My friends and I decided to plan a short getaway to Batam last weekend. We booked Holiday Inn Resort thinking that there's activities available in the hotel or nearby which we can enjoy.
We reached Batam via Waterfront ferry terminal around 12.45pm and when through the immigration office. There was already some delay at this point. (We arrived at the country but my friends' passport chopped departure instead. Duh! The officer had to run out to collect the passport back to re-chopped, but when it was returned, the stamp is correct, but date is wrong. Can you imagine?!)
Anyway when we finally managed to roll to the hotel, we thgt we can finally enjoy ourselves. Good thing abt the hotel is tt they provide free airport transfer from terminal to hotel, even without having the need to make prior arrangements.
The queue at the recep wasnt long, juz two grps in frint if us, 5-6 staff behind, but we waited for nearly half hour! The hotel recep told us tt our room wasn't ready, and will only be ready in another hour. When we asked for the location of the cable ski, the staff gave us a brochure for other water sports except for cable ski. She took another 10mins trying to call the cable ski. End up, we decided to just take a look ourselves instead of waiting again.
We wanted to order some kueh lapis to bring back so we checked out with the hotel. The staff themselves don't even know what brand kueh lapis they are holding! And keep giving us the price list! And when we decided to go town, the cab was expensive. It was only a trip from our hotel to Nagoya! When we return, we took the cab from another hotel which is just in front of Nagoya and it was much cheaper. This cab from The Hills took us from Nagoya to Golden Prawn, waited for us to finish dinner then back to Holiday Inn for a lesser fee!
The next day after our spa treatment, we called for room service and also asked for two satchet of coffee powder. A guy from the recep called and say that we are supposed to check out already. I replied him politely that we have actually asked for late checkout @ 2pm and was granted that. This guy still had to cheek to ask me who allowed that!! I said ur recep and he just say,"ok, I check.", and hanged up. -.-'
Shortly after, my lapis delivery came (I called and ordered myself) and was at the recep. He asked for our room number to deliver upstairs but when he told the recep, they told him no such room number. I thgt it was a communicatiom problem. Even when the delivery uncle pass the phone to the recep, she gave me that innocent tone that there's no such room. Does tt mean that the room we stayed is a phantom room? Finally I managed to convince the recep tt the room is indeed in the hotel and that ends the whole conversation.

For an international brand, this hotel needs serious revamp of its staff. I will certainly not stay in any hotels under this brand worldwide again.

I stayed at this resort for two nights in October and had a lovely time. The staff cannot be faulted, they were all happy and friendly and went out of their way to make the stay enjoyable. Particulary Maya at reception, when she found out that it was my birthday she arranged an upgrade on our room for the second night and had a cake delivered for me. The spa is well worth a visit with lovely surroundings, staff and treatments. The only negatives were that the basic one bedroom suite was a bit dated and there were not many beds around the pool. The childrens pool area was great and had a very fast slide. When you arrive in Batam all the signs say that a visa is $25 US for foreign nationals however my daughter just asked for a $10 dollar visas as we were only staying for 3 days (the visas we were issued were valid for 7 days) I would not have realised this andwould have pad the full price has she not been with me.

This is the second time I have stayed in this property. The staff at the reception never fail to disappoint with their wonderful service. They are always smiling and apologizing for making us wait that extra time while they settled the guests before us. I was served by Maya and she has exemplary service, never stingy in her smiles. She even took the extra mile in recognising that I am a priority club member and gave me coupons to reflect the privileges of being a member. During my booking i have specified that I request for a corner room and high floor. Maya took note of this request and gave me an upgrade for free as they do not have high floor left (the hotel was full house at the time we were there). She even refuse to let me wait till 2pm for the other room to be ready and readily offered the upgrade to us.

As we entered the room, the living room was wonderful. The air conditioning in the room (both the living room and the bedroom) was powerful in cooling down the rooms despite the hot weather outside. The balcony was facing the pool and we were right smack centre of the hotel, thus allowing us to see most of the pool. The bedroom was wonderful, however would be perfect if the pillows were firmer. The smallish bathroom and bathtub was okay, though halfway through filling the tub, the water turned cold.

The staff at the spa never fail to ensure patrons are well taken care off with their warm and welcoming gestures, they also made the effort to constantly check with the customers if the force they used were just nice.

overall my stay at this hotel was wonderful. except for the pillow (which gave me very bad neckaches the next day) and the smallish bathroom, the hotel would be perfect.

My family (2 children - 6 and 8) and I were in need of a good weekend getaway. We weren't interested in a sightseeing type of holiday. We relaxed by the pool and were very impressed with the friendly service.