I usually stay at the Ibis Bencoolen when I go to Singapore, but as I only had a one night stopover, I thought I would try somewhere different. The hotel is a 10-15min walk into Chinatown and very near the Maxwell Food Centre if you like local hawker food. The hotel is situated in a great street with pubs, cafes, restaurants and bakeries.

On checking in, I was told that it was a room only rate, no breakfast included. But I vaguely remembered that I booked this hotel because it came with breakfast. There was no mention on my confirmation email about "breakfast", but it did mention "1929 promotion", and I pointed this out to them, but they didn't know what that meant, so I was told "definitely no breakfast". One guy at the reception desk said that if I "can prove to them", then they will look into it! In the end, as I was not getting anywhere, I just took my card, and went to my room.

I looked into it further once I got to my room, and then I remembered that I had booked directly with the hotel website, and a promotion they had was a free breakfast for booking direct with the hotel. I found this information on their website, and went back down to reception to show them. They had a look at the webpage, then said to me "we'll have to check with the reservations desk, as we don't do the bookings here"! What a joke! I couldn't believe that they were arguing with a hotel guest over a breakfast that probably costs them less than SG$5.

About 10 minutes later, I had a knock on my door, with a guy from reception confirming that "Yes", I did have complimentary breakfast with my room. He never said the word "Sorry", but instead said "we have to be careful about giving breakfast, because if we give it, and it is not correct, we have to pay for it from our own money!" Really, is this how Management at this hotel treats it's staff?

The single room was exactly as pictured on their website, compact, but all I needed for an overnight stay. No fridge or safe in my room. There was a kettle and cup, but no tea/coffee/sugar supplies, very strange indeed. It was clean, and the cleaners I encountered were friendly and said hello as I walked past. Breakfast was cooked to order and delicious, with western and asian choices on the menu. The staff in the restaurant were very pleasant.

I happened to see a queen room being cleaned.... the room was really tiny, on several levels, and would have be a tripping hazard.

Would I stay again? Not sure.

Pros: great location, close to lots of nice restaurants and 2 metro stations, nice and friendly staff, clean rooms, comfortable bed.
Cons: small rooms, lots of noise, bad breakfast, staff did not have great tourist knowledge
We stayed here for 3 nights on our way to Thailand. We booked a queen with balcony and we were happy with the room until my husband, who is over 6ft 2in, realised he could not sit on the toilet and fit his legs in as it was so close to the wall infront. The first night in that room the live music in the bar downstairs (which is part of the hotel) was very loud and going on well past 10pm. Which was not great as we were very jet lagged. So the next morning we asked to be moved to a room with a bigger/better laid out bathroom. The manager was very nice about it. She said they were very busy so we couldn't have the same type of room but we could have a 'free up-grade'. So we moved to a room at the back of the building.
I had to look on their website to figure out how this was an upgrade as the room was a similar size to the first one but with less storage space and small windows. I realised it was a bigger bed which is why it was a more expensive room. If I had splashed out and got a king room and ended up in there I would have been really disappointed. There was hardly any space to move or put our luggage. If we had a suitcase each it would have been impossible!
There was also near constant noise from an A.C. unit outside and LED lights on the ceiling and light from the hall which meant I slept really badly.
It is a budget price so I wasn't surprised but if I went back I would book a queen without a balcony.
Breakfast was not included and most mornings we went to cafes in the area which were really nice but on the last morning we paid for breakfast in the hotel. We both asked for a Latte and got coffee with milk. I asked for a toasted cheese sandwich which was not at all as it was described on the menu (and not very nice) and my husband got eggs Benedict which was ok but the sauce was more like big blobs of mayonnaise.
Over all, I would consider staying here again for a short stay.