Date of stay: March 2017
Since it was J’s birthday, I decided to surprise him with a luxurious-ish pampering staycay, to get his mind off work and away from all the crazy house reno, wedding, planning stuff.
I decided then on Oasia Novena because it looked peaceful and quite luxurious, and had a good location (near food, yay!) without an exorbitant price tag. At the very last minute, I decided to get the Club Room (for the first time) for extra pampering.
With the club room, we were to have Club Lounge access – a private lounge and pool area with refreshments and snacks, as well as a nice room with a bathtub!
Did we enjoy the staycay? Yes.
Was it worth it? Hmm.
Let me share more and you can decide on your own.
ROOM
The room was slightly on the small side at 25sq-meter. No complaints there though, as it looked really good and was comfortable, just a little less walking space than we expected.
Although there were some reviews of people not getting a bathtub, I’m glad we got a room with one!
Club Room Perk: Complimentary in-room selection of healthy beverages.
This was actually 2 packets of coconut water, 2 sparkling water and 2 bottles of normal mineral water in fridge. Really? We were hoping for a little minibar or even free chips, but I guess that’s not counted as healthy at all. Haha.
Other Club Room Perks: Cable TV Channels (yes, loads of Harry Potter movies to keep us entertained), Nespresso coffee, premium bath amenities… so this was alright, and while really nice, nothing much to be wowed over as well.
CLUB LOUNGE
This was actually the only reason why I would consider getting a Club Rooms again. The club lounge is on the 22nd floor with indoor seating and an outdoor pool area with more seating options.
I loved that we could chill there with unlimited coffee/tea and some snacks (peanuts, tapioca chips..). It made me wonder if this was what I had been missing out all my life. Lol. Okay, but seriously, it was quite good. The staff there are attentive, and don’t judge when you pig out on a bowl of chips. Plus the coffee they make is quite good.
They also had cocktail hours from 6pm – 8pm where you can get free flow cocktails, red and white wine along with some light bites.
YASS.
The light bites were even quite fancy, and we had that for dinner (not really because we were cheap, but because of such a late check-in, more on that later!).
The other thing I really loved was the pool area – a pool and heated Jacuzzi without the massive crowd. Yes.
Because of the cold weather (it was pouring), we stayed mostly in the heated Jacuzzi, which was heavenly, and amazing at night! Love love love.
SO WHAT’S MEH ABOUT IT?
Okay, so on the website it stated that a Club Room perk was “priority check-in”. In my mind, that’s pretty awesome itself, because what better way to start a relaxing staycay than to skip the long queues of people checking in and out and having a expedited check-in?
When we arrived, we asked around for the priority check-in, only to be told that it doesn’t exist anymore. Whut.
We were ushered to join in the queue and I was a little annoyed. When it finally got to our turn, I asked again about the priority check-in and the concierge said as well “Oh, we don’t have that anymore. That recently changed.”
While she was saying that (I kid you not, WHILE she was saying that), there was an Ipad displayed right next to me encouraging guests to upgrade to a Club Room with one of the perks being “priority check-in”. Okay.
To this date, it’s still featured on the website as a benefit of getting a club room. Now looking back, it’s probably not THAT big of a deal, but it was rather disappointing to have the expectation of a fuss-free priority check-in but being told to join the crowd.
*Another perk of Club Room – guaranteed either early check-in or late check-out. (Being Singaporean, I requested for both, lol)
But the thing that happened was that our room wasn’t ready, and would only be ready at 5pm. It was around 2.30pm at that point of time, so that meant at least 2 hours of waiting.
However, they agreed to let us have a late checkout at 5pm the next day, and we could wait it out in the club lounge with coffee and snacks. Pros and cons, I guess? There were also quite a few guests waiting impatiently there, and occasionally going to check with the staff whether their room was ready. Again not a big deal,, but a rather disappointing start.
PRICE
So was it worth it? I guess it boils down to the price.
The Club Room on Hotels.com (which I do almost all my bookings on) was originally $340, but had a discount at that time of booking to about $280. I’m not sure about you, but that’s on the higher side for us, as we don’t usually spend that much on a staycation.
CONCLUSION
I am still quite undecided if it was worth it, to be honest. Spending that much (for me), I was expecting the weekend to be a little smoother, from a priority fuss-free check-in (that was promised) to a comfortable-slightly luxurious stay.
So it started off shaky with the definitely-not priority check-in, super late delay, but it got slightly smoothened by the late check-out and club lounge perks. So I guess it’s like GPA – once your first semester kind of screws up, even though your subsequent semesters’ GPAs are good, you probably won’t get a stellar cGPA at the end.
Maybe I’ll just stick to normal rooms from now?
What do you think? Was it worth it or not?
Comments are closed.