Borneo Beach & Mangrove Resort — Hotel in Borneo

STAY CLEAR FROM THIS PLACE AT ALL COST!

One of the worst experience to stay at a place that over-glorifies itself to be a resort. Horrible room, horrible reception service, and just an overall sad excuse to ask for your hard earned money to waste away at this oxygen wasting and space wasting that is BBMR.

Let's break it down, so that the readers don't think I'm just happily writing a bad review.

Reception - now, I don't and will never penalise new workers who are working at reception - everyone is slow and inexperienced when they first start - so we had, what I can safely assume new staffs working the reception - and they were a tad slow (not an issue, as I stated earlier) - however, my gripe with the checking in was the no exception for asking a deposit in CASH. I mean, I do understand cash is king, but there are many facilities that now accepts deposits via Credit Cards - so why can't you? But alas, they allowed us to check in nonetheless. Again, I do not mind the new staffs working the counter, everyone is slow when they first started, the issue I had was the unavailability of checking in using a credit card as your security deposit.

Room - we were placed at room 42, a bit of a walking distance (again, not that we cared, we liked a few step count, it's healthy) - but, the issue was that the room was dirty, dusty, had spider cobwebs and was designed rather odd? But to each their own in terms of the design, but cleanliness was 1 out of 5. Now, let's further break this down:

2.1: Toilet - OUR FREAKING TOILET CLOGGED!!! AND DESPITE INFORMING THE RECEPTION, ALL THEY CAN TELL US IS THAT, MAINTENANCE IS ON THE WAY. Mind to all the readers, we booked for a 3 days 2 nights stay at this so called resort (5th till 7th of February 2025) - BUT, WE HAD TO CHECK OUT ON THE 6TH AT AROUND 0900 H CAUSE THE TOILET WAS CLOGGED AND WAS NOT BEING RECTIFIED IMMEDIATELY! How, how in the world would a toilet at a so called resort gets clogged, and the team are just taking their sweet time to resolve it? Unacceptable. Unforgivable. Unjust.

2.2: Shower - was advertised to have shower heater - to our dismay, it was not functioning - and when we clarified this with the reception, they HAD THE AUDACITY to tell us that the room that we had DOES NOT HAVE WATER HEATER! But, hold on now, the room had a switch for the water heater, so means, it must have the water heater shouldn't it? Nay, it does not. And, nay, they will not change rooms. Cause, you know, hospitality is not in their vocabulary.

2.3: WiFi - advertised as free WiFi - welp, no. Not INSIDE the rooms, you want WiFi? Go outside they said. Really, that's what the reception told us when we informed them that we do not have WiFi service inside our room. They asked us to go outside. Nice. Mind you, this is a mangrove area, which means, by night time, swarms of mosquitoes are hanging OUTSIDE. So, yeah, that's their solution, no WiFi inside your room? No worries, just sit outside your room.

Breakfast - this is just me nitpicking at the moment, as the major gripes I had with this place was mentioned heavily in number 2. (And cause I do a number 2 at my own room, kinda fitting that I wrote it explicitly at number 2.1 - as I can't do both). What about the breakfast you may ask? Well, for one, it was supposed to be running at 0700 H - but when we came, they were just starting to set it up. Uh, what? Fine, not a major issue, but kinda disheartening to know that a resort such as this doesn't have a sense of time.

The whole resort, mind you, IS NOT COMPLETED YET! It is still under major construction, which kinda begs the question, why would you offer your half-baked services to the public then? But I guess, in the world of gaming - there is such a thing as a pre-order games and half-completed games, I take it the management are closely following this concept to heart?

Is there potential? Yes, a huge one. But if they don't tackle these quality of life issues for their patrons, more horrible...

Short Review:

Nice place, unfinished, food’s lousy, restaurant side needs plenty of work. Good potential, just need more time.

Long Review:

Apparently this is a relaunched resort, formerly known as Raintree?, I may be mistaken so don’t quote me on that.

If I were to take Shangri-La Rasa Ria as a benchmark with them having 10 points, this place, in its current pre-opening state would only be a 4.

Accommodations aside, there are concurrent constructions happening at the resort with large lorries and machineries about with cordoned off construction areas. So I would emphasise again, that at this current moment in time in my review, it’s not very pleasant as a resort.

Now to my main review about the restaurant. Came here with my wife to have a meal, boy were we sorely disappointed. Pricing wise it’s pretty standard for these sort of places, quality wise was subpar. Wife’s Char Kuey Teow, at a listed price of RM25, portion given was ridiculously small, taste was very very average and bland. I had the Yong Chow Fried Rice, portion was average but the taste was really bland and the keropok was soggy (masuk angin). How long ago was that fried I wonder.

If I had to summarise the current state of the restaurant, it would be good pretending to be fancy but actually quite lousy.

Please improve restaurant side of the resort in terms of quality and tasteful dishes.

Considering that this area is in a rural place, people can’t easily order food delivery here so they will most likely eat at the restaurant here or head out to the various seafood restaurants nearby.

With the current quality of food that I’ve experienced, I really am embarrassed on the resort’s behalf. Please don’t give tourists the idea that our food is this bland.

Please improve!, I will update this review when I do revisit this place...

I have always been here since I was little. This place never bore me. but since the fire took place, this place has grown more old and a little bit abandoned. The field has been narrowed down to a small size, and there's no beach chairs by the beach. but, you can park your car in front of the chalet to drop bags/things so that its easy for you to not carrying extra weight and walk longer. |||| On the other hand, this resort is a good place to have peace and tranquility. its located not that far from Tuaran town, just 5-10 mins drive away, thus those who have never been here, kindly buy as much food as you wants before check in. Most importantly, during daylight, too much of flies and in night, too much of mosquitoes. So, brings insect repellents. The resort too provide BBQ Grill and you can bring your own mini stove to cook. You can cook at the veranda. Not much of choices for breakfast as it serves set breakfast with affordable price. I have not tried it cause I brought my own food. ||||I just hope that the management could restore the swimming pool area exactly in year 2006-2010. During that time, the jacuzzi can be used, there's a rope to divide kids area and adults swim area(1.68), the water everyday clean and there's even a basket ball nett so that guests can play water basket ball. ||||Overall, the room (chalet) is cheap (during weekdays) but its really affordable. My family and I really enjoyed our stay here. We stay at 217 & 218(block B) located right in front of the swimming pool. We always choose this room. The staffs was really helpful and attentive (housekeeping & receptionist), Thank you Mimpian Jadi resort as you have make our 3D/2N stay very pleasantly and we are really looking forward for our...