Batam, Turi beach Resort 2D1N review. 30-31st Dec 2014.
As my token of appreciation to thank the long lists of blog reviews I came across before my own Batam trip, which presumedly had helped to make my journey easier, I was aspired to take tons of photos and come back with the most comprehensive guide to Turi beach resort kekeke. So long story short. Tan and me purchased 2 Groupon deal @ $99 each. Excluding a ferry terminal fee of $23 per pax ( May varies a little depending on the terminal you choose.) The deal is likely to be available all year round so if one website indicates it's sold out, can always try to find on other deals webpages.
Henceforth, after a few E-mails to and fro to confirm our arrival date and time, the journey begins.
You can take bus 35 to the ferry terminal from Tenah merah Mrt, it's just 4 stops away. We scheduled the ferry at 10am, proceed to Batamfast ( our ferry carrier ) to obtain the Boarding passes for both to and fro trip, Check-in was fast despite us reaching at 9.15am. A very short ride of approximately 30minutes and we reach at Batam around 9.40am local time. ( One hour lag. )
Nongsapura Ferry terminal
Upon arriving, you will see a man holding a sign saying 'Turi beach resort' who will instruct you to hop onto a blue&white small van, for clarification Turi beach resort one of the Nongsa resorts together with Nongsa point marina & resorts. So no panic if you can't spot any van with the prints Turi beach on it. The ride takes about 10 minutes and then we arrived the lobby of Turi beach resort.
Layout of nongsapura
Greeted by the ice Ginger tea that might not suit your taste, but still I think it's a great gesture by the resort. The receptionists are friendly, albeit they are very busy too. Wasn't surprised that we couldn't do early Check-in thanks to the other blog reviews. Check in time is at 2pm and we suggest people who are interested to arrive at about 1 plus, unless you have plans to hop to the Shopping malls before checking in.
View from lobby
The weather was quite windy and cloudy on our day of arrival, hence the grey sky. I guess the view will be more fabulous should there be more sunlight, but again I'm good with no sun burning ahead of me. :) Since we couldn't check in, I decide to take more photos of everything around the lobby, you can choose to go for a swim at the two swimming pools in the meanwhile too.
Buffet prices and availability.
Sea sports and activities price lists
I figured that you can actually find all these information on their official website too, but with my aspiration to do a comprehensive review, here they are.
We took a walk around to explore the resort since we have no intension to leave the resort on day 1. Just to verify the descriptions of the blogs we read before the trip tehehe.
Emerald pool.
Forget what pool
Despite looking clear and clean in the photo, there is actually a number of dried leaves in the second pool, so the Emerald pool is more recommended by me. But again you can always just get out and walk over to both pools. There is two Aqua bars by he pool, pretty cool concept but it's sitting on stone blocks in the water, so it probably won't be as comfortable as we imagined it to be.A few facilities around open for all including mini golf, really mini because there is just one hole and two clubs. But still, can entertain you for maybe 10minutes? And there are a few wooden huts, some with cushioned bed for people to relax in, but you have to be early to hog them since people, usually families are unlikely to leave the hut once they are in it. There are also a hammock by the beach that we never get a chance to lay since it was always occupied.
And uh the legendary jetty that tons of blogger go by to snap photos. It stretches around 220m out into the sea I think. Good way to kill time for us to walk to and fro especially while waiting for our room to be ready. :D
Albeit I was hoping that the water is better than our East coast park standard, it is uhm, in fact a little worse since it was infested with patches of seaweeds. And clearly nobody bothers to swim in the sea keke.
As we walk further onto the jetty, there is interestingly a line of sea water that separates the murky water with the much clearer sea water. We tried to walk to the extreme end of the beach walkway and was eventually blocked by a signboard after about a 15 minutes walk.
In my weak attempt to find some marine lifeforms, the best we could present is a puny little prawn that Tan took some effort to scope it up from the water, and a palm size crab that another family by the beach caught.
Upon spending two hours or so by the beach, we settled down for ala carte lunch and eventually hogged a wooden hut to ourselves. The resort serve mostly buffet for all meals but you can find their ala carte menu too. A plate of bolognese cost about 145000Rp ($15), well food in resort is about Singapore price and the taste wasn't Masterchef standard for sure but it was filling after all. :)
Eventually time passed by and we got our room on the 4th floor, there was all sorts of recommendation online but I guess it's very subjective, every floor has the better view rooms while the others are blocked by coconut trees, you may try your luck to request a beach-front 2nd floor room but it's all subject to their availability as usual. We stayed in the Titra premium room that comes with a little balcony, which I think all rooms have.
I guess we are lucky that our room has no signs of insects throughout since later on we met a newly wed who commented that they are living with a bunch of red ants and lizards. Room was spacious with mirrors surrounding, which further reinforce my wish to have a big mirror in my new house, easier to practise Yoga teheh.
Don't bother to combine the Single beds into one because it's fixed to the entire bed frame, for our room at least. The room comes with basic amenities like slippers (found in the wardrobe), water heater, 2 bottle of water, a bar fridge, toothbrushes. Wifi access is only at the lobby area but Tan said that he could use whassapp in the room too, but unable to access to internet browsers.
Our balcony view
From what I gathered the Titra wing rooms are the newer ones so it's more contemporary while the Riani wing is more towards the wooden traditional Java style.
Snapped a shot of the balcony of Riani rooms during our exploration:
.... I took so much photos that now I have to post them up but I don't know what captions to put anymore. Okay uhm here is the wooden planks of the Jetty walk on the left, and on the right is me with a lamp post. Hi.
Okay something useful here now, we went for a swim after settling down in the cold Emrald pool water before trembling our way up. On downside of staying on 4th floor is that you have to climb 100 over steps to reach the rooms from the beach, to climb from the staircase on the left of the pool takes 93steps, while walking form the right staircase takes 126 steps. Keke. Alternatively, you can take the lift near the cafeteria.
Thanks to our dedicated research beforehand, we set our eyes on Rezeki seafood restaurant for dinner instead of eat in, which later proved to be a great success cause we were told that the Teppanyaki is overpriced ( $30 per pax) and the portion is little and it's worse than Singapore's. It's around 10minutes drive form Turi beach resort and cost 160,000 rupiah for a round trip. ($17) We were lucky to share the cab with a new weds couple who are heading there as well, so tips, try to find people to take Taxi together at the lobby to save cost. :D
Set in a typical kelong style seafood restaurant, we had a great dinner at Rezeki, the food wasn't the best you can find, but it's the best choice if you are staying near Nongsa I suppose. We had Chilli crab that uses the Nasi lemak chilli, lemon chicken, kankong and hot plate tofu that adds up to about $40. Suppose that's much cheaper than in Singapore that could have easily cost double the price.
On our way back we dropped by a supermarket whereby Tan was exhilarated with Heineken beer going at $1 per can and went all crazy about it. Okay not crazy but, a little astonished and probably wanted to settled down in Batam for life in that split second. On the other hand, I was excited by the firecrackers and I picked the biggest one in hope to light it when we are back, it was however taken away by the security when we went back because it wasn't allowed in the resort. Aww.
On the second day, we went down for the buffet breakfast, which again I love the entire setting of it being by the sea side and listening to the waves hitting ashore, and also piano musics airing in the area, such tranquil moment of life. The selection of food is similar to what you get at most hotels for breakfast. Western, Asian, Salad, Bakeries, tropical fruits and teas.
There are also freshly fried eggs in all styles you want, even though it was later proven to be a little tasteless but still, good enough for me. :D
After which we strolled to the other side of the extreme end of the beach, guessed we are the only people that do that. We found a beach volleyball court that was in much better condition as compared to the one at the main beach that was sloped downwards into the sea. So grab a ball along if you are coming with a group of people. :)
Further in the walkway linked us to the Nongsa marina resort beside ours whereby the water there are much calmer and cleaner than Turi beach, but it was equally stuffy because there was no wave coming in.
In our weak attempt to not waste our stay, we popped into Emerald pool again and got out soon after because it felt like the water became even colder than the day before. Our stay at Turi beach then come to an end and I'm honestly generally contented with everything. But perhaps the experience is always subjective and some may by fussy about the time waited for Taxi, considering we called in at 10am to book one for 12pm, but it was only when we reach the lobby at 12 did they then called one for us, which we waited for another 20minutes, but again I'm not particular about it since the receptionist have a lot to handle after all. I'm therefore satisfied with my stay and picking the resort was a right choice, though I don't foresee myself coming back again keke.
Got onto a cab and went down to Nayoga hill shopping mall for 160,000rp ($17), they do round trip too and usually wait you up till 4 hours for $320,000. The taxi price was different from those we found online but I guess beggars can be no choosers, given that we are in a isolated resort there is no way we can flag down a taxi oursleves, we were lucky to have back the same Taxi uncle that drove us down to Rezeki the night before who happen to be a really friendly and chatty uncle and taught me a lot more about living in Batam. :)
Upon reaching, we found the Reborn massage center as recommended by Ginny who went shortly before me, it was cheap and value for money. Located outside Nayoga hill, there is a row of massage centers and Reborn is at the right corner of the street. Banners can be seen around so it's easy to find too. They were having promotion now going at 150,000rp for 2 hours before tax, after tax is about 175000 per pax ($19), I'm pretty sure that's one of the cheapest you can find around the region. :) We went for a 1.5hr massage and half hour body scrub, in hope to clean off the layer dead skin on my body keke.
Afterwards we popped to the every-singaporean-also-go A&W, which we believe it's highly overrated and it's not very cheap anyway. Well no harm just trying since you don't get it in Singapore, but I personally feel that what we have got in Singapore is much better.
And another every-singaporean-also-eat is the Ayam penyet ria which is again overrated, but since there was no queue so again no harm just eat it. The chicken is proven to be tiny indeed and it cost about $3 with rice.
Last but not least a message I would love to bring across to all is that when you walk into the mall and greated by Timezone, yes the tokens are so cheap that it cost $0.30 per game but honestly do not bother, because if you spent an hour or so in there naively like us thinking that you are enjoying the best the mall could offer, you are never so wrong. After we change $10 and playe for what felt like eternity, we got out and walked further into the mall and was greeted by something ten times more grand, a comprehensive arcade that covers more games than our local arcade, not mentioning the rundown Timezone we spent an hour plus in. So go for Dunia fantasi instead and not be like us hahaha.
Then we eventually cabbed down from Nayoga hill to Batam center which cost about 70,000rupiah ($7.50), it wil cost a little more if you get the cab outside the mall because it's monopolised, so for cheaper option you can walk out onto the road sides to flag down one yourself. According to the Taxi driver previously you can get the cab from Nogoya to Batam center for as low as 50,000 if you bargain, or the most capped at 80,000rp.
Yay I'm finally done with my first, and probably only travel review because this is just too time consuming. I appreciate all the travel bloggers' effort but this is just not for me man. Oh and we were lucky to come back on 31st dec cause we happen to witness some little fireworks along Indonesia along our ferry back.
To yet another great year of adventures ahead !
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