My 29th Batam Trip
(9th to 11th June 2016)
Reference : My 28th Batam Trip Summary
Its Ramadan on this trip,which i deliberately picked those dates to visit Batam. There were lots of mysteries and myths in Batam over the decades,so i am finally here,well equip to peep deeper into this season of the year where most people didnt quite like to visit Batam.
Took the morning ferry to Harbour Bay via Harbour Front. I was expecting the ferry to be no more than 50% filled,but i was wrong. The ferry was more than 80% filled. And they were filled mostly by elderly man and ladies with a handful of younger volunteers organizing a 4D3N Batam trip. How did i know its a 4D3N? Hehehe...i took a close up peep on their itinerary.
Stamping passport at the custom was a breeze at Harbour Bay.Obviously the elderly tourists on the ferry with us couldnt beat us in term of speed to reach the check point,hehehe...and the Business Class on Horizon ferry appears to have many indonesian disembarking from the boat. Again,they couldnt beat us on speed due to their heavier luggages. We were the 1st 10 people to get our passport chopped,hehehe...
Didnt approach Kaha this trip to get our room voucher but instead head straight to have our money changed,before heading STRAIGHT for hotel check in as i have already reserved our favorite rooms in advance (check in time was before 11am Batam time,hehehe..). The hotel was able to give me a good price on a particular i wanted,but i have to turn it down becos i wish to accumulate the hotel points to upgrade my membership card to Silver Grade and becos of this,i lost an extra 100k rupiah in my 3D2N stay.
At this point i wish to clarify one small little error on the Formosa Membership. Remember on my
28th Batam trip summary ,i said Formosa will be terminating the contract with Kaha,honestly i do not know how true and there is no way i can 100% be sure that their contract was terminated and in this trip,i was told again that it wasnt (by Kaha). So i am able to get 475k rupiah for Deluxe room on weekdays and 525k rupiah on weekends. Then again,look closely at the membership offer on the list below. Getting the FREE membership gives me 460k flat price thru out both Thursday and Friday (Friday was considered a weekend).
Do note that whatever information i shared here were shared to me by staffs or the people involved in its respective business entities. So it accuracy is subject to change base without prior notice.
Just like almost 2 years ago,i mention about Formosa may be closing down becos the plot of land in its area including Lucky Plaza,Center point were bought over by some developers. I am not the owner of these lands,nor am i the developers. Information i received were from the tenants of Center Point ,Lucky plaza and perhaps some friends. So the ultimate decision lies with developers and the people involved the whole project. And i have no part in its decision. One will need to understand that it really take a very very long time to demolished a building and another very very long time to come up with a new building in Batam. They can also change or tweet their minds at a later time too. Final decision lies with them as i am not the land owner nor the developer.
(what i mean by "very very long time here",i am using the building of Tiban Tua Pek Kong temple as a benchmark and it took than more than 6 years since its building starts and its still not complete to date)
The latest i heard,they are building the new residence building behind Formosa Hotel,and later merge it with the hotel itself. My guess is,they are likely going to turn Formosa Hotel into something like Formosa Hotel and Residence (i read it from some news).
Anyway,becos of the mis-information,i footed an extra 100k for my hotel bill. Not going into details here but its a choice i made becos i choose to "buy" the points for the membership. Reason is simple,i WANT something from the membership,hehehe...poor receptionist kept apologizing to me becos i lost the 100k rupiah,hehehe...told him its ok. I may be stingy,but i know what i am getting,hehehe...
We checked in :
Seems like my regular room got so many fault. I didnt had a change of room becos its a room most of my friends were familiar with. But i will be dropping this room for future trips. Friends and bros who are with me,do take note. I need the hotel management to "service" that room,hehehe...before i get back in.
Like i say earlier,i know what i wish to get from the hotel itself and below is what i got :
...and i am not paying a dime for it,hehehe...we were given a pair of breakfast voucher and a Break-Fast Dinner voucher. Anyway,at the end of the day,we didnt get to enjoy it becos we pass that vouchers to our overnight booking girls and that saves us 100k rupiah each on dinner. (we usually dont bring our girls for lunch/dinner,but will leave behind 100k for them to eat on their own)
Ok,back to after check in,we head to check out the joints. It was early noon,around 12pm Batam time when we visit nearly all the booking joints in Batam...
Result is very few girls...and many of these joints,we have to head back twice (some even thrice). All joints were opened but all entries were from their back door. And i do means all booking joints,entries of were all from their backdoor.
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