Return Trip

26/27x2 122016

The last day of our resort stay, we had elected for the late checkout, which included lunch. We hung out till the 1400 boat was to take us back to the ferry terminal. We settled our bill, and sat down for lunch. after eating the main portion of the lunch, and while our dessert was being prepared, one of the staff approached us apologizing for having forgotten to include an item on our bill.

They claimed that we had to pay for the lunch. We said we didnt have any documentation telling us that and we thusly refused to pay. At this point we were pretty disappointed with the Telunas Resort.

http://www.telunasresorts.com/

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g1778353-d7155295-Reviews-Telunas_Resorts_Telunas_Private_Island-Sugi_Island_Riau_Archipelago_Riau_Islands_Prov.html

We were staying in the Private Island portion, because it wasnt the Family Friendly portion.

According to the website we were supposed to be getting 2 course lunches and 3 course dinners every day.

As seen on the website, they cater to couples and young families.

No where on the website does it state late checkout incurs an extra fee.

The website does not accurately portray our experience.

The entire thing was no where near the romantic/private getaway the website would lead you to believe it is. So we were pretty upset before they tried to tack on the extra lunch. That was the thing that turned it from a disappointment to outright discontent.

Anyways, the long boat got us to the ferry terminal, we got on a ferry that got is to Singapore.

Customs in Singapore took well over an hour and a half.

We hopped a cab to the airport, got through security fantastically easily (there was no security at the front, you can get into the airport with a boarding pass and an ID, no metal detectors no wands, just walk right in, the real security happens immediately prior to getting on the plane). Inside security we hung out in one of the lounges for a little while prior to our 6 hour flight to Shanghai.

Did i mention the flight was scheduled for 2300? This was the start of a very long day, if you are keeping track we left our resort at 1400, got on a plane at 2300 and showed up in Shanghai at 0400.

The airport was barely open, we got through customs there quick, and waited at ticketing as there was no one from American to issue us a ticket. After a few hours of waiting I spoke to another One World partner, and he recommended we print our own passes from the business center to get through security.

Thats exactly what we did, and then proceeded to hang out in lounges until our flight at 1820. Which was a solid 12.5 hours.

we landed in Dallas at 1720 the same day. as in we left in the evening of the 27th and landed an hour earlier, on the 27th.

Then cleared US customs, got our plane to Chicago, got picked up by a friend and our dog (Sicily was in the airport, she certainly wasnt allowed, but no one stopped her), and went home.

With all the timezone changes, our travel started on Monday, and went through Tuesday, and then went through most of Tuesday again. Totalling about 41 hours of travel time.

Glad to be home.

Not so much of an Escape

25122016

Even Merrier Christmas!

We woke up to another sunny morning, and headed to the breakfast buffet, no made-to-order this time, only the mediocre buffet.

After breakfast we lounged in our villa to watch more American Horror Story.

Then lunch was once again the buffet. And we started to feel disappointed. The Telunas website had indicated there would be 2 course lunches, and 3 course dinners every day alongside the breakfast buffet. This meal change coincided with a number of other families showing up with many children.

We were expecting a private, mostly adult, getaway. Hanging out on the beach, eating good food, and chillin on a beach were our prime expectations. Of the 15 villas here, 3 (including us) are couples, the rest are families with in most cases more than one child.

So our experience was different from what we were expecting. We decided to go kayaking around the island and discuss how we were going to address this situation.

After the kayaking, we went back to our villa and finalized our plan of attack for addressing this issue.

We decided to talk to a manager, and check out the website, see what it is actually printed on the website to see if we had built up unreasonable expectations.

It turns out the website didnt entirely mislead us, we focused on the adult centric activities, reading what we wanted to, and we figured this place would be able to accommodate both the children and the children-avoiders.

So we spoke to the manager to tell him what we were expecting and made some suggestions on how to make it better for future guests like us. He seemed genuinely grateful to hear the suggestions and understood where we were coming from with our expectations. He offered us one of the private dinners so that we can get away from the kids for a little while.

