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Novel staycation ideas: Stay in a shipping container or on a yacht

Don't want to just stay in a hotel room? Here are a few unique ways to spend your staycay

By Venessa Lee - 

Novel staycations
Credit: 123rf
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More Singaporeans are going on staycations now, especially now that it's not yet safe to travel.

As the pandemic lingers on and the year-end school holidays approach, demand looks set to skyrocket.

In a bid to offer greater diversity and appeal to more targeted demographics, some hotels are positioning their staycations as novel experiences.

Millennium Hotels and Resorts, for example, has launched a Yacht-cation Escape package. Bookings at Orchard Hotel and M Social include a sailing expedition to the Southern Islands of Singapore.

In need of a quiet place to work because the house next door is undergoing renovation? Long-suffering neighbours can seek respite from the drilling and hacking by taking a Reno-Vacation at Frasers Hospitality's serviced residences. Even pets are welcome at Fraser Suites Singapore, Fraser Place Robertson Walk and Fraser Residence Orchard.

For anyone who has ever looked at a shipping container and felt it looked cosy, Shipping Container Hotel may be calling your name. The pop-up hotel claims you can be an off-the-grid pioneer, yet still live the luxe hotel life - in a metal oblong.

Meanwhile, if you are a mum fed up with home-based learning and working from home, Fairmont Hotel has a relaxing Mumcation package for you.

Three journalists from The Sunday Times check out hotel life with a difference. It's hard work but someone's got to do it.

Suite Life: A Mumcation at Fairmont Singapore for mums who need to relax

Credit: FAIRMONT SINGAPORE
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Some things you only realise when you are a mum.

I didn't know, for instance, that going swimming would for years entail moving in water in a family pod like porpoises.

At first, it was because the kids were too young so it was one parent watching one child each in the baby pools.

WHERE: 80 Bras Basah Road

INFO: https://www.fairmont-singapore.com/offer/mumcation/

RATES: The Mumcation, valid till Dec 30, is priced at $385++ for a single guest and $495++ for two guests. The package includes a 90-minute Aromatherapy Relaxation Massage at Willow Stream Spa; breakfast in bed or at Prego restaurant; high tea in Anti:dote tea lounge, a bath set from Lush Singapore and Uniqlo loungewear.

Suite Life: Nerd out at the Shipping Container Hotel in Singapore's science and tech hub

Credit: SHIPPING CONTAINER HOTEL
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There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who get excited at the idea of living in recycled packaging and those who don't.

As I step into the blue box that will be my home for the next 20 hours, I think about the voyages it has taken around the planet and what it has carried. And if I might be able to smell it.

But even if my unit - wrenched from its oceanic travels and plonked here on a grassy patch in Ayer Rajah Crescent like a beached whale - had smelled of cooking oil and automotive parts, I would not have minded, because I find the idea of a shipping container hotel cool.

WHERE: Blocks 77 and 81, Ayer Rajah Crescent

INFO: shippingcontainerhotel.com

RATES: Basic rates before service tax and GST are $160 (Sundays to Thursdays) and $180 (Fridays and Saturdays)

Suite Life: Relax on a yacht and be served by a butler, as part of Orchard Hotel's Yacht-cation

Credit: EDDINO ABDUL HADI
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The promotional photos and videos for Orchard Hotel's suite-and-yacht staycation show young adults sipping bubbly, living the carefree, Instagram-worthy luxe life on a yacht.

Not the usual hotel stay, for sure.

But I wondered if all this opulence would be lost on two frazzled parents with a pair of bouncy, always-on-the-move daughters, aged seven and a little under two.

My doubts were unfounded. There was plenty to satiate both parents and kids, from a yacht trip and an island jaunt to water sports and customised culinary experiences. We even had a butler, Raymond, at our beck and call.

INFO: Bookings at Orchard Hotel and M Social

This article was first published in The Straits Times.

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