TD Mutiara Hotel 唐朝珍珠酒店 — Hotel in Borneo

Stayed here for one night after visitng Kinabatangan river area enroute to the islands off the Semporna coast. We had booked a two bedroom style appatment room and ended up with three rooms. The appartment was huge. Way more space than what we needed for the 5 of us. The beds were clean, the bathrooms clean and only minor gripe was floors dirty, kids feet stinking in minutes of being in the apt - no biggy.||The only surprise was no fridge, we were petty sure we had booked a room with a fridge (kids milk) but again no biggy for a short stay and we didn't waste time chasing.||||This place is reasonably well situated, specifically within walking distance of the fantastic Summer Breeze Cafe. There are also food options within a minutes walk from hotel. We didn't see much of Semporna but it didn't have the feel of somewhere you would want to spend too much time. I used GRAB (4MYR) one way to go from hotel to the big supermarket in town (near the boat landing) to stock up on goodies for kids. It's the same 4-5 MYR for a GRAB to the boat landing for heading to islands.||||On check in we were given one remote control, which turned out to be for the aircon unit in the kitchen area of the appartment. A quick call to recpetion and the cleaning staff arrived with an additional remote control that allowed the bedroom units to be used. I guess if you dont ask, you dont get.||||This hotel (TD) is definitely aimed at the mass Chinese tourist market based on those coming and going through reception. I wouldn't stay here for any length of time but for a short one night stopover it's perfect - especially for a family of 5.||||One thing I did notice was that there was a concrete platform wrapped around the building below our windows, which means that although we were several floors up, there was potential access to the bedroom windows. Wandering around Semporna in the evening did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling so the wife and I elected to split up rather than have kids sleeping all togteher in the one room (the young girl from the UK had just went missing south of KL at this time so senses were heigthened). All was fine.||||I'd stay again...

The hotel location is very convenient as it is close to the Jeti Pelancongan Semporna and the Tun Sakaran Marine Park tourism where the seafood restaurants and more modern hotels and inns, as well as big malls and souvenir shops are located - especially if you bring your own car.. Parking is also quite spacious. Very easy to move around. You can also use grab if you don't bring ur own car. The staff is polite enough, I requested iron and iron board and it's delivered to our room just nice. Breakfast is simple but for me good enough. The only downside is that the wifi connection is not stable, the same with mobile internet connection (I'm using Maxis btw). It gets worse in the nighttime. My kids complaining so much because they can't stream videos. 😅 And maybe just unfortunate for us, the air-conditioning in our room is not really cooling even we set it to the lowest temperature. However, overall the hotel is good enough considering its price cheaper than most hotels, sufficient enough for a place to rest after a day with packed activities of island hoppings. Thnk you TD...

Dangerous Hotel, DO NOT STAY!

First of all, the prices are exorbitant considering everything. 180+ Ringgit per room per night, and what do you get for that? A dirty room with ants on the bed, a single (!) electrical socket, no telephones, the tiniest of shampoo bottles and thinnest of toilet papers (and only half a roll as well). The views from the rooms are of the local slums.

Here's the dangerous part. During breakfast (which is included), we saw rats scuttling about, and later I got violently ill. Food poisoning. I wonder where I could have gotten that? On top of that, they proudly display signs in the hotel lobby of pooped in beds, and a warning that if you get sick from the vile garbage that they call breakfast, you will have to pay 400 Ringgit (about a hundred Euros). Luckily, this didn't happen to me, but I'm sure it has to many unfortunate people out there who also made the mistake of booking this disgusting excuse for a Hotel Surely, the staff are well aware of the scam they are running.

Don't make the mistake of...