The Fullerton Hotel – Classic but not stuffy

Recently Mike and I spent a few days at the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore. It’s the only Singaporean hotel listed as an Historic Hotel Worldwide .

From their website, a hotel can be nominated per the following:

Historic hotels, castles, chateaus, palaces, academies, haciendas, villas, manor houses, country estates, monasteries, and other historical lodging properties must meet the following criteria:

Minimum age of 75 years

Presently used as historic accommodations

A former home or on the grounds of former home of famous persons or significant location for an event in history

Located in or within walking distance to historic district, historically significant landmark, place of historic event, or historic city center

Recognized by local preservation organization or national trust

Visual historic display to include memorabilia, artwork, photography, and other examples of its historic significance

The Fullerton was originally built for office space, and was used to house the General Post Office – the first anchor tenant in 1928. I thought the following tidbit from Wikipedia Article on The Fullerton Hotel Singapore was interesting:

“The GPO covered the two lower floors with postal halls, offices and sorting rooms. There were mail drops through which mail would fall to a band conveyor on the basement and dispatched up to the sorting room. The basement was connected to a 35-metre subway that ran underneath Fullerton Road to a pier, where overseas mail would be transferred to or picked up from ships.^[2]^[4]”

How cool is that? “overseas mail would be transferred to or picked up from ships” …..via a subway to the pier! Given how much overseas mail I send now to Helen, I have true appreciation for those ships!

The hotel itself is absolutely gorgeous – soaring ceilings in the lobby, calming designs, beautiful columns and more. But what makes this place so wonderful is the staff. Having stayed many places over the years, 5-star hotels can be stuffy. Definitely not this one. The staff is approachable and always down-to-earth friendly. Yes, while making the arrangements, Mike mentioned it was our anniversary – but just in passing. When we checked in, they’d decorated our room, left us a lovely welcome & congratulatory note, as well as a bottle of wine to enjoy. But what really made us smile, is that every staff member we came across would congratulate us! I know some had seen it in our record (as we asked them a question), but others just remembered Mike when he’d come originally!

Oh! We also stayed on the Club Floor – would highly recommend it! It includes full breakfast buffet in the morning, including any type of coffee you could think of (cappuccino,etc), and evening appetizers & drinks (which can definitely fill you up).

We had a wonderful stay. Not a place we can run away to every weekend, but a fantastic respite from the craziness of life every once in a while.