Club Med Bintan - Indonesia — Hotel in Bintan Island

Travelled solo in September for my birthday

The suite: Located on the top floor, the suite guarantees panoramic views of the resort and the gorgeous beach. The stately room is well-furnished and is also equipped with a sizable bath that can comfortably fit tall people. The suite also comes with in-room breakfast should you wish to dine in the comforts of your room. If you are celebrating a special event or are simply looking for a luxurious experience in paradise, I highly recommend booking the suite.

The spa: During my stay, I had booked in to the spa for 2 of their signature treatments, the Ancestral Indonesian and Hanakasumi treatments. The new Club Med Spa uses Sothys products, which is a renowned brand made in France. The new treatments are even more relaxing due to the new techniques employed. In particular, the Hanakasumi treatment is unique to Sothys Paris, and results in buttery soft skin that is perfumed with the scent of a field of delicate sakura flowers. If you are looking for a pampering indulgence to relax and unwind, I highly recommend the Hanakasumi body treatment, as it is something you wouldn’t be able to find at other spas.

Flying trapeze: Following a bad accident whilst doing trapeze in Maldives, I was extremely hesitant and afraid to have another go at trapeze again. However, thanks to the reassurance from the experienced team at Bintan, I managed to muster the courage to try again and it was an incredibly liberating experience. My sincere thanks to Bintan’s circus team for always making safety a priority and for helping me to rebuild the confidence to fly again, I know I am in safe hands with you guys around.

Food & beverage and entertainment: Bintan undoubtedly has the best food and beverage among the Asian villages, and is special as the resort organizes gala dinners outdoors (weather permitting) to provide guests with a memorable experience. Kudos to the F&B team for your hard work setting up each gala dinner, it’s definitely not an easy task but your teamwork is inspiring. I was blessed to have the opportunity to enjoy a beautiful beach dinner with show, and it was absolutely breathtaking to watch a masterfully crafted evening show with the therapeutic sound of waves in the background. The Aquahari pool show and dinner is also a staple and must-see when you’re in Bintan. The Basque cheesecake is absolutely delicious, and it is good enough to out-rival those created by Michelin starred restaurants. The incredibly talented bar team also do a great job at crafting a variety of bespoke cocktails according to what tastes you enjoy.

Turtle conservation program: Club Med Bintan has a turtle conservation program as every year, hawksbill and green turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. When a nest is discovered on the beach, the team takes extra care to place the eggs in a protected hatchery behind the water sports counter. In 2mths the turtles hatch and are released into the wild 2 days later. It was magical being able to witness the release of 92 baby hawksbill turtles on the gentle beach of Bintan.

Julien and Bintan’s amazing GO Team: My heartfelt and sincerest thanks goes out to Bintan’s best CDV Julien, and his phenomenal GO team. Over the past 1yr, I have had the privilege to get to know many of you and regard you as my family (special mention to my twin sister Ling!). All of you have helped to make this birthday the most memorable celebration I have ever enjoyed! Thank you for showing me your genuine love and kindness, I am truly blessed to be able to call you guys my 2nd family away from home. Thank you once again from the bottom of my heart to Julien and his amazing team (Fenny, Richard, Ling, Joa, Mimi, Sujit, Azizul, Tona, Dimas, Hakim, Kuhan, Dr Os, Yum, Sandy, Leo, Hayley, Kyle, Teddy, Sharm, Tom, Ally, Wep, Hendry, Mai, Holly, Ross, Berta, Mitch, Karen, Job)!!

It is always very difficult for me to leave Club Med Bintan because of its captivating beauty and my lovely Bintan family. It is never a goodbye but rather a “see you soon”, can’t keep me away from home for...

