travel

A Getaway to The Canopi Resort, Bintan

Sunday, March 12, 2017

As part of an early pre-Valentine's Day celebration for my boyfriend (and I happened to have replacement leaves to clear too, hahaha) we booked a short 2D1N getaway at Canopi Resort just right across sunny Singapore - Bintan!

I made the reservation directly on their site, and booked the Lagoon View Tent Deluxe with a Jacuzzi right outside 😊


Since Darren and I have been on so many trekking and camping adventures together, I figured that a glamping would be a nice experience as well. Glamping = Glamorous Camping. 😂



It was a short 24-hour stay, so right after his BodyPump class at Celebrity Fitness, we headed straight to Tanjong Pagar Ferry Terminal to board the ferry. He thought I was quite kia-su to rush there, but I'd rather us be early than to miss the ferry - since the next ferry was like 4-5 hours later!

There were LOTS of foreigners, especially chinese nationals. Thankfully Singaporeans have got an express lane, so we got to skip the horrendous queue. Yay! 😋

FYI, I pre-booked the tickets online on Bintan Resort Ferries website prior to our trip, remember to book the ferry from Tanjong Pagar Ferry Terminal to Bandar Bintan Telani Ferry Terminal if heading to Canopi Resort. (about S$125 for two people) The entire ferry ride was about an hour (one way) and I thought it's pretty comfortable too.


Upon arrival, the staffs from Canopi were there to greet us at the Ferry Terminal.

Apparently, we were the only ones arriving at that timing, so we had the whole bus to ourselves!


It's just a short 5 minutes bus ride from the ferry terminal to the Canopi Resort. We arrived and were like...... Wow. This place is HUGE.


Yup, we were both in sports wear coz we just finished Bodypump class, hahaha.


The water was soooooooooo blue, but do you know that the entire lagoon is actually man made?! The water is filtered sea water, and there's no marine creature at all but it can get pretty deep. It's so big that people actually pay to go around the lagoon. There were small boats inside too! 🛶




Checking in was a breeze, the staffs were all so friendly and quickly showed us to our room shortly. We had our welcome drinks (orange juice) as well.


Thankfully our tent was near the restaurant..


Loving our room! Safari feel, definitely 😋


I love our super soft & comfortable huge bed!

Here's our front porch.. and the view we get when we open the door :)

I didn't get to take photo of our outdoor toilet, but it's so gorgeous!

I super duper love outdoor toilets, coz it makes me feel like a cave woman. LOL 😂
Anyway, the amenities were pretty complete - shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser, body wash, hairdryer etc.

Thought it'd be nice if they provided a comb also, which they didn't.


We headed out to explore shortly - and because we were so hungry too!

Check out the turquoise blue water! 😍

Decided to go for some activities after walking for less than 5 minutes.. The lagoon was sooooo huge!

Believe me when I say it's really huge...


Here's an overview of the entire lagoon!


We realised that they actually have their own forest and mangrove as well - so they actually offer mangrove kayaking, fireflies tour and ATV in their forest too. Super cool!

Check out our badass ride 😚


If we wanted to do any activity, we'd to go to the clubhouse and purchase there - which was a little troublesome because we had to walk all the way whenever we wanted to do something.

We wanted to do ATV at the forest, but decided not to and instead went for the airsoft gun, since we were a little hungry and wanted to go for lunch after. Heheh. 

Prices are really affordable. They will charge these activities to your room, so it'll be billed to you upon checkout.

The airsoft gun activity was pretty fun, though a little short! My dear D was like an expert, reloading the bullets for me. 💋



After our airsoft game, we went for lunch! Just right outside the clubhouse, there's a row of temporary stalls serving some local cuisines like Ramly burgers, nasi goreng, noodles and others.

Food is just okay~ We were hungry so couldn't expect much. But prices are okay.

After that, we decided to do some water activities!!!!

Went to ANOTHER counter and purchase tickets for the Stand-Up Paddling (for 1 pax) but could be shared between both of us :)

It was our first time, thankfully the people there are really nice and helped us as much as they could!


Alright it looks really easy when other people are doing it, but it's quite hard to balance on the board! Hahaha
Anyway we fell into the water several times, but had so much fun doing it!

There were times D will purposely shake the entire board and make us fall into the water, but it was all cool since we had our life jacket on. The water can be pretty deep, but yup - life jacket to the rescue!

I think we played more than an hour... It was really fun!



After that, we went back to our tent, showered and went to the reception to call a cab. We requested for them to bring us to the nearby hawker centre to eat, because according to the reviews it's more authentic and cheap!

The taxi charged us $16 for two ways, but it was like a 5 minutes drive away from the resort -_-

But we wouldn't walk out on our own anyway, since it was really dark and there's no street light at all.

We had quite a nice dinner at the hawker centre - but realised it's actually the entire island's staff canteen! So they were looking at us as if we were from another planet.. D said it was the way I was dressed. Overdressed at a hawker centre 😂

The ayam penyet is really nice though! And the drinks costed us 80cents.. Food was less than $10. Super affordable! We then walked to the nearby supermart and bought some snacks to eat back at our hotel. The magnum ice cream was like only $1.50?! We ate two ice-cream each. 😂




The next morning, we went to the cafe for our complimentary breakfast.

We were a little disappointed with the spread, there wasn't much variety and it wasn't that great as well. Thought that the standard can improve and the food wasn't too appetising...

Nevertheless, service was great.

Resting at the lounge after our breakfast!
Really loving these sundecks! Looks like we're at Santorini. Hahahhaa. 


We extended our checkout time to 4pm, so we had a lot of time to play at the lagoon again. This time, we bought admission to the obstacle course.

Yeap.. Those inflated slides behind us.
It was super slippery though! And I was a little scared to do them because I didn't want to fall into the water 😅 Phobia and from past experiences... Just wanted to be more cautious.

D was exploring every bit of it, and I felt a little sad that I couldn't join him 😔


Anyway, we still had a blast together, because we swam in the water for a while before going back to our room to pack up for checkout.

He says that I'm secretly very happy. Hahahaha. 😚
Also took this donut float.. We were supposed to rent it, but well.. It's soooo cute! 



Both of us were sunburnt when we got back, but it was definitely a pretty awesome getaway for both of us 💋 It was quite a cool experience, and I really liked the jacuzzi right outside our room too! Ate and dropped some tapioca chips in it so we were literally soaking in tapioca-ed water. Haha 😂

We'll be back to check out the other activities too!

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