Borneo Divers Mabul Resort — Hotel in Mabul Island

I’ve just returned from a 5 nights (4 day diving) package at Borneo Divers Mabul Resort and I am left feeling disappointed.

I thought the rooms were poor quality/poorly appointed and the food was mediocre. We didn’t use the pool because it was dirty, and the whole resort generally feels tired. It needs a good clean and a refurbishment.

Upon arrival our room had dirty towels and bedding, no hot water and no WiFi. These issues were rectified after speaking to the manager, but we still had to request things like toiletries, toilet roll, condiments to be replaced during our stay. It felt like we had to ask for things an unreasonable amount.

While some staff were good, the majority tended to do the minimum possible. We frequently walked to the restaurant/reception to find all staff sitting on sofas watching television together. Nobody greeted us or offered us a drink in the restaurant during our entire stay.

The diving equipment had seen better days and our Divemaster, Abdul, did little more than the essentials to organise our diving. He was a nice guy when he did speak to us or when we asked him a question, but he hardly spoke to us beyond dive briefings or when we asked him something. He didn’t seem to believe in buddy checks, encouraging us to get in the water as quickly as possible (we still did the checks). Before the dive he would give us a quick plan, then afterwards he would bury his head in his tablet and wouldn't speak to us for an hour until just before the next dive.

One thing worth noting is there is a huge amount of building work taking place directly behind most of the villas, where a new hotel is being constructed. It's a sizeable construction; we regularly saw diggers on the beach moving building equipment around and we could hear the noise of the building work from our apartment. It was unacceptable of the hotel not to warn us about this prior to our stay, as this alone would have made us consider alternative accommodation.

Despite the elements described above, the dive sites themselves were incredible. I’ve been to some of the best diving sites in the world, including numerous times in The Maldives, the Great Barrier Reef and Indonesia, and I think Borneo might be my favourite. The diving in Sipadan was unbelievable. And we were given a second day there for free because of the issues we’d experienced at the resort which was a nice gesture, but it doesn’t change my overall opinion of the resort or how it is run.

In conclusion, the rooms are a lot more basic that you would expect from the pictures. It isn't a relaxing resort and I wouldn't stay again, nor can I recommend it. That said, the dive sites in Borneo are spectacular, although this is not something the resort is responsible for. I think some of the other reviews get confused here. Any keen diver must come to Borneo. Just don't stay at Borneo Divers Mabul Resort to...

The only redeeming quality of this resort is the friendliness of the dive crew. This "resort" disappointed on all fronts and the prices were ridiculously high for the service provided.

To start with the communication from the front desk staff was abysmal. We arrived and were not informed when any of our dives would be nor when we would get our one day at Sipadan. We had requested a second day at Sipadan four months in advance and stayed an additional night in hopes of getting another day at that island, but when we asked the front desk they didn't even acknowledge they had received the request. After the permits came out, they just said it was peak season so no second permit even though there were 5-10 rooms vacant each night (we counted the number of arrivals vs departures). They also tried to change our return ferry claiming that there was no 11 AM ferry even though it had been confirmed just 2 weeks prior and was written in their resort book. We contacted the booking agent and she corrected the staff and forced them to run the 11 AM ferry.

When we got to our room, it seemed OK but everything was not in working order and the daily refresh of the room did not include any toilet paper or soap. The aircon tripped the circuit breaker every day at least twice a day, the safe did not function as the cover for the batteries kept falling off when the door was closed, the drain was clogged with massive amounts of other guests hair and the water shut off for the better part of a day due to a leak elsewhere.

Whenever we went to the front desk to request anything, we had to ask 2-3 times to get a response and most of the time they were either sitting on the couch watching a movie not responding to us or in the back room playing on their phones.

The dive equipment was very old and beaten up. We had to change regulators 4 times to get a "working" one which ended up leaking the least amount of air and still leaked water into the regulator, so we got constant mouthfuls of sea water. It was extremely expensive for 4 days over 1000 ringgit for defective and old equipment. We were also denied a computer and towels the first day of diving since they ran out...

Sipadan was a great dive location but all the dives around Mabul and Kapalai were OK at best and horrific other times as clearly untrained divers were allowed to grab onto coral with gloves, step on and stab live coral with their pointers and even more worrying was the large number of divers that didn't know how to swim, control their buoyancy or ascend properly.

I would say overall Sipadan was a good dive site, however make sure you are reading the reviews and ensure the Western reviewers are providing positive feedback before booking a resort in Mabul or Kapalai, as there are many false reviews left by...

Tl;dr: Amazing stay, 10/10, highly recommend if you love snorkelling / diving.

We are a family of 6 with four “kids” in their 20s. We stayed at Borneo Divers, Mabul for 7D6N in June 2023. Three of us did our PADI Advanced Open Water training with Borneo Divers before going to Sipadan (we had 2 days there during our 7D6N stay). One of us did the PADI Open Water and still had plenty of good dives around Mabul and Kapalai. Two of us were snorkellers and had a good time diving around Mabul and Sipadan as well.

The diving is nothing short of amazing. I’ve dived in Thailand, Australia and Vanuatu prior to my Sipadan trip and honestly Sipadan wins hands down in terms of diversity and concentration of marine life. The house reef in front of the Borneo Diver’s resort alone is already such a good dive site. The dive instructors, dive masters, skippers and ground staff were all super friendly, helpful and fun.

The stay was very comfortable - good bed and pillow, room spacious and clean, needless to stay we all slept well. Air cond working well.

The food was unexpectedly very very good. I think we all put on some pounds. Good selection and quality of food. Breakfast has cold and warm options, Western and Asian. Lunch and dinner was always a good variety of vegetables, meat and seafood (mainly Asiann cuisine). We were not bored. Sunday night BBQ so so good. Delicious tropical fruit with each meal.

Transfers went smoothly. We were picked up at Tawau airport and driven to Semporna Jetty where we got on a 45min boat ride to Mabul. Ground team were professional.

Special shout out to Tonny and Lionel who were our dive instructors for the PADI Advance Open Water and Open Water respectively. Many thanks to Daniel, Norman, Scott, Yusuf, Pai and Roslan for their hard work, keeping us safe and pointing out marine life we would have otherwise missed during our dives /snorkels.

We can’t wait to go back.

Tips: Definitely bring seasickness pills, sunscreen, insect repellant,...