Dear Julian and GO team Bintan Island,||I wanted to thank your whole team for our recent holiday (2 -26th May 2024). It had been our first trip after covid and we did wonder what things may be like post pandemic and whether the resort would live up to our expectations. Your efforts to recreate and consolidate your team over such a challenging period impacting tourism and travel in the world are to be commended.||During our 3 week stay we thoroughly enjoyed the evening show performances including Variety night/ Bintan has talent,|Starlight, Transylmania, Indonesian show, and the always amazing Pool and Garden shows. We also wish to commend your team on the beach dinner and show we were able to attend.||To the amazing GO team we thank you.||Circus - Ali Jamal Sandy Mai, Holly.|Your patience to teach our children and myself new skills tricks and to empower us to accomplish and improve was excellent. We loved all your performances and seeing your strengths.||Golf - Richard Teddy Kyle Shenghi.|Gus thoroughly enjoyed his rounds with you all and your booking service and camaraderie. We hope Kyle's show performances have started well!!||Kids club - Fida Zan Hayley, Angel, Sandy, Ribka, Cynthia Jessie, Reka, Jackie, Amas, Dessi.|I wondered how the kids would go now they were 14 13 and 10 years of age, compared to when they were mini club ages. But to say they thrived is an understatement. The transition from miniclub to kids to teen club is so well done with graduated independence provided by the club med structure and you all as GO team. The teen club for Abi and Campbell was simply fantastic. FIDA and Zan did an amazing job keeping the kids stimulated and self directed. All the activities and tournaments were excellent. ||Reception team. I can't remember a specific name here but that is because no matter what time of day or night I reached out, everyone was very helpful. I often saw the team dealing with other guests in a respectful and clear manner when managing complaints. ||Media - Chloe your never ending last minute updates on the electronic screens were very much appreciated keeping us current and not missing out on our next event. ||Restaurant - Aziul Tona Nur Sara and all the chefs.|The restaurant as always was excellent with a great variety of foods available no matter what our preference or mood of the day. Your friendly warm greetings at every meal were much appreciated and the efforts to book tables to facilitate our families love to engage with the amazing GO team and celebrate 2 birthdays while away was excellent.||Maintainence - Ross it is not often you play poker or black jack with the team from maintainence but we enjoyed hearing about your role in the village and your show performances.||Music entertainment- Phillip your talents and entertainment were a joy for our family prior to dinner most nights. We were the crazy ones that would make requests and dance when no one else would!! When Rivka, Yum Dr Os and Cynthia join you at the beach it was such a delight to watch. This is what ambience is all about! Thank you||To Aji Coco Denni Nico who ensure all the sound aspects work, and the costumes and choreography is up to scratch. We thank you, commend you and wish you all the best with your growing family and adventures to come.|||To the whole sports team.|Watersports - Rey Brian Fransz Sports -Henri Yum Ritchie, Athena Bimo|Yoga - Love,|The activities provided are a vast range and well supervised. The new rock climbing and aerial Yoga were used a lot by our family and thoroughly enjoyed. Including by Gus on his birthday!! I loved the daily session of yoga with Love in such a fantastic environment.||Bar - Roi, Harem, Hussein, Saraf, Ifarni, Sara, Lucky.|As usual the service by this team was excellent. I think we did drink you out of cranberry juice a few times!!.||To Sentha, Joel, and Julian your leadership of the team, event management and coordination was a pleasure to experience. We look forward to our next club med experience.||Thank you.||The...

Club med is suited for families with kids and which most kids would enjoy. They r abt a 15 min ride from the ferry terminal and have pick-up and return transfers to the ferry terminal. When u arrive at the ferry terminal club med counter, they provide u with a wrist tag which acts as a from of identification and room key to b worn at all times. Wld have appreciated if the staff informed us of this from the start as we didn't know that the tag couldn't be removed until they cut it during departure. So remember to wear it comfortably enough such that it won't drop off and not too tight. Upon arrival at the resort, they will assign each group of travellers a GO to brief u on some information with welcome drinks. However, it was honestly information overload. 1 key info that was missing from our GO was on checkout. so no one knew the checkout time and procedure at all.

For most of the activities, u will need to book in advance. There are also very limited indoor activities for people who do not want to be in the sun or during rain.

The last time I've been to club med bintan was more than 10 years ago, it feels like there has not been any major renovations which unfortunately I feel is about time they did. The resort is not wheel chair/pram/elderly friendly. There are alot of stairs up and down with no lifts. There is only 1 tiny lift at the main building. The layout of the blocks are also a little confusing and there should be more signs. To get to the fitness centre it's a long flight of steps up probably 4 storeys and it stinks on the way up.. probably some animals' pee. But not the resorts fault, it's nature. There are also no signs on where the badminton courts /gyms are, which can be improved on. At night it's very dark and you have to navigate your way back to the correct block. There is a party at 915pm( not sure is it every sat), but those blocks nearer the main building would b noisy.

For the rooms, they are quite dated. Personally I do not like toilets which separate the toilet from the shower. They do provide amenities like toothbrush, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and body lotion. but there wasn't any hand soap provided at all, not sure if it's a housekeeping error? They have water kettle and also some coffee/tea sachets. Hair dryer was faulty. To report you have to use their app to do so. And they turnaround time is 2 hours and below. Which is way too long. But thankfully you can WhatsApp them and pray that someone responds, which they did. The AC was not cold enough but they do have ceiling fans which helps a little. The soundproofing of the rooms are also very poor. In theme with the club med concept, the GOs and all the staff members do make it a point to engage the guests and speak to them and also they have a performance every night to entertain the guests. So really do applaud them as they have to wear many hats and work very long hours. The one thing that u do not have to worry abt is going hungry. There's food most of the day something like 7am- 930pm. It's almost continuous, from buffet breakfast to late breakfast to buffet/late lunch, to beach BBQ to buffet/late dinner and there are like finger food avail in between. For the food, the presentation looks extremely good and theres a huge variety. But I feel that the quality of the food should be improved. For example the meats are always too tough. Steak/beef tough like rubber. Fish overcooked that it tastes like chicken breast. Pasta some was ok but the one with smoked salmon in cream sauce was super bad. The person who cooked it that day basically gave a huge plate of dry plain pasta. No sign of any smoked salmon or sauce. They do rotate the menu so there are different stuff and u won't get bored. What they did well was the fried noodles, the parmesan pasta cheese wheel, instant noodles. For beach BBQ.. satay was tough and chicken wings tasteless...having some salt/sugar/pepper will...