Bintan Lagoon Resort

I had visited Bintan Lagoon Resort on October 2012 and this is the place to go if you just want to have a mini getaway, slack around with a beach view and chop your passport.

With a whooping less than 1 hour ferry ride from Singapore's Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal, you will reach the resort, RIGHT AT THE RESORT STEP! The moment you stepped out from the terminal, tadahh, the resort is right there and they even have their own immigration chop! How cool!! They provide buggy service from the terminal to the resort which I didn't bother since I don't get to drive the buggy and it is so much faster to just walk. 

View of the resort taken outside the terminal

Ferry timing was a little messed up. It is either you arrive few hours earlier than the check-in time or few hours later. We took the earlier ferry, so we went to grab a bite first. The resort has a few restaurants, all marked up at a crazy price. We went for the cheaper options, i.e. sandwiches, which turn out pretty good. Tip: Bring your own instant noodles and snacks to reduce the impact of that big slash on your wallet.

Smoked salmon bagel

We got offered welcome drink and got to check-in early (after a few puppy eyes with the front desk who ended up joking with us) and the room was decent enough. It definitely didn't give us the wow factor or made us went eww.

Then, off to explore the resort we go! The beach is not crowded and most importantly, clean. Since neither of us was beach-prepared, we just went for a walk along the beach, enjoy the breeze, feeling the waves break on our feet and pick up seashells. 

Beach of Bintan Lagoon Resort

For dinner, you can explore the (wtf so expensive) restaurants and the main restaurant offers different cuisine every night. We got lucky that it was buffet steamboat night because I was going on how I crave for steamboat that afternoon. The steamboat cost about S$40 per person that was of course, not worth the price but we don't have other alternatives. Oh, did I mention that the resort uses Singapore dollars? Save the hassle to go for money changer. At night, we saw people setting sky lanterns and it was amazing. I'm not sure where they got the sky lanterns from though. 

Seafood spread for the buffet steamboat

Buffet breakfast spread was mediocre but they still have my favourite egg station! I love those extra cheese and ham omelette. It was a snaking queue for that station but it later on turns out that it was because the server was very slow and could barely understand simple English. My friend had to use body languages to communicate for the type of omelette I want while the Caucasian in the queue laughed his ass off.

Some of the food I got from the buffet breakfast

The resort provides shuttle bus out of the resort to a market/street twice a day but we missed it because we were still one hour behind time (Bintan is one hour faster than Singapore). So, we went to the swimming pool and sadly, we were totally not prepared to even go into the pool. So we ordered some drinks and relax. They even have a bar by the pool which I didn't get to try, duh. 

As mentioned, the ferry timing was really bad so after we checked out, we had hours before we could come back Singapore. We could only slack at the lobby where, thankfully, free wi-fi is available. 

If you haven't been to Bintan Lagoon Resort, you didn't miss anything.

Contributed by: Cel. :)