Holiday Inn Resort, Batam
[Review]
We have just returned from our annual camp held in Batam Holiday Inn, physically exhausted but spiritually recharged. I have already washed two loads of laundry and the third one is awaiting. The house is in the mess, my part-timer cleaner flies me kite, she went back to Batam without informing me. Now I got to get help from Helpling to clean up the house.
My church tries to go to different oversea resorts for church camp every year. This really gives us a chance to experience different types of accommodation on top of our usual vacation stay.
This year we went to Holiday Inn Resort in Batam. Because of its brand name, we had expected that it should be of at least 4-star service standard.
We are not fussy campers, particularly in church camps. We tried to be as accommodative as possible because it is not easy for the camp committee to plan for a camp. There are many logistic issues and planning behind the scene, nitty-gritty stuff to look after, in order to ensure campers are comfortable, fed well, have their needs met (especially parents with young children and the elderly).
However, maybe the brand name has already discreetly formed our impression without us knowing, I must say, the hotel facilities and services are a let down on the whole.
The Rooms
Although the rooms are really huge, they are poorly maintained. The room that we stayed is dusty, we know because AJ's nose is sensitive to dust. I wonder when was the last time they vacuumed the carpet and dry clean the curtains. The sofa cover is fabric, so I did not quite want to sink onto it too. The consolation is there was no bed bugs.
The Facilities in the Room
The rooms are equipped with ironing board and hair dryer, if you need to iron your clothes, you only need to ask for the iron. Wifi is provided throughout the hotel premise and there was no lagging connection.
We were fortunate not to have any faulty items but some of our campers were not so fortunate. Some had bulbs blown which took days to have them replaced, some were given wrong room access cards and they were made to disturb other guests in those rooms (how embarrassing)!
The Food
We suspect that the resort may not have much experience handling large group (we had more than 200 campers). Meals in buffet style were served throughout, however, one should expect some popular food items to go empty quite fast. The service staff were slow in observing that, and thus food replenishment was slow. In some dishes, particularly soup-based, they simply added water to leftover.
The Facilities in the Resort
There is a small gym in the resort, nothing to shout about as there are only 4 machines there. I did not use the gym but some campers did. I did not hear any complaints about it.
The lifts in the resort are old. There was an occasion when the lift door could not open when it reached my destination. I was alone in the lift. Fortunately I did not panic, I tried to press a few buttons to try to get the lift to other floors or open the door. Eventually I did get out without having to press the alarm button. From then, I barred AJ from taking the lifts alone.
The two pools are quite dirty. Throughout our 5-day stay there, I didn't observe any cleaning. I don't know how often they clean the pool, definitely not once a week!
This is our second visit to Batam. We stayed in Nongsa Point Marina 2 years ago and it was a lovely stay, whereas this was a far cry. We did not complain to our camp committee, I merely penned it here for Trip Advisor's review. There are many hotels/resorts stay in Batam. One has no lack of choice, choose wisely, read all the credible reviews before you book.
We have just returned from our annual camp held in Batam Holiday Inn, physically exhausted but spiritually recharged. I have already washed two loads of laundry and the third one is awaiting. The house is in the mess, my part-timer cleaner flies me kite, she went back to Batam without informing me. Now I got to get help from Helpling to clean up the house.
My church tries to go to different oversea resorts for church camp every year. This really gives us a chance to experience different types of accommodation on top of our usual vacation stay.
This year we went to Holiday Inn Resort in Batam. Because of its brand name, we had expected that it should be of at least 4-star service standard.
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| The Lobby/Reception. It looks big and grand and gives the impression that it can play host to 1000 guests. |
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| We chose a 2-bedroom apartment so this is the living hall. |
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| As you can see here, the living area itself is already very spacious. Wait till you see the Master bedroom. |
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| The kitchenette. The hotels replenishes 4 bottles of distilled water daily. Tap water is not drink-able. |
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| The Master bedroom that comes with king size bed. Technically, it can fit in 2 queen size beds with still room to roam. |
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| The other bedroom has 2 single beds |
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| The ensuite bathroom room in the Master bedroom |
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| The common bathroom |
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| The toiletries are replenished everyday |
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| View from our balcony. The highest is 12 storey. We stayed on the 4th. |
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| Sandpit next to the pool |
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| There are two pools. One open pool, one sheltered pool. The shelter pool is small, and the weather was good, so we only used the open pool. |
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| The ballroom where we had our daily spiritual meals |
We are not fussy campers, particularly in church camps. We tried to be as accommodative as possible because it is not easy for the camp committee to plan for a camp. There are many logistic issues and planning behind the scene, nitty-gritty stuff to look after, in order to ensure campers are comfortable, fed well, have their needs met (especially parents with young children and the elderly).
However, maybe the brand name has already discreetly formed our impression without us knowing, I must say, the hotel facilities and services are a let down on the whole.
The Rooms
Although the rooms are really huge, they are poorly maintained. The room that we stayed is dusty, we know because AJ's nose is sensitive to dust. I wonder when was the last time they vacuumed the carpet and dry clean the curtains. The sofa cover is fabric, so I did not quite want to sink onto it too. The consolation is there was no bed bugs.
The Facilities in the Room
The rooms are equipped with ironing board and hair dryer, if you need to iron your clothes, you only need to ask for the iron. Wifi is provided throughout the hotel premise and there was no lagging connection.
We were fortunate not to have any faulty items but some of our campers were not so fortunate. Some had bulbs blown which took days to have them replaced, some were given wrong room access cards and they were made to disturb other guests in those rooms (how embarrassing)!
The Food
We suspect that the resort may not have much experience handling large group (we had more than 200 campers). Meals in buffet style were served throughout, however, one should expect some popular food items to go empty quite fast. The service staff were slow in observing that, and thus food replenishment was slow. In some dishes, particularly soup-based, they simply added water to leftover.
The Facilities in the Resort
There is a small gym in the resort, nothing to shout about as there are only 4 machines there. I did not use the gym but some campers did. I did not hear any complaints about it.
The lifts in the resort are old. There was an occasion when the lift door could not open when it reached my destination. I was alone in the lift. Fortunately I did not panic, I tried to press a few buttons to try to get the lift to other floors or open the door. Eventually I did get out without having to press the alarm button. From then, I barred AJ from taking the lifts alone.
The two pools are quite dirty. Throughout our 5-day stay there, I didn't observe any cleaning. I don't know how often they clean the pool, definitely not once a week!
This is our second visit to Batam. We stayed in Nongsa Point Marina 2 years ago and it was a lovely stay, whereas this was a far cry. We did not complain to our camp committee, I merely penned it here for Trip Advisor's review. There are many hotels/resorts stay in Batam. One has no lack of choice, choose wisely, read all the credible reviews before you book.
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