Unfortunately the weather didnt agree with our plans. It started drizzling, and the wind started blowing. So we took our dinner in the normal area. The food was good, back to the A La Cart Menu.

After dinner we went back to the villa to watch more AHS and go to sleep.

Christmas Abroad

24122016

Merry Christmas

We woke up shortly after the sun, our very open villa wasnt going to prevent that. We went for breakfast, a buffet with made to order eggs benedict, french toast a local Indonesean Breakfast (a chicken and rice dish of some kind).

The french toast was excellent and Laura was satisfied with the eggs benedict, the rest of the buffet was acceptable as well.

After breakfast we went for a walk around the island. The private island portion of the resort is very small, we walked around the whole thing in about 45 minutes.

We returned to the villa to chill out some more before lunch. Lunch was another excellent meal, a curry chicken with the standard rice and stir fried veggies.

After lunch we caught the boat over to the Beach Resort portion of the resort. This side is much more family friendly, clearly less expensive, expansive beach, and solely buffet dining. We were glad to have chosen the Private Island side. After some hanging out in a hammock (literally).

After returning to our side of the water, we nabbed some scissors to wrap our White Elephant gifts for the exchange later in the evening (we bought some fancy chocolate and tea). And noting that a few more families showed up over the course of the day. Returning for dinner with our gifts in hand, dinner had been changed from the A La Carte meal we had hoped for, to a Buffet. The buffet was ok, it included turkey, so it is kinda Christmasy.

After dinner was story time for all the kids (of which there was a good number) so laura and i took our wine down to the pool to watch the water.

We then went up for the actual gift exchange, I had number 1. I selected a diary, as the nite progressed, laura won a card game, and while children chose our gifts, the parents of said children were pretty stoked to get fancy chocolate and tea.

After the exchange we went back to our villa to finish the wine and figure out how to watch more AHS. (The best way was to connect my phone to my tablet via bluetooth and send it).

After a couple episodes we turned in for our second night.

Tropical Escape

23122016

We woke up finished packing and checked out of our hotel. Starting our journey to Indonesia. We took the subway to the harborfront, the same place our cruise ship dropped us off.

We had a few minutes so we got some snacks at the 7-11. We had to go through customs to get out of Singapore, the line for which was quick and easy. We made our way onto th ferry. It really was just a big boat with a bunch of seats, it had air conditioning which is really the only amenity i needed.

after about 45 minutes we arrived in Sekupang Indonesia. Right after customs we were greeted by staff from our Telunas Resort. A handful of other guests of the hotel were also arriving. I noticed that they had children, and hoped they were going to stay at the Beach Resort side of the resort, rather than the Private Island side. After all of us gathered, they piled our bags in the van, and we walked a few hundred meters to the little pier that had the longboat to get us to the islands.

They gave us our bags to carry the last bit down the pier, then we handed the bag off once again as they piled the luggage onto the longboat, we then climbed in, and it took us the 90 minutes to get to the resort area.

we climbed off the longboat, and received our welcome drink, a fruity green thing that neither of us could identify, and sat down for lunch.

The lunch was fantastic, a grilled mackerel with rice and stir fried vegetables. I was very excited about the foods we were going to be eating over these next few days.

After lunch we made our way to our private villa, which is great

We enjoyed the villa and the views until dinner time, and this meal was even better. I had a stir fried chicken with rice and vegetables, and laura had a butter lemon salmon with the same sides. My chicken was so good, I felt bad that i had that meal, and laura had to settle on the one that was also good, but not as good.

After dinner we went back to our villa to watch some of the stashed TVs we had. Unfortunately we found our tablet had been damaged.

Damnit, it survived 10 weeks of our travelling, but it gets cracked in the last 3 days, the three days that we wanted it the most.

We got through one episode of season 5 American Horror Story, and the internal hardware damage kicked in and rendered it impossible to watch the rest of them.

We were able to watch Inside Out, the pixar movie. This film turned out to be much better than we expected. Afterwards we went to sleep, enjoying the sounds of the waves and bats (the bats are cool with us, cause they eat all the flying bugs).