The Big 40!

By Shannon and Lauren's Mommy:

What started as a careless comment quickly became a heated topic... we were thinking of a short and cheap getaway during the weekend of 18 - 20th Sep as it was Mal's birthday, his 40th, to be exact. But once you start planning, you quickly realise that cheap getaways are hard to come by. Anywhere that doesn't require flying charges you crazy prices for hotel rooms and food. In the end, we settled for Bintan, though we expected the cost would work out to the same as a 3 day holiday to Penang. But at least in Bintan, Mal would get a round of golf in at one of Asia's finest courses.

We took the 2pm ferry from Tanah Merah ferry terminal in a newly refurnished catamaran. It was very comfortable and had plenty of empty seats. the girls chose to sit up the front and plunked themselves right in front of the 40 inch plasma TV screen. After a 45min journey, we reached Bintan, cleared customs, and boarded the coach to Bintan Lagoon Resort.

Refurbished ferry to Bintan, clean, new and comfy, thumbs up!

We reached the hotel after about 15min and got quickly checked-in. We opted for a deluxe sea-facing room, as the rooms at this resort had been recently given a face lift. The room was large and newly renovated, but Mal was disappointed that we were on the ground floor and what view we could see of the sea was obscured by trees. But in lieu of a balcony, we had a veranda with two deck chairs, which was pretty cool. The room also had a enormous day bed which served as a queen size mattress bed for Shannon. It was also a very short walk to both of the pools, another good thing when you are dripping wet and cold without footwear.

The Hotel Entrance, waiting to check in

The new and luxurious bathroom, with brand new tub, they couldn't resist taking a bubble bath

The moment we got into the room, the girls decided to go for a swim, so we went to one of the two pools at the resort, the children's pool. The pool had two water slides, and they had friendly staff manning huge transparent balls that you could get into and 'walk' on water. Shannon was too timid to try one of her own, so I went in with her and slided around in the ball on water, while Lauren peeked in with bemusement.

The huge water ball

Lauren and us

The slides were good too. Shannon did not dare to try the slide on her own initially, and I went up with her. But after a few rounds, she ventured on it alone, and had so much fun there was no stopping her after that. :)

After a fun afternoon by the pool, we headed back for a shower and a way overdue nap for Lauren. And for dinner, we decided to try the Japanese Restaurant since they had udon, the girls' favourite.

Reviews on Bintan food have always been bad, with tons of people saying prices are expensive and food lousy etc. I don't agree at all. Sure, the food is definitely more expensive that if you were to head to Bintan town and eat there, but if you don't want to travel 2 hours there and back, you don't really have a choice right?

The mentality of so many people is when they are in Bintan, they want to pay the same peanuts and get great tasting food, since it's well, Indonesia and not Singapore... get real lah! Go stay at some isolated kampong then and see whether you can get all the perks you want...

I'm not saying the food prices are cheap, but I think in a big resort, you have to expect these kind of prices. And I have to say, the jap food I had that night, really really good and portions were big. The ambiance was great, with the restaurant overlooking the sea and the setting sun turning the sky reddish-blue.

I ordered Sashimi with tempura bento which cost $40. The fish was super fresh and smooth and there were EIGHT thick cut (1/2 inch thick at least) slices of tuna, octopus, salmon and cod fish for the sashimi serving. The tempura prawns, 2 of them, were crispy and tasty together with Carrot, Binjai and Mushroom, and the whole bento tray was laden with other side dishes. Besides the rice, there was a big, not standard size, bowl of miso soup with lots of seaweed and big pieces of tofu, a big serving of pickles, a cold side dish of fish and vermicelli, and to top it off, a big bowl of simmered beef slices with potato, as big as a main dish that you find in some smaller jap restaurants. Sure, $40 is alot, but for that quality, and quantity, and great ambiance, I think it's value for money. I'm drooling just typing this down!

After that heavy dinner, we bought the girls some homemade ice cream by the lounge and strolled around the foyer and shops and after that it was back to the room and settling down for the night.

Running around the hotel after a scrumptious dinner, see the soup stains on Lauren's tee?

The next morning, being the birthday boy's birthday, Mal got up early and tee'd off at 6am in the morning. The girls slept till about 8am and I took my time getting them ready for breakfast. We headed to Kopi-O restaurant, where buffet breakfast was being served, and got a nice surprise, seeing Mal return from Golf. He had finished his 18 holes in 2 and 1/2 hours! So it was good having the family together for breakfast :)

After a breakfast of pancakes, sausages, crossiants, baked beans, eggs, porridge, potatoes, nasi lemak with curry chicken, ikan bilis, danish pastries, fruit and juice, we gathered up our sand making toys and headed to the beach. The sand was powdery, super fine and soft, and the beach was pretty nice. The water was clear enough that you could see small fish darting around in the shallows, though I didn't really want to wade too far in, given jellyfish warning signs. The girls enjoyed themselves at the beach surprisingly, given their fetish of cleanliness. they built a sand castle and posed with it.

All sun-blocked and hats on, ready for the beach and sandcastle building

See the rooms on the ground floor? Our room was just next to it, same style...

At the soft, powdery beach

Yay, sandcastles done!

After that it was back to the pool again. This morning, we headed for the other big landscaped pool in front of the hotel and spent about two hours wading around with the girls. Lunch was a leisurely affiar at Kopi-O again, having their ala-carte menu of Horfun, chicken nuggets with fries, and Nasi goreng special. The bill was $45, standard restaurant prices.

The girls fooling around and having fun

After lunch, we headed to the activities centre, where Shannon wanted to paint her own tee-shirt. Yup, you read it right. And she did it pretty well too! There were staff on hand to guide her and help her, so the whole thing turned out very nice.

Shannon's creation, see the different two tone mermaid and dolphin?

After the girls' nap, it was the children's pool AGAIN.. playing till dinner time. For for dinner, we opted for the Italian restaurant this evening. Again, the prices are very similar to good restaurant in Singapore, but the food was abundant and good. Shannon and Lauren shared a spaghetti with tangy tomato sauce which they nearly finished. We ordered a baguette of garlic bread which was superb! It came out piping hot, straight out off the oven, and was super crusty and aromatic. For our mains, Mal had beef steak which was tender and very flavourful, and I had seafood risotto, which portions were generous with prawns, mussels and scallops.

Dinner at the Italian Restaurant

For dessert, we bought a slice of black forest cake and headed back to the room to sing Happy Birthday to Mal and blow out the candle. the kids then jumped around the room until it was time for bed.

Happy Birthday to Daddy

The last morning, we had breakfast, a final swim at both the pools, then a morning nap for Lauren before checking out. We had a hasty lunch at Kopi-O before boarding the coach back to the ferry terminal. The ferry was pretty packed this time, with little spare seats on the way back to Singapore. We reached the terminal at 4pm but had to waited eons for our luggage to come out. And from that it was straight back home with good memories of our short getaway.

So will we go back again? Definitely, YES! Sure, you dun get to spend miserly rupiah and get happy on the exchange rate form SGD to Rupiah, and you don't get to gorge on hawker food and see the sounds and sights of REAL Indonesia. But what you get is a good getaway weekend, and a round of relaxing golf, and good luxurious food... so if you wanna indulge abit, then I'd say go ahead.. :)