Sukau Rainforest Lodge — Hotel in Borneo

This is a fabulous lodge. The staff are all locals, super friendly, smiley and helpful. The food was also plentiful and tasty. They provide ample free drinking water at the cooler and you can help yourself whenever you like.

Access to the lodge is via their shared transfer boats. Either from the Lipit Jetty (5 mins away on the opposite river bank), or from Sandakan Jetty which is 2hrs away on the coast. If you are landing at Sandakan airport, you’ll embark at Sandakan Jetty, (as jetty is only 20 mins drive from the airport). If you're coming from another lodge inland, you'll probably embark at Lipit Jetty rather than being taken all the way back to Sandakan.

Sakau Lodge is very rustic and comprises a collection of timber buildings all accessed by wooden boardwalks raised off the ground on stilts. You will arrive at the lodge's private jetty, where the first building you see is their pretty "long house" dining area overlooking the water with great views up and down the river.

Staff will take baggage to your room, whilst you get taken to the reception area, given a welcome drink, cold flannel to refresh you travel weary hands and the staff will then explain the lodge, meal times, your programme of activities etc etc before guiding you to your room.

There are two types of accommodation here. Deluxe rooms which are all set together around a garden courtyard area near the reception building and the small swimming pool. Villa rooms which come in pairs in "chalet style" cabins further along the boardwalk/ amongst the forest. We stayed in a Villa room because we were a family of 3 and I think the rooms are slightly bigger for that purpose. It had a huge queen sized bed which was very comfortable + Z'bed for child; free bottled water; fridge; kettle with tea and coffee; veranda; plenty of storage and hanging space; massive bathroom; toiletries; air con; ceiling fan; mirrors: desk; hairdryer; multi national plug sockets with USB ports; digital safe; flip flops and umbrellas to borrow.

Tours were conducted daily by boat at 6am and 4pm to different locations along the river. In-between that we were fed tasty and plentiful food 3 times a day.

When you are not on a programmed trip there are other activities available either at an extra cost (bat caves/ night river boat safari) or for free (taking a guided walk along the circular boardwalk wildlife spotting around the resort/ joining various wildlife talks in the meeting room/ going out with the guides to do a river cleanup).

Alternatively if you don't fancy any of that you can relax by one of the two available swimming pools; borrow a book from their library or play board games or table football in the reception area. The larger of the 2 pools has a bar serving alcoholic or soft drinks.

WiFi is available in the reception area for free and does work in the Villa rooms, but it's patchy.

The dining room serves tea, coffee and juice with breakfast or tea coffee and water with other meals. You can also buy wines, spirts, cocktails or soft drinks.

The lodge takes major credit cards.

This lodge is a 3, but I think it should be a 4. The premises are clean and well-maintained. The rooms were all properly maintained and clean as well, with good quality facilities, furniture, towels and bedding.

The staff were good, the food was good, the tour guides were very knowledgeable and very helpful and you keep the same guide for the duration of your stay.

You feel safe and well looked after and life jackets are always provided on all the boats.

The rainforest here is secondary not primary.. same as Tabin.. but personally for anyone looking for a recommendation, I would avoid the 3h drive from Sandakan to Tabin (via the endless wall to wall palm oil plantations) like the plague and come direct to Sakau instead. Sakau feels more wild and we saw all the Big 5" within 24hrs...

My review is based on a fellow Malaysian's perspective, a local born and bred in Sabah.

My friends and I (8 in total) decided to book a trip to Sukau Rainforest Lodge. Right off the bat, Borneo Eco Tours assigned a sales & customer supervisor, Cindy, specifically to manage our booking. Cindy took care of all our needs and inquiries, showing professionalism and patience with our ever-evolving itinerary.

We went with a 3D2N trip. Pick-up from our hotel was straight forward. From that point, our bus driver and tour guide, Jimmy, took care of us. Being locals, although we were able to converse with our guide in Malay, we recognized that his level of English comprehension and communication were far beyond most locals.

