captain_starwood

Thinking about doing a night here in December.

Can't find a review thread through SPG. Thoughts on:

-Location
-Room
-Treatment as a platinum
-Other?

lcpteck

Do take note the usual Platinum benefits like Room Upgrades, Breakfast, 4pm late checkout are exempted for Design Hotels. It doesn't mean they may not offer these services for free, just that they don't have to.

Design Hotels however do have a boutique feel to it though.

travelswithmyself

I'll do a review soon. But to answer quickly:
. location - not ideal. on the outskirts. surrounding a leetle seedy. access slightly difficult
. room - nice boutique feel. almost all especially higher tier rooms are unique. most can accomodate max 2 comfortable, 3 with a squeeze
. plat - point amenity as per usual, no breakfast, late checkout by request, free wifi standard for any guest

A different sort of stay. I liked it . But I live here and was bored with the other SPG choices.

captain_starwood

Interesting on the location. I have heard that the locale is a bit seedy, if not up and coming.

Rooms sound good. How does it compare to other SPG options for Singapore?

Melodsal

Since the start of the Design Hotels partnership I have been staying at New Majestic Hotel in Chinatown quite frequently (which has overtaken the Westin Singapore as my preferred hotel). I think the New Majestic Hotel is a sister hotel to Wanderlust.

Good
- Great location and very convenient
- Great and attentive staff
- Funky room designs: really different from the standard cookie cutter hotel chains
- Some of the best showers in any of the hotels I frequent; nice Kiehl's toiletries

Bad
- Breakfast sucks: don't get it (but there are lots of good local breakfast options nearby)
- Not a business hotel: no room service, housekeeping could use a bit more refinement (not in the job they do, but in when they come and knock/call even though the "Do Not Disturb" sign is on to ask if you really don't want to be disturbed), no overnight laundry, etc
- Tiny fitness centre that doesn't have a good selection of free weights and basically feels like an aquarium
- I avoid the outer rooms: I tried one once and had terrible problem sleeping due to the traffic noise.

ftrichard

I stayed there earlier this year. It's a hit and miss hotel regarding the actual rooms. I had a bland all-white room. Nothing interesting or boutique about it.

Friendly staff but benefits are non-existent. No breakfast. No evening drinks. Standard for Design Hotels. You get the SPG points as your welcome gift. That's all.

The services at the hotel are poor. The lobby bar wouldn't serve me a beer in the afternoon and the restaurant wouldn't let me put my meal on my room bill to accrue more points.

Try the new Four Point in the same category. Liked the location. Got a suite upgrade and buffet breakfast.

jpdx

Just spent a night here, mostly out of curiosity. I can't say that I'll be rushing back.

There were no elite benefits, and indeed no mention of SPG at all. I asked for a late checkout, and was told straight out, no. The rooms are small, and kind of bizarre; mine was all pink. It's really mostly bathroom with a raised area, where a mattress sits on the ground. There's no table, no luggage rack, no storage whatsoever. Nespresso machine and free (non-alcoholic) mini bar, though.

I didn't think the area was bad. I stay at the Intercontinental a lot, and it's a quick walk. Also nearby is Little India, the Mustafa center, and lots of good food options. If you're not averse to walking, it's not really that bad a location.

The place often has rates of SG$130 or so, and with a BRG, it's fine for single night if you arrive late and then move on somewhere better the next morning. (I'm currently writing this from a cabana room at the Sheraton, for which I paid roughly 30% more.)

ftrichard

Totally agree. This hotel is only useful for one thing: accruing SPG nights.

If you're not desperate for nights then there's not reason to come here. They treat all guests poorly not just SPG guests. I tried to get a beer in the afternoon from the bar in the lobby. Sorry. No can do. Not open yet. I ate in the restaurant in the evening but started in the back half of the evening and was rushed through the fixed menu and had to pay for it separately and not put it on my room bill so no chance of extra points.

They put me in the accessible room (ok, fine apart from the shower spraying the loo seat) and the mini bar door opened the wrong way which would have been impossible for a wheelchair guest to access.

No reason to stay here. Go to the nearby Vagabond (Tribute Portfolio) instead.

escape4

Same here. I booked a pantone room and got a pantone room. No breakfast or any other perks except for earning starpoints and the night credit.

If staying overnight only, I do not mind a small room, but this was SMALL. There is no table to lay down my stuff except for a small border near the wall about 5-10 cm wide. If you need to do some work on your laptop then you have to do it from the bed. The mattress is laying on the floor which is a bit odd.

The window of my room was actually looking at the elevator shaft so there is no natural light coming in the room. I would guess that not all rooms are like that but I possibly cannot have been given one of the nicest pantone rooms. Fortunately I was not disturbed by elevator noise during the night.

