We went for a staycation to explore the east of Singapore! Here's what it's like at Santa Grand Hotel East Coast

Santa Grand Hotel East Coast is a quaint, cosy boutique hotel superbly located for exploring the charming east side of Singapore.

We love staycations that bring us to parts of Singapore we rarely visit. There’s always a sense of wonder when we explore a neighbourhood we’re less familiar with. This June holiday, we went on a staycation at Santa Grand Hotel East Coast. As the name suggests, it’s located in the eastern part of Singapore, an area my family and I seldom venture to.

Santa Grand Hotel East Coast is part of the NuVe Group Collection. The last time we stayed with them was at Hotel NuVe Heritage at Purvis Street in Singapore's bustling city area. We are excited to be staying at another of their lovely heritage shophouse hotels but this time, in the east side. And apparently, some say the best side of Singapore? 😁

Here’s our review and a look at what we got up to during our 2D1N staycation at Santa Grand Hotel East Coast. 😉

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We arrived at Santa Grand Hotel at 2 pm for an early check-in, ahead of the usual 3 pm, (psst, booking directly with Santa Grand Hotel gives you early check-in at 2 pm and late check-out at 12 pm 😉 More on that later!), and the first thing that struck us was the beautiful lobby, clearly inspired by Peranakan heritage.

Very instagrammable right? 😊

You can even rent Peranakan outfits for your own photoshoots!

Otherwise, you could just slip them on at the lobby and take some photos with the gorgeous decor, like I did 😁

The hotel also has these cute local postcards that makes great souvenir for guests! We still kept the ones we got from Hotel NuVe Heritage 😊

After appreciating the beautiful lobby decor, it's time to check out our room. Here's our Quad Room! It can take up to four adults, so it's great for bigger families like ours, or those who have older kids 😊

One thing I really like about staying at heritage shophouse hotels is when you are given rooms with the high ceilings and skylight.

Skylight at the entrance.

Check out the traditional tea set and coffee cups provided for enjoying their complimentary tea and coffee!

The room decor also highlights the hotel's Perankan theme.

Look at the beautiful tiles in the bathroom 😊 The bathroom comes with your usual hotel amenities like shampoo, shower gel, toothbrush and toothpaste.

Oh and there's also complimentary snacks in the minibar!

We are now all set to explore the east side of Singapore! The hotel provides bicycle rental so you can explore the area on wheels. I thought they make a nice photo op at their lobby too 😁

The lobby also provides free coffee and tea, as well as snacks like local biscuits for guests, which is a personal touch I've come to expect and appreciate at NuVe Group's hotels. Grabbed a cup of coffee and we were ready to start exploring!

Off we go!

We decide to explore Joo Chiat Road, which is just round the corner from the hotel, as I heard it's really happening! And I'm happy to say after our visit that Joo Chiat Road has lived up to its reputation 😄

We walked past so many cool cafes...

...traditional businesses...

...and beautiful shophouses, including these iconic, colourful ones off Joo Chiat Road at Koon Seng Road.

There's also a Peranakan museum here with giant artefacts outside that's worth taking a couple of pics. Like this tingkat...

...and this embroidery shoe.

And the murals! Wow, there are so many beautiful ones here at Joo Chiat Road.

We definitely spotted more than ten of them.

Look at how spectacular this is.

No space for all pics of the murals we took but trust me, it's worth coming down to spot and appreciate all the beautiful murals here. We enjoyed our walk along Joo Chiat Road and soaking in the environment so much, hubs even remarked, "It doesn't feel like we're in Singapore!" For someone who hardly comes to this part of Singapore, I totally agree 😄

It was hard to settle on a place to have a tea break given the many choices here, but we finally decided on Cafe Wabi Sabi, where we had some nice matcha drinks and desserts.

Other than Joo Chiat Road, we also had fun exploring East Coast Road. Just a short walk away from our hotel is indie bookstore, Woods in the Books.

It's right next to famous confectionary, Chin Mee Chin, which we'll definitely be visiting tomorrow!

Lotsa nice eateries, cafes and photo ops along this stretch of the road too!

We head back to our hotel for a swim before dinner time. You probably saw it from the cover pic of the post already, but yes, Santa Grand Hotel has a lovely rooftop pool 😄

It overlooks the shophouses and flats in the Katong-Joo Chiat area. You also get a sunset view from here, though on the day we were there, it was rather cloudy.

There's a jacuzzi at the end of the pool that shares the same water temperature as the pool. The pool is not huge but it was really nice to have it all to ourselves when we were there 😊

It was time for dinner after our swim and again there were so many choices in the area it was a bit hard to decide. We finally settled on Doong Ji Korean Restaurant!

After dinner, we strolled along the shophouses while enjoying ice-cream from Awfully Chocolate (they have a cafe near our hotel!). Here's a nice pic of our hotel at night 😊

When we went back to the hotel, we decided to pop by the pool to see how it looks at night. Here it is.

The night view is pretty too.

And we called it a night for the first day of our staycation. The next morning, we literally woke up to morning light 😄

Oh, there's actually no windows or view from the room, but come to think of it, we didn't really notice that as the room felt really spacious, and we were out most of the time. Anyhoo, we have up till 12pm to check out (a later check-out than the usual 11am), so we had time to do more exploring before we leave the east.

First of all, breakfast at the famous Chin Mee Chin, just diagonally across the road from our hotel!

After breakfast, we made our way to East Coast Park, which is just a 10-15 minutes walk from where we were. It's a really nice walk there as we got to see more heritage houses. So love their architecture!

And we're at East Coast Park!

It's a weekday so the beach was pretty quiet.

We enjoyed the sea breeze and sights while strolling by the beach.

From here we made our way to Parkway Parade, which a 10-minute walk away.

Reason being we wanted to check out the new sci-fi pop-up library at the mall!

It's actually pretty cool with lots of new sci-fi books! If you're in the area (or here for a staycation!), I highly recommend popping by. It's only here until April 2027!

And ahem, also at the pop-up library...😄

Thanks to the late check-out, we actually managed to experience a bit more of Singapore's lovely east side. We headed back to our hotel to check out, then made one last stop in the area for lunch - Breakfast Grill at East Coast Road!

And with that we have come to the end of our 2D1N staycation at Santa Grand Hotel East Coast! What a wonderful time we had exploring this beautiful part of Singapore 😊

As this is not in central Singapore, a staycation here is pretty affordable too. At the time of writing, a quick check for a July weekend stay shows the standard rate for Santa Grand Hotel's Quad Room at S$380 per night (before GST & service charge), but if you book directly with Santa Grand Hotel at least 7 days in advance, you get 30% off making it S$266 per night. You also get perks like early check-in and late check-out!But do confirm the rate again if you have a date in mind as hotel rates can vary during peak and off-peak periods.

Just a note that if you drive, parking at the hotel is available for guests but there are limited lots. So, do inform the hotel during your booking so they can reserve a lot for you. The parking is located behind the hotel. If you're coming via East Coast Road, you'll need to turn into Cheow Keng Road, and the car park/back of the hotel would be at the first left turn once you enter Cheow Keng Road.

For more pics and vids, do see my Instagram post and IG Stories in my IGS highlights at VivianTeoWriter!

Thank you, Santa Grand Hotel East Coast, for having us! Santa Grand Hotel East Coast is located at 171 East Coast Rd, Singapore 428877. Tel: +65 6344 6866.

Disclaimer: This review was made possible by NuVe Group Collection through a media invite. As always, all opinions expressed are our own.

©Vivian Teo. All content and photos are copyrighted to Vivian Teo unless otherwise specified.