How to travel to Bintan from Singapore
The only way to get to Bintan from Singapore is by ferry.
There are 3 ports in Bintan which is Tanjung Pinang, Lobam and Bandar Bentam Telani (BBT). You can take a ferry from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal which will bring you to port Tanjung Pinang or BBT depending on which ferry operators you booked your ticket from.
Ticket prices also vary depending on the operators you choose, timing (peak/off peak) and class (economy/emerald). Check out the details here.
Bought my ticket from Bintan Resort Ferries which will port at BBT. Travelling time from Singapore to Bintan is about an hour. Bintan is 1 hour behind Singapore Time.
Finally it is time to board. This was the ferry that we took. Its free seating for economy class. First come first serve!
Finally arrived at BBT after 1 hour of ferry ride!
Our hotel booking included free two-way land transfer. This is the bus that will brought us to the resort. It looks quite big and new from this picture right?
Actually it is a mini bus which is rather cramped. I'm actually quite surprised that the bus was full. I thought I was the only guest haha!
The bus ride is another 1 hour! It's so tiring and I had been travelling for the whole morning.
1.50 hr - Home to TMFT
1hr - TMFT to BBT
1hr - BBT to resort
Bintan Agro Beach Resort
Finally!!! We reached the resort at about 1pm (local time). The resort lobby looks clean and spacious. The standard check in time is 3pm local time. However, they were able to let us check in when we arrived.
This is the superior room. It is spacious and clean and there is a balcony (not in the photo). However, the air con is not strong even after we set at 16 degree.
There was no WiFi in the superior room. Free WiFi was only available in the lobby and restaurant.
We were also given 2 welcome drink vouchers (honeydew juice) which can be redeemed at any time we want as well as the breakfast buffet for tomorrow.
After we put down our bags, we went out for lunch straight away (its 3pm SG time already).
The list of facilities that the resort supposedly has, we did't bother to look for all of them though.
The small pool near the lobby. There is another bigger pool in the resort.
Ordered coconut drink but it was not cold.
Their food tastes surprisingly good. Ordered chay kway teow, fried rice, nuggets and some veggies.
Decided to walk around the resort before going back to the room. Here is the mini bar where you can order some beer and chillax. They were even playing some hip music. Oh and Asiana Bistro is a halal restaurant hence you can only order alcohol from the bar.
There are a lot of this little hut facing the sea where you can sit there to read a book, sun tan and enjoy the sea view.
The resort also provides sea sports activities and the price list is listed in their web site. Most of the activities are for min 3 pax as shown in the list. However, if you only have 2 person you can get the couple package below.
The sea view is so nice. The room at the side is one of the massage room, but it was yet to be open for business when we were there.
We took a peek in and saw this cute machine for bath treatment (recognised it from one of the brochures) where only your head will be stuck out. It looked more like some torture machine to me to be honest.
Not much to see since the other side of the resort was under renovation. We decided to make our booking for our massage at night. If you are staying for more than 1 night, you can make booking in advance and there will be 10% to 15% discount. The price list is here.
I chose Thai Massage as I don't like oil massage. I thought it is a little pricey though, 45 mins of Thai Massage costed about SGD 31.
Went back to the room to rest and after that went swimming at the bigger pool. By that time we went at around 4pm, the pool was full of kids playing around. Had dinner after the swim and there was a choice of buffet or a la carte. If you choose buffet dinner, you will be sitting at the open area. There was even live music when we were there, though its all in Bahasa. The photo below was taken from the bar as we had some bintang beer as dessert and enjoying the sea breeze.
Before our massage, we found out that the souvenier shop (one and only there) was selling fireworks and we were allowed to light them up at the beach before 10pm. Bought a few to try out. As the massage area is an open concept (level 3 of the lobby building), you can heard the loud bang of the fireworks while massaging. Saw someone who was doing foot massage actually jumped when the fireworks was lighted.
Here is a video of us lighting the fireworks.
Overall, I will give this resort 3 out of 5 stars. The resort is pretty far from the ferry terminal. Furthermore, during our short 2 day 1 night stay, there were like 3 blackouts. First was in the afternoon when we were back from our lunch and we realised our air-con and tv had been switched off. Initially, we thought that someone had came into our room when we are out. Second time was in the middle of the night when I woke up sweating and realised the air con was off! The last time was after we became back from our breakfast buffet, we couldn't turn on the air con and the lights. But surprisingly the TV was still working. Had to call the reception for help which they ultimately powered on using their back-up generator.
I have to comment though, the staff there are all nice and friendly. I don't think I will be coming back to stay as there are much better resorts (albeit the higher prices) and which are also nearer to the ferry terminal!
That's all!