Goodwood Park Hotel (henceforth, GWP) is the second oldest hotel in Singapore. Certain aspects do feel old but it has its charms. I always wanted to staycay here but the pricing was quite unaffordable (about $500 for the cheapest room). Recently, the price dropped, and I paid $250 for the Mayfair Deluxe Room (which includes breakfast) on a Friday. (Prices are the same from Friday-Sun but it gets a lot cheaper from Mon-Thu.)

SERVICE
The service was pretty good, many of them were old staff, which made it feel like they were my family. Like they were my grandpas and grandmas.

What was truly memorable was the bellhop leading us to our room because the place was a labyrinth. While walking, he introduced himself and told us he had worked more than 40 years at GWP and previously, he worked at Raffles Hotel — so he worked at the two oldest hotels in Singapore.

ROOM
The decor felt like it was a chalet in the 80s — not a bad thing! It felt like a corner being forgotten by time. This is a virtual tour of the room, starting from the entrance:

Pros of the room:
– clean
– all necessary amenities, such as safe and iron and hairdryer, are present
-there is a balconey! Which is great, but people next door to us were smoking constantly, and we seldom went out.

Cons:
– the design of the room is outdated. Requires a revamp.
– second tiniest bathtub I have ever been.
– the bed feels like thousands of people have slept on it before.
– there is only a phone-charging USB on one side of the bed. Usually both sides of the bed have charging stations.
– when kids play at the pool, the Mariah-Carey pitch reverberates through the room (because it is an enclosed space and sound is trapped).
– the TV is placed at an awkward to the bed, so we had to twist our heads to watch tv.

Here’s a video of the room:

FACILITIES

Like all hotels in Singapore now, you need to make booking to use the hotel facilities. Unlike many hotels, however, GWP doesn’t have security checking if you’ve booked the facilities. At the pool, which only allowed 5 guests at time–we booked the timing–there were two other families there, totalling 8 members. Including us, there were 10 people at the pool. You know, old money doesn’t care about rules. It’s nice feeling like that, but at the same time, I am scared of COVID.

1. Two Pools

GWP has two pools. The bigger pool is near the hotel lobby. If you’ve dined at L’espresso before, you’d have seen the pool. It’s in the public eye, but it’s bigger without any shade. This is for serious swimmers or serious sunbathers.

The other pool, the Mayfair pool, is smaller and enclosed by hotel rooms. You can’t see any tall buildings at certain spots at the pool. Surrounded by palm trees and other verdure, the quiet pool is really quite lovely, reminding us of Bali.

But be careful, especially those with kids. One end of the pool is 2m deep. I thought pools deeper than 1.2m require lifeguards. But there were no lifeguards. I put it down to old money philosophy.

2. Gym

The gym is quite sad. Just a few cardio machines and weights. They should really consult a gym trainer (or me) to see what people want.

3. Breakfast at Coffee Lounge

I think many of us have been to Coffee Lounge before, either for their popular durian buffet or for their Taiwanese porridge buffet. I’ve been here countless times.

My motto when there is hotel breakfast is: eat so much that we can skip lunch. But here, the selection was rather limited. There were the American breakfast set (fruits, eggs, toast), Japanese breakfast set (bento with grilled fish), and Asian breakfast set (congee, noodles soup).

Tastewise, it was okay. The scrambled eggs and congee were nice. No complaints.

CONCLUSION

Pros:
– Grandpa, grandma service, feels like home
– the Mayfair pool is lovely, reminds us of Bali. You can’t see buildings at the pool. Feels like you’re on an isolated island.
– clean room

Cons:
– Design of room is outdated, some furnishing (like the bed) need to be changed
– gym needs some updating too
– more stringent measures for COVID

Goodwood Park Hotel
22 Scotts Road, Singapore 228221
Tel: +65 6737 7411

You may be interested in…
– Staycation: Andaz Singapore – Studio Suite King Review
– The Capitol Kempinski Hotel Review: One of the Best Staycations ever
– Fullerton Hotel Staycation Review: Wonderful But Need to Work on COVID Measures
– Staycation at Marina Bay Sands Hotel Singapore Review: No, You Can’t Steal the Toiletries Home!

Written by Dr. A. Nathanael Ho.