Nirwana Beach Club Review
You come from a long flight from Europe or North America and and in Singapore. You want to fight off your jetlag in a quiet, peaceful environment. What do you do? Well, you go on an overnight stay in Bintan Island, Indonesia, in an effort to get some peace, quiet, and calm before the city sightseeing. After all, you spent nearly 24 hours on the flight just to reach the exotic islands of Asia from the US, right?
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Bintan Island is convenient enough to go to from Singapore. The ferry is within a 10 minute taxi or a 20 minute bus ride from Changi Airport. Within an hour, you can find yourself in a different country and in a quietness surrounding it. Bintan Island is very touristy: it was meant to be a beach town catered to Singaporeans or people traveling through as Singapore does not have natural beaches.
The ferry is big, but you are inside an air conditioned area, which has its pros and cons. Pro because Indonesia can be pretty warm so the air conditioning can help. A big con is being inside can make you feel seasick. The waves can be a bit choppy and inside an enclosed area where there’s no fresh air, shared with a few hundred people that you share the space with: that is not a good combination.
Drink pills that help you deal with sea sickness at least an hour before the ferry actually leaves, regardless if you get easily seasick or not. You will thank us for this tip, thank you.
Bintan Island is actually bigger than I thought it will be. When choosing where to stay, you can opt to stay at the touristy part, which means less hassle in dealing with the ferry, but that may mean more expensive prices.
Upon researching, we came across Nirwana Beach Club. Nirwana is a huge resort, with different accommodations located within their compound: Beach Club, Resort, Mayang Sari, and Indra Maya.
These accommodation options are not equal: each of them cater to a specific price range and range from a cottage near the beach, a room in a big hotel, or a multi bedroom suite.
Why did we choose Nirwana Beach Club? Simply put: it is the most affordable option amongst the Nirwana group.
The room was big, and had enough space for two people. Like, more than enough space for 2 big suitcases and our clothes that needed to be dried out. There’s a TV with cable (good if you want to watch see movies in the evening), and a chair to sit on (or stack your stuff in).
The bathroom is a different story altogether. It is a bit small, with no divider between the shower and the toilet area. Hopefully you don’t splash as much when you are showering, otherwise it is going to be wet all over the bathroom.
There is however, a heater, which is not as common in some smaller hotels in Asia given that it’s really hot most of the time, and the hotel does provide towels and few toiletries. If you are very particular with toiletries, bring your own travel sized items!
The room is part of a duplex, where the other side of the cottage is another room, but you won’t really hear what’s happening within the other room. You do have your own balcony too, which is good to just sit down and watch the huge lizards and see the water (depending where your room is).
Not going to lie, Nirwana has a habit of nickel and diming you. Our accommodation is not all-inclusive, but we did get a breakfast package with our stay. The activities are also not included with your stay: if you want to do activities, expect to pay for them up front or through your final room bill.
Note that there are different prices if you are a day tripper (staying only for a couple of hours) or if you are a hotel guest (staying overnight or more).
I will write more in detail about this ‘experience’ in a different post, but I do hope the elephants are being taken care of a lot and were not abused in order to do these tricks and having humans riding on their backs.
It is Southeast Asia after all, so you may find a lot of these so-called sanctuaries, but some are actually not. Do your due diligence if these type of encounters make you uncomfortable or if you feel that these sanctuaries are abusing their animals.
The show is not every day, and they only do it once, maximum of twice a day: so if you are only there overnight and the show is not happening, sorry.
Same for the elephant rides: they do a maximum of 2 hours of elephant rides on the days that they offer it, with an additional riding time during peak hours – usually weekends.
The resort charges per bowling game, and you do have to rent the shoes from them. The bad thing is, they only have limited shoes per size, so if you have a foot size that is not common (either too small, like me, or have a bigger size), make sure they have it available when you need to play. There were only 2 size 3 men shoes available and I got the last pair.
There were plenty of bowling balls available in different sizes/weights, but when we were playing, it had a tendency to get stuck!
Let me get this straight: the beach is not clean and also not suitable for swimming in. Tar and jellyfish will be your worst enemy, so I would not get in the water. The sand can also have tar deposits that were washed up from the water, so scrub your feet in the shower if you do get it.
It still is a good place to lie down on one of the lounge chairs to chill and read a book, or walk around the beach where you will see the other resorts without needing the shuttle to go from place to place.
If you get bored of staying in the resort, you can take the hourly shuttles going downtown and explore a bit more. There should be souvenir shops, more affordable restaurants, and attractions to see. Remember the hours when the shuttle will be available to take you back to the hotel! A taxi will cost a fair bit of money.
Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to explore the downtown area. The afternoon gets really warm so the nap became a full on sleep cycle. It is something we will definitely want to do the next time we pop by the island.
There are plenty of other activities available for your recreation needs: each with their extra cost. Want to play indoor tennis or badminton? Sure, they have it. Basketball? Ride a kiddie ride? Arcade, ziplining? Yes, they have it all! But again, prepare your wallet for it.
Expect to pay American prices for food within the resort. The best priced food was by the pool, and our server was super nice that we went again and again. In fact, we tried the flavored iced tea so many times whenever we went there! And for the record, they have a lot of flavors for the iced tea so I don’t think we repeated something more than twice.
Indonesian Satay has a peanut based sauce, and is a little bit more spicy than its counterparts. Would recommend having chicken instead of the beef, but you are more than welcome to mix and match the number of pieces.
Our server was really nice and remembered us throughout our stay there as we always went for lunch and sat at almost the same spot near the pool.
Nickel and diming aside, yes, it is definitely worth it to stay in the resort. When you first book, make sure it is a refundable rate and that you watch out every few weeks to see if the prices went down.
In our case we booked the room early on, and found another cheaper amount closer to the date. And we just continued cancelling and rebooking the same room type every time the price went down. You know these hotels, they try to change the prices every now and again to get the most bang for their buck. If you stay one step ahead of them, you’ll end up saving a bit more money.
I would also recommend seeing the elephants in the preserve out back. You don’t need a golf cart or the shuttle to take you all over the resort. You can walk! Not only is it good exercise, it’s also a good chance to get your bearings around the property.
Quite sad that we were one of the few who always chose to walk instead of taking the golf carts though. The staff are more than happy to take you but we are more eco-friendly this way 🙂
A great stay overall and would definitely recommend this hotel to anybody who wants rest, relaxation, and spending time with loved ones. Also note, this is not a sponsored post, we actually paid for our stay with our own hard-earned cash!
Have you stayed at Nirwana Beach Club before? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
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