Harris Resort Batam

We stayed in Harris Resort Batam during our 3 nights stay in Batam.

There are many rave reviews on TripAdvisor or other websites raving how friendly the General Manager is, how nice the staff is, blah blah blah. I suspect either is they are fake or paid or really lucky.. cos we did not encounter such good service. We did not even had a glance at the "friendly General Manager" at all during our 4 days 3 nights stay.

The front desk is almost always empty as well, and our room had no wi-fi signal as promised.. When we asked about it, they said "Your room too far". Major WTF.

Most of the staff can't speak English, and most of the staff at the Harris Cafe (male) are friendly to young sexy girls wearing revealing clothes or bikinis.. Normal (plain) girls like me and Santi guniang got the cold shoulder. Bah.

We stayed at the new wing!

Our rooms are the ones on the 2nd row, 3rd & 4th room from the left. :) There is an old and new wing. Good thing about new wing is the rooms are newer, but the old wing is closer to the lobby so you need not walk.. but the walking distance is only around 5mins, so it's alright lah.

Welly checking in for us!

Since both of them are Indonesia, the rooms are booked under their names cos locals get cheaper rates than foreigners! :)

Our twin bed rooms.

I shared with Santi guniang and Pipimon bunked in with Welly~

Pipimon love it so much cos everything is so Orange! His fave colour!

Our toilet in colourful tones!

Free toiletries which were untouched. Haha!

Actually, you can buy all your toiletries from the supermarket cos it's super cheap! Lux, Nivea lotion, whatever you want they have it! Especially in those mini mini bottles! Like less than S$1 per bottle! So you can go empty handed than you can go to any supermarket in Nagoya Hill or Megamall and grab grab grab!

Free coffee and tea~

We stayed on the 2nd floor and overlooking the pretty pool~

The Activities hut is just a 3min walk from the hotel lobby!

We took the 2hr package but we only utilized 1hr cos it was so boring (no fishes) and too hot. But there was no refund given but it's alright cos we find them very kelian.. whole day no business only we patronized them.. Haha! I mean, when you're on holiday you must be 'qing cai' (easy-going) mah.. Lose some, gain some.. No need to be so penny pinching.

Ready to go!

I took the single canoe cos I don't wanna share with Pipimon!

Haha! I am independent!

:)

It was quite a easy canoeing session cos there were no waves.. Haha!

The pool is empty cos it was a weekday. When we checked in on 16 Jan (Sun), the pool was super packed with K.I.D.S and lots of families! So if you wanna enjoy the pool, stay away on weekends!

Lots of lazy chairs around but no shade and it's super hot!

There were also a hut beside the pool which has basketballs, frisbees, towels, etc.. You can just walk over and take cos there was no one manning the hut.. Or at least while we were there..

Hiding under the shade.. Haha! Both of us hate the sun!

Harris Cafe! We had our breakfast buffet here daily. :)

Their signature pizza served on a floor tile. Not bad lah.

S$120 meal for 4 person. *horror*!

The food is super expensive, like averaging between S$15 to S$25 for a dish of fried kway teow or fried rice, excluding tax. They really chop you cos the taxi fare out and back is around S$70 and their shuttle bus timings are very limited. This is the only time we ate lunch in the resort cos we were too tired to go out after our canoeing/swimming session.

It rained super heavily the moment we came back from our canoeing and swimming session! Haha! So heng right? :)

Overall, we would give Harris Batam a 3 out of 5.

They lost 1 point for location cos it's damn far away from the city area! The taxi fare (one way) is around Rupiah 250,000 which is like S$35! Imagine you only have two person than you have to pay S$70 to just go to the stupid shopping mall? The taxi really chop you cos they only earn money from tourist and sometimes they go empty for the whole day.. The locals take bus or ride motorbikes. Damn fucking expensive lah! The distance is not like from Changi to Jurong, but maybe from Changi Airport to Bedok that kind of distance but you can't get out by yourself cos it's all jungle area! -_-

They lost another 1 point for the damn expensive food they charge at their cafe. It's more expensive than most 5 star hotels in Singapore and it's just normal fried noodles and rice. The service is OK only but for the price, it's passable.

The one thing that I super buay song is they knocked on our doors at 6.30am EVERY MORNING! Like major WTF? It's some "morning call knock" but I think they got the wrong room lah! Imagine you sleep until so shiok than got some idiots knock on your door and shout "HELLO! WAKE UP! MORNING CALL!". On one morning instead of morning call, they shouted "HELLO! COLLET LAUNDRY!" -- at 6.30am in the morning? I opened the door and screamed "FUCK OFF!!!!!!!" and slammed it in the face. A bit OTT, but I was really pissed cos it was not the first time. Bah.

Will I go back again and stay at Harris? Nah.. once is enough.. Cos we don't really spend much time at the resort.. only 1 out of the 4 days we were there.. since the cab fare is like S$70 for two way, I rather save that kind of money and stay in the city! Imagine the cab fare costs more than 1 night stay in the resort!? Mad right? I will recommend staying in "i Hotel" next time. It's new, good location, pretty and very reasonably priced.