The Wanderlust is clearly the cheapest starwood option in town. Yes there are nicer properties but for most dates you will have to pay more. In the neighborhood of Wanderlust you can find the Hilton Garden Inn which is more like a "normal" hotel than the Wanderlust and rates at HGI are low as well and can compete with Wanderlust.

I am Hilton Diamond so I prefer to go to HGI than Wanderlust, but I would argue that even if you are exclusively Starwood, then you can have a room at HGI as cheap if not cheaper than Wanderlust, and since Wanderlust won't give you much (if at all) in terms of SPG Plat benefits then it does not matter. It matters only if you need the stay credit with Starwood.

Wanderlust normally has its lowest rate at 129 SGD for the pantone room. However the good thing is that usually even the lowest rate of 129 SGD is flexible, unlike many design hotels, which then opens to door to BRG. Once they run out of pantone rooms on spg.com you might find that the cheapest room is now the mono room for 169 SGD. If you can still find the pantone room on a third party website for 129 SGD then you'll pay 129 SGD, get the 2k bonus starpoints, and stay in the mono room rather than the pantone room. At this stage it becomes quite a good deal, and under those conditions I do not mind staying at Wanderlust instead of the HGI.

jiaogulan

OK, this is a hotel best:

- if you're alone and in Singapore on leisure and want to go explore the city.
- if you're alone and in Singapore on business and you have an office, co-working area, or cafe to go work at.
- if you're bringing your partner, spouse, whatever with you and you want a unique, non cookie-cutter hotel experience.
- you like Indian or Pakistani food / the Little India scene in general.

The restaurant is a completely separate establishment so please do not be shocked and appalled when you cannot get SPG points from your dining and drinking bill. The restaurant is not cheap, especially considering the surrounding restaurants.

The hotel, bar, and restaurant staff can have the aloof Singapore attitude thing going on + possibly throw in a socially awkward hipster vibe in some cases. I would not hold this specifically against the hotel. It's like being surprised with someone from the Northeast USA has the New Yorker / Bostonian vibe.

I would not call the location seedy. I mean, this is Singapore -- come on people. It is simply in Little India and it has a lot of food stalls and non-western establishments around. And you can get to anywhere in Singapore with a short taxi ride.

I love it, but you will NOT want to be in your room more than using the bed and showering if you're in the smaller, less expensive rooms. I cannot vouch for the larger rooms.

I like how my room has had the Blue Monday blue strobelite lighting going on. Not everyone will like it, however. This is not a Holiday Inn.

This is a generalization, but I would say if someone wants the boutique experience and is part of an older crowd, and especially if there is some money to play around with, and very especially if it's a romantic getaway -- go to Hotel Vagabond.

jpdx

I agree with escape4 that the main reason for staying here is the good BRG. It's not hard to find a competing rate a few dollars less than what SPG posts, so a single night here might cost some €80 and earn 3,000 Starpoints (including BRG reward). To jiaogulan's point, I don't think the area is bad -- I often stay at the IC in Singapore, and frequently walk to Little India. I live in Portland, so I'm no stranger to hipster wannabe stuff; I just don't think the Wanderlust pulls it off particularly well. Not that it matters -- I can see myself staying here a couple times a year for a single night on a late arrival -- do laundry in the coin laundry around the corner, eat some delicious food, and pay almost nothing when factoring in the points discount.

That said, I'm not in my early twenties, and I value other things in my hotel stays. Like: having a desk in my room. After the Wanderlust, I moved to the Sheraton, where I have a very good BRG rate (SGD158++). It's not a spectacular hotel by any stretch of the imagination, but there's a lounge (very basic for Asia), and I got an upgrade to a cabana room -- not everyone's cup of tea either, perhaps, but one of my favorite upgrades in a city hotel. I'll be fine here for a week, and I think I would have tired of the Wanderlust pretty quickly.

ftrichard

Except the hotel goes out of its way to make it appear that the restaurant and bar are part of the hotel. They’re seamlessly integrated into the entrance and lobby with no physical indication that you are going into something “other”. The hotel breakfast is served in the restaurant. The hotel’s website features the bar as the main picture on the front page and has a dining tab that tells you about the chef and his French concept. Menus are left in your room.

“Shocked and appalled” is ridiculous terminology. Mildly irritated and mislead would be more accurate. The point is that you can’t get points for eating there and the hotel does nothing to indicate this. Quite the opposite.

escape4

While the Pantone room is incredibly small even for a quick overnight, the Mono room is of a "normal" hotel room size and at least has a desk. The Mono room along with BRG is very good value. Couple of pictures of the Mono room I got below (called "Princess").

kaizen7

escape4

Thanks for the update. It looks like this hotel is now part of "Unlisted Collection" which has properties in London, Dublin, and Sydney. Never heard of them.

With Wanderlust gone, a decent alternative in Singapore in that part of town and for equally cheap (and better elite benefits) is Hilton Garden Inn Serangoon. Not Marriott though.