Club Med Bintan Beach Vacation

Thinking where to go for a short family trip? What to do during school holidays with the kids? Looking for places to go that are kids friendly? Want a place that you can enjoy while the kids are occupied with other activities? Planning for a beach vacation with friends? Want a short getaway trip for couple time?

My solution is Club Med Bintan. This is my first time in Club Med. I have heard of the rave reviews from friends about Club Med but I have never tried before until this month. And it was great experience and everyone was happy from this short getaway.

For the first timer (like me), Club Med Bintan is a beach resort on the island of Bintan (Indonesia), just 50 minutes away by ferry from Singapore. This resort is very family friendly. Everything from food to activities is inclusive, i.e. you pay for the lodging and the food and activities are almost free for you. There are some exceptions where you have to pay for example spa, special fine dining, excursion trips etc.

Mini/Junior Club

My friends have suggested to let my kids go for its Mini/Junior Club, i.e. kids club for children between the age of 4 to 10 and 11 to 17. So here is a tip for parents, you can leave you kids at Club Med Mini/Junior Club, while you can enjoy spa or just laze around the lounge without the kids bothering you. The G.O. (Gentil Organisateur) will take care of your kids for you by giving them a variety of activities to keep them busy.

Activities

For the adults, you can have your own activities as well by referring to the schedule Club Med provided. Of course, you can do these activities with your kids too. But do take note that a few activities have minimum age limit for your kids to join. The activities are :

• Golf
• Cardio workout
• Aqua gym
• Yoga
• Futsal
• Tennis
• Sport tournament
• Sailing
• Snorkeling
• Windsurfing
• Badminton
• Basketball
• Table Tennis
• Mahjong
• Pilates
• Archery
• Squash

The most interesting activity by far is the flying trapeze. I do not think you can get to do the circus acts on any other resorts. But one must also have the stomach to do the turn and hanging upside down act too. For me, I think I just do not have the inner circus showmanship in me haha….

If you do not know how to do the activities mentioned above but would like to try, fret not. The resort has scheduled lesson for beginners who wish to try out the activities like archery, golf , windsurfing, sailing and snorkeling. What I did in the resort was going for golf and archery lessons. The G.O. who in charged of the lessons were very friendly and always willing to help. Moreover, they always tried to make the lesson interesting by cracking up jokes and making us feel at ease.

Every night there was a show put up by the G.O. at 8.45pm. The performance can range from comedy, dancing, acrobatic acts etc. Sometimes they also organised a show performed by Mini/Junior club kids.

 

Hotel rooms

We chose to stay at the room facing the garden. The good thing about staying in rooms far away from the beach is they are quiet. But there is some walking to do when you want to join some activities. Because we were Travelling with kids, so Club Med arranged interconnecting rooms for us. The rooms were clean, beds were comfortable, pillows were soft, rooms were quiet, water pressure was powerful (good for rinsing off the sand on your body), toiletries provided and each room had balcony.

The only fault I can find is one of rooms’ wall looked wet from far and when I touched the wall, it felt sticky. However, the room did not have foul smell. We brought this up to the receptionist and was told that it might have been caused by the condensation of the air conditioning. We did not request to change the room since it did not smell.

Take note that the toilet and shower area are separated. So you will have to move to the toilet to the shower area to wash your hands.

 

Food

The food was delicious and fantastic. Everyday had a different variety of food. Food was served international buffet style, so you can pick and choose what you like to eat. Red and white wine were offered too. You can see some of the samples here :

 

Tips : The G.O. would bring a birthday cake while singing birthday song for the birthday star for the day. What an excellent way of celebrating your birthday in Club Med Bintan.

 

The bar

The bar provided alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink to guests. It also provided some sandwiches, salad and fruits for snack.

 

The beach

The beach was clean and well maintained. The sand was white and soft and easy on your feet. The waves were slow and calm. Here you just feel like living in paradise.

Overall, this is an excellent resort with TOP notch service. We felt relax and well rested. The fun activities were endless. Day time we did sports and night time we could party and drink till our hearts content. We will definitely come back again to this wonderful resort.

Tips :

• Bring mosquito repellent. If not, you can use the mosquito repellent wipes provided by the resort
• Try to request for rooms that are close to the main building because rooms that are further away from the main building do not have shelter walkway, so you will have to use an umbrella if it rains.
• The resort porters will bring your luggages to your rooms or retrieve your luggages from your front door for departure. Please check with the porters how many luggages they have retrieved. The reason being that one of the families had a missing luggage and the family only found out about it when they arrived at the ferry terminal.
• You may want to request for ground floor room if you have mobility problem as you need to climb the stairs to the upper level. Only main building has elevators.
• One of the G.O. told us that June is the best time to go the resort as it is not monsoon season, weather is good for outdoor activities and sea is calm. September to December is the monsoon season, so you may have to stay indoor most of the time. We were lucky that only light rain happened during our stay at this resort.
• Each guest is given a towel card to exchange for a beach towel. So do remember to bring the card along when you plan to go to the beach or the pool.