Travel: Harris Resort Waterfront Batam Hotel Review

*Update 9 sep 2019: Some levels/rooms are under renovation now. It can smell of paint/noisy/dusty. Do take note before considering this hotel*

Harris Waterfront Batam Resort (2019)

Dining

There are 5 dining options available in the resort facilities.
Harris Cafe - International and local delights. Complete with bar, darts machine and live band.
Harrissimo - Al fresco pizza restaurant besides the pool
Seaside Grill - Romantic, quiet dinner spot beside the sea
Arirang Korean Restaurant - Korean food
Juice Bar - for drinks

We only managed to try Arirang during our stay there. Will include the review of this place in a separate post.

Facilities 

Harris Waterfront Pools

Harris Waterfront Batam Rainbow Float (Photo from official site)

They have giant floats like this! Seems fun and I believe children will enjoy their time here.

Dino Kids Club is also available to take care of your little ones. There is a games room with some board games and soccer match game, gym and table tennis to keep the adults entertained as well.

It also seems that there are some water sports activities available.
For people who wish to take it slow,  you can check out H'Spa in the resort.


We only used the gym, table tennis and game room during our stay.

Rooms

There are generally 2 types of rooms; Harris Room and Harris Family Room. Family room comes with a double-decker bed and a king bed. From my understanding it is for 2 adults and 2 children under age 13.

We opted for Harris Room and it is huge.

Harris Waterfront Batam - Harris Room

The bed can comfortably sleep 3, happy to roll around. Everything is pretty nice and true to the pictures. I believe the rooms were newly furbished.

Room amenities - Slippers, Safe, Hangers

It comes with a small lounge sofa, dressing area, safe, lazy chair and balcony overlooking the pool.

Worth the money indeed.

Location

Harris Waterfront Batam Beach Sunset

Close to one of the ferry terminals but sadly not the one we came from. However, there's really nothing much around Harris Waterfront Batam so if you are looking to chill and get away from the crowd, this is a good place to consider.

Harris Waterfront Batam Beach/Seaside

Getting a Grab here is a traumatic experience. I would suggest liaising with a driver, pay for the scary cabs or just stay put in the hotel. Despite reading from places it is alright to take Grab as long as you are a distance away from the mall/hotel etc, I seriously don't think so. The cabbies will chase after us whenever we walk passed and we really felt like preys in their eyes.

Horrible.

Service

Service was not too bad, we were served a welcome drink and cold towel upon our arrival. (2 pm). However, we were told there were no rooms for us yet so we had to wait for an hour. No service recovery was made, no interconnecting room despite requesting and we were only given rooms when we went to check with the counter. People who came after us got their rooms earlier. That was something I could not comprehend.

We wanted to travel out for dinner so we called up the front desk (the information booklet mentioned to call them to check for shuttle services). The counter told us there's no shuttle and it will be very expensive to go out. I was like... ??? They did not advise the price, how to get transport etc but keep insisting it is going to be expensive. We gave up checking with the front desk after a couple of attempts.

Overall

Enjoyed my stay there despite the hiccups we met in the beginning. Saw some 'resorts' along the beach but didn't see the option of booking a room like that from the website or agoda (the booking site I used for this trip). Let me know if you know whether those can be booked or not.

Harris Resort Waterfront Batam

Rating: 8/10
Will recommend