The Residence Bintan

I kidnapped my boyfriend to Bintan for his birthday this year. The conversation went a little like this:

Me: Babe, can you take leave on Friday so we can spend time?

Dan: Okay. What do you wanna do?

Me, 5 days later: Bring your passport.

So, this happened ^

I was researching on nearby travel destinations for a short getaway and it was narrowed down to Bintan and Batam. Was reallyyyy glad we ended up at The Residence!

Tip: You can get your ferry tickets from Bintan Resort Ferries - each round ticket is around $32 -$38 but you can get yours at a discount if you have the NTUC card for $24-30 (not sponsored, I just found this out by googling!)



As you can see from my above photos, their "80min scenic bus ride" from the ferry terminal to the hotel, as stated on the website, is slightly questionable. But what I really appreciate is that the shuttle bus was really comfy and they provided us a bottle of water each on arrival.

The service is free for every guest staying so all you have to do is email your ferry schedule to the hotel and they will arrange everything for you.

Tip: On arrival, don't bother getting data because the whole resort has wifi. BUT download a netflix show or two on your phone because it's a long ride.



We got the Garden view room ($192/night via Expedia) which can house a maximum of 3 people. Our room is on the first floor but it's much more luxurious than it looks.


We can both safely agree that our room turned out to be more like a suite. Once we entered, we were graced with a huge living room the size of half a BTO flat. There is also a random stage-looking platform that could possibly be where they hold their in-suite massages.

They also have a bathtub for my lush bomb endeavours.

Our mornings usually start with a little exploring...

Despite it being a beach vacay, we found the beach slightly underwhelming... Maybe it was the high tide but it was really more of a mangrove than a sand and sea situation.

Exploring stops when the sun gets a little too hot. By 8am in the morning, we would be in one of our pre-booked Morning yoga stretch sessions. It was Daniel's first yoga session ever and he survived(ish). cue evil laughter hahaha.



Because the resort is an hour away from any form of civilisation, food options are pretty limited here. We were basically stuck with 3-4 food choices for your entire stay.

Food Outlets

1. Rica-rica

2. The clubhouse

3. Pool bar

4. Room service

Our favourite was Rica-Rica, which served local cuisine. They'd also serve crackers beforehand and their meat marinates are really authentic. We were gobbling down our food here and were so thankful to have been able to do a walk in because this restaurant is said to be always fully booked.



On days we were lazy, we got room service (we just had to do a pizza delivery hahaha). That costed us the price of a deliveroo delivery (+3SGD)



We decided to do some extreme sports on our second last day. They had high and low elements but we picked rock climbing, just because we wanted to work on our legs and biceps ($20/pax). lol.



Commuting from one place to another was my favourite because we would only travel on bicycles or buggys. We cycled around most of the time because the air was so fresh.



All in all, I'm glad that Operation-Surprise/kidnap-Daniel-for-his-birthday was a success! My final parting note, though, is... bring tons of sunblock. tons.