JSK Mantanani Island Resorts — Hotel in Pulau Mantanani Besar

We stay for 4 days at this resort. I can share following experience.

We have been as family with 2 kids. To get to the island needs some time. The boat trip can be very harsh depending on the sea condition. Arrived at Hotel you get a standard welcome drink. Nothing spectacular. A lot of day tourist coming together with hotel guest. Therefore quite overcrowding at arrival. You have to wait for the preparation of room or you can go directly to snorkeling what we did not prefer as we was been tired at arrival. The beach is overall good. Depending on weather you can have crystal clear water as showed in the picture or grey water. But the beach is clean.

The cottages are very nice to stay. You smell the pine wood inside and the size is big. Nice bed and bathroom. We liked the cottages very much especially the close view to the sea is very nice. But that was the only thing which is good at this resort. There is a lot of things to improve.

Let me start with the snorkeling. The snorkeling tour is bad organized. Overcrowded. The boat that they use is not suitable for snorkeling tours. You sit in closed hot environment and need to wait long time until you can jump into the water. The snorkeling place is nothing special. You see some fishes that’s all. Unfortunately I can say that the riff is already died there. So you see grey corals with some small fishes. You are going only for one spot. That’s all. I was quite a lot at snorkeling tours. I can say that was the worst one.

The food tastes good but the variety is less. It is quite boring. Always the same style. It is more a canteen style than having lunch/dinner at hotel. You have to wait in a que. There is no fruits available. And the drinks are very bad. There is only syrup, tea and bad coffee available. The breakfast is very boring…Again rice and noodles and old toast bread. We was not happy about the food.

There are lot of organizational lacks. For example at the terrace of the cottages there is no desks with chairs available. So you can not sit there. There are beach loungers without any mattress. You just lay on a hard wooden loungers which is not relaxing. Furthermore the beach umbrellas are very small. You you dont have enough shadow. Really hard to stay outside. You are not able to enjoy. If you want to have drinks you have to walk to the bar. Nobody cares about the remove the dishes at beach side. For room cleaning you have to request otherwise nobody comes to clean the cottage. Overall one you check in after then nobody from the staff cares about you. The staff is not proactively you have to always ask if you need something. Overall they are polite and friendly.

I can say considering the price performance it is not worth for paying that money for this resort. We expected to relay and enjoy. But this hotel is not suitable for that. Please be aware that the marketing and promotion is better then the real...

This was probably one of the worst trips I’ve ever had. To get to the small island you have to take a boat that takes approximately 30-45 min to reach it. Our boatride was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever made in my whole life. It took us more than two hours to get there because the sea was extremely rough. Even though the crew knew that it is going to be a rough ride, they decided to go anyway. Several people got very sick an threw up. During the ride they even changed captain because the other one could not handle it anymore. The captain simply jumped off the boat and we were left without until the other one arrived. No explanation was provided, we ended up sitting in there not knowing when and most importantly if we would reach the island. Once arrived the rooms looked clean and very new. They also provided a few amenities, which were great. Nonetheless they lacked extremely in providing basic things. Even though it is to be considered as an all-inclusive experience, keep in mind that DRINKING WATER is not included. They provide you with 2 bottles (500ml each!!) pP throughout the whole stay. (For reference we booked 3 nights on the island). If you would like to have additional water, you have to get it from the vending machines on the island (if not out of stock), which is ridiculous. We planned on staying 4d3nights on the island but decided to leave one day earlier, due to a weather warning published by the official malaysian weather forecast for the day we were leaving. We were talking to the staff about our concerns about the boatride but they simply said that they would go anyways, even though they knew about the weather warning. Additionally they downplayed our concernes and did not refund a single penny. Keep also in mind that almost every single thing they offer at the bar is not available. So if you want to have anything besides the things you find at the buffet you should bring it yourself. By the way the buffet was very mediocre, they always served rice, chicken, fish, a soup, salad, watermelon and papaya. Nevertheless, I’d also like to underline that the staff was very kind and friendly. They were by no means a part of the problem. The problem lies definitely in the organization and safety measurements. It was extremely irresponsible. Think twice before booking...

my wife and I stayed here for 2 nights. |The pick up from Kota Kinabalu was punctual, as well as the boat ride over. Make sure you bring nausea tablets if you suffer from seasickness, as it was very bumpy when we went! The whole organisation of the pick up, daily activities and drop off back to the mainland was very good. ||There was lots of litter on the beaches surrounding the island including at JSK, and while I know the vast majority of the litter does not originate from the island itself, I don’t believe enough is being done by hotels on the island to keep it clean. Unfortunately some other guests were also not helping, dropping cigarette butts and water bottles wherever they pleased. I should say that despite this the island is still absolutely beautiful. ||We booked our stay under the impression that the hotel was all-inclusive, as was advertised, however when we arrