We checked into our Penthouse King room on the 19th floor for a 3D2N stay. With a sweeping view of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, a 42-inch TV and thick carpeting, it looked and felt like a bedroom out of a Kevin Kwan novel — even the heavy door resembled a bank vault’s. No wonder North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, well-known for his love of the high life, chose to stay at the presidential suite here during his 2018 visit.

The only giveaway that this is a hotel room is a set of disposable masks and a bottle of hand sanitiser placed neatly on a table. Hand sanitiser is also provided in the hotel lifts. While the St. Regis has a floor catering to guests serving SHN, we were reassured that the quarantining folks have zero contact with other guests. High contact points in the hotel are also frequently sanitised — we spotted on several occasions the cleaning staff diligently sanitising surface areas. Pre-booking is required for use of the pool and gym.

Staycays are meant to be relaxing, but we found ourselves pampered to the absurd point of barely having to lift a finger. Our room came with complimentary 24-hour butler service, which means you have a butler at your service round-the-clock to whisk your clothes away for pressing (up to two pieces a day), shine your shoes and bring you coffee and tea even at 3am.

Out of curiosity, we summoned our butler to bring us coffee at 11.30pm (there’s a decaf option from a beverage menu). A smartly-dressed gentleman showed up on the dot, bearing a $500 Greggio silver tray loaded with coffee and cookies. The hotel also offers a wake-up call service, and you can also get the staff to send coffee to you the moment you’re awake. If we were to sum up this staycay, it would be ‘vacay from our daily chores’. We also mourned the fact that we will be going home after this to hit snooze on our phone alarm and blearily make our own instant coffee.

Turndown service is just as luxurious; we returned to our room after dinner at the hotel’s French restaurant Brasserie Les Saveurs (load up on their delish truffle gougères) to find slippers placed at our bedside on a crisp white sheet, and Symphony 924 classical music softly wafting from a bluetooth speaker by the bed. There’s also a Bose surround sound system in the room, which you can switch on to make it sound like there’s an orchestra serenading you in the room, and a whole range of mood lighting at the press of a button. It all felt like someone rolling a red carpet for us to do something as mundane as sleeping, which we suppose is still a momentous event when you’re doing it in a $750/night room.

The St. Regis’ breakfast is also served at Brasserie Les Saveurs. Due to Covid-19, there’s no buffet spread on display. Instead, you can order free-flow food from an a la carte menu, which includes full-size dishes like an Epicurean Omelette with avruga caviar and lobster bisque emulsion and Grilled Teriyaki Salmon with rice. We don’t usually order Laksa at a hotel, but it’s surprisingly good here.

Upon your arrival, you can also call for the butler to unpack your bag and hang up your clothes for you. We tried the service when we were checking out. Initially, we were hesitant. We hastily tidied our belongings, lest we get judged for living like an animal. When our genial butler, Aini, arrived, she started folding clothes efficiently. She even coiled our laptop’s power cord for us and somehow managed to stuff everything in our too-small bag. We felt rather paiseh to be waited on hand and foot to this extent, but it’s also shiok to have someone take over your responsibilities for a day. Yes, we’re now officially addicted to being a CRA.

Our stay included a one and a half hour private tour at the zoo, where a dedicated guide brought us around on a buggy. For those who want to book this without the staycay, it will cost $300 ($240 for zoo members). So this must be why rich people’s white sneakers are always pristine, we thought, as we gently trundled past lion enclosures and swinging chimpanzees while our guide, Nabilah, told us interesting anecdotes about the animals.

Our tour came with four special wildlife encounters: giraffe feeding, petting reptiles, frolicking with giant tortoises and goat feeding. You could go for as many or as few as you want (if reptiles ain’t your thing, for example).

We got to skip the queue to feed carrots to Marco the giraffe, ahead of a line of people waiting outside the enclosure. Then Nabilah brought us past a ‘Staff Only’ door, where the zoo kept its menagerie of snakes and other reptiles. There, we got to hold an Australian bearded dragon, and a milk snake named Smoothie, which Gucci fans might recognise as the red snake emblazoned on the fashion house’s designs.

Perhaps the most fun part of the tour for us was interacting with gentle Aldabra giant tortoises, which are the second largest of its kind in the world after the Galapagos tortoise. Other than selfies with Astove, a smizing ancient who could make Instagram Tortoise a thing, we also watched a male tortoise attempt to hump a disgruntled female tortoise. He looked ashamed when chastised by his keeper for being boorish. Real-life Nat Geo drama, y’all.

A staycay at The St. Regis costs approximately the same price as a weekend getaway in a neighbouring country. But is it worth it? We say yes. Before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it was unimaginable that we could, gasp, holiday in Singapore. But between the VIP zoo tour with staff-only access to wildlife and the hotel’s ultra-luxurious service, this staycay made us feel like we’re in a different world altogether — a world where there’s someone paid to coil your laptop power cord for you.

Marriott International’s Wildlife Encounter staycation package is available till Jan 31. Book a room via www.hotel-deals.marriott.com/wildlife-reserves-singapore-marriott-bonvoy.

PHOTOS: YIP JIEYING