Our leg of the journey to Sukau Rainforest Lodge (SRL) started with a boat ride from the Sandakan Jetty - Sulu Sea - Kinabatangan River - SRL. Total journey time approx. 2 hours 30 minutes. It was raining halfway in. The speed boats have roofs to shelter against the elements of nature, however those sitting on the edges of the boat were still susceptible to rain. Luckily, we brought waterproof jackets and ponchos. It was by some miracle as well that on the way in, we were the first group of the day to stumble upon the magnificent Pygmy elephants near Kg Abai (Abai Village).

Upon arrival at SRL's dock, we were greeted by the warm and welcoming staff and served local fruit juices and a fresh face towel.

We were assigned Villa rooms. Overall, the rooms and lodge areas were very comfortable and properly maintained. Apart from this, SRL offered various amenities like a mini swimming pool, board walk, minibar area, halls, a presentation room, well-maintained washrooms, Wi-Fi connections (limited to the common rooms). Essentially, you would have the best of both worlds: To be close to nature while also having access to amenities you would typically only find in urban settings.

SRL provides for all essential meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner) as well as tea breaks in the afternoons. These are buffet-style and have a wide range of options, catering also to gluten-free, vegetarian and muslim-friendly food options in these buffets.

Our river cruises were also led by our pre-assigned tour guides. They took us upstream and downstream to view the wildlife. Overall, our river cruises were incredible as we got to see many different wildlife animals. My friends had time and had many memorable experiences that not many people have.

Important Notes for New Travellers: Check the season. In Sabah, we have dry and monsoon seasons, so check with your supervisor beforehand and also a week before traveling to get a good idea on the weather forecast.

Have the right expectations. Know what tour package you have signed up to. Ours was fully river cruise, no jungle trekking. If you want a land experience, get in touch with your supervisor.

Understand wildlife is fluid. The lodge can't control what animals you will see on your cruises, although they will make every effort to improve that chance (local experience and, if you want, additional add-on cruises). The rest is up to nature.

In summary, this experience will not disappoint you. This is something to check off your travel goals. 5/5 would recommend to anyone in...

Overall takeaway - Overall my stay here was incredible. My partner and I are from London and have experience with top hotels across the globe (we had also stayed at Meridian and Shangri La Rasa Ria in Kota Kinabalu when in Borneo) and the experience at the Rainforest lodge is a truly unique and amazing. This is a must stay place when travelling to Borneo and rest assured the wonderful staff will ensure you have a memorable experience in the rainforest with plentiful authentic food, tours, information sessions, and hotel amenities to ensure the most comfortable stay (despite being literally in the rainforest!). We have provided a further breakdown below

Wildlife: Our guide Hassan provided amazing and informative river cruise tours throughout our stay allowing us to see and learn so much not only about monkeys / apes (proboscis monkey, orangutan, macaques etc) but also reptiles (crocs, lizards, etc), numerous birds (including the hornbills), trees, insects etc. You take tours when the wildlife are most active along the river side, allowing you to see them clearly. Between the tours you have optional information sessions on the rainforest and endangered species

Conservation efforts - highlighted as one of the top ecolodges by national geographic, the lodge is doing a lot to try to ensure sustainable tourism (solar panelled energy, filtered rain water for drinking, local outreach programs to educate on the rainforest, river clean up, afforestation programs, efforts to ensure limited local rainforest land is sold for palm plantations by renting land from locals for tours). To provide you with more confidence over your booking, David Attenborough and Julie Dench have also stayed here so you are in safe hands.

Rooms cleanliness and authenticity - we stayed in the superior room which was a comfortable size, very clean, with Aircon and with no insects (if you're scared of them like me). There is nothing more authentic than being able to look out of your window straight onto open rainforest. The lodge also provided authentic tribal dress which they encourage you to wear during dinner (if you would like to embrace the culture - many guests do!)

Food - we were intially worried that there would not be enough food as we are big eaters, but there was a large amount of fresh tasty buffet food available for breakfast, lunch and dinner (including that available for vegetarians and those who like veg), and food available during snack / tea time too. We were not left hungry! They provided clean drinking water for the entire stay so you don't need to worry about that either.

Staff- all the staff were extremely friendly and ensured the most comfortable stay. We were collected from the previous hotel we were staying at, transported to the lodge and greeted with cool flannels and authentic Malaysian drinks as we arrived. Our guide and those running information sessions were...