of the building with three sides of glass wall. The swimming pool, a sky oasis is evocative of serenity and calmness amidst the lush greeneries. Window frames on some parts of the hotel are in vivid colours and at night the innovative lighting accentuates the structure.

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Theme: Hotel
Comparison: about average
Prices: US$80-120  » Currency Converter
Phone: 68498686
Address: 76 Robertson Quay Singapore 23 Singapore 0
Directions: Close enough to Clark Quay -home to a long string of pretty nice restaurants and a reverse bungee area at one end of this loooong line of restaurants, although how the two match, I have no clue!