Take a wonderful setting and a nice idea and you have the cake everybody will dream of for a romantic or family getaway...
Now add jellyfish in the sea and petrol wastes on the beach!
It's a nightmare!
Really too bad... Everything is spoiled...

This hotel ruined my 2 night getaway to Bintan. Please do yourself a big favor and avoid this hotel. You can stay at the cheaper Nirwana Resort and visit this beach or better still stay at Angsana (which is right next door), where they really care about the guests and the service is impeccable. Here is a list of things that went wrong and tips for your stay:

1. Do not accept the Sea Horse chalets. They claim that this is a sea facing chalet and charge you the extra, but these Chalets are actually further from the beach that most of the garden chalets, which are cheaper. Also these chalets were particularly run down - cockroaches in the bathroom, door wouldn't lock. My wife was terrified because of the cockroaches which seem to roam freely in and out of the room and it ruined her stay.

2. No towels! The #1 amenity that should be provided in a beach resort are towels. When we checked in at 1pm (yes they were nice enough to let us check-in at 1pm) there were no towels in the room. So I called reception. They said all the towels were in the laundry and they would send us towels in an hour. So we waited, went to the beach, came back, took a nap and at 7pm, there were still no towels. So I called reception again. They said they would bring towels in 10 mins. No towels for 30 mins. When I called again, the receptionist said that the Housekeeping staff were having dinner and I should wait till they finish! I had to go personally to the reception to get the towels, after refusing to leave without the towels.

3. The food at the Spice restaurant was the saving grace. It was so obvious that the F&B staff were much better trained than the other staff. The Indian and Western a la carte selection was great. The breakfast buffet was a big let down.

4. The worst part was when we checked out. Like they say, the first and last impression in a hotel are the most important and my last impression was terrible! The shuttle service to the ferry terminal was to arrive at 7pm for the 8:15 shuttle. No bus till 7:20pm. Then the bus finally comes and when we arrived at the ferry terminal, the staff riding the shuttle with us asked us to collect the ticket from the counter. When we went to the counter, the Bintan Resort ticketing staff told us that the hotel had already collected the tickets! Nobody gave us our tickets at the reception when we checked out. So again my wife and her friends started panicking. The Nirwana Garden staff at the ferry terminal finally got someone to bring our tickets from the hotel on a motorcycle and we just about made it to the ferry.

5. All the chalets are very old and run down. The doors are broken, the toilet is horribly dirty and stained. The beach loungers are broken and have mold on them. The TV in the room is soooo small.

All this for a rather expensive price. I think the hotel management should look to make some serious changes fast - renovate some of the chalets, buy new beach furniture, fire some of the receptionists. Overall I was extremely disappointed and I have every intention of letting all my friends and family know that they should stay away from this resort. Also I am still waiting on the General Manager to get back to me about my complaints, which he hasn't till date.

We were supposed to be at Nirwana Gardens Hotel but don't know why last minute, we were told to stay at this chalet and they called it 5 star????? No, we would give maybe 3 star only.
Hotel staff were friendly but chalet quite run down, nothing much around and breakfast not so good as well. Besides seasports, nothing else. The central we went for bowling etc sucks too as nothing much there. However the massage was ok but all wanted SDG. Don't go during July, weather was terrible, hot, if not, rained non stop, so did not manage to complete the activities day pass. Reservation staff not flexible, no extension time for check out is allowed even heavy rain :((( Will not stay in this chalet anymore and all food are overpriced. One can of coke cost S$3.60 - crazy !!! So if anyone going to Bintan, please bring own food, not worth to spend that kind of money there. Oh yes, put on your slippers inside the chalet because could find some ants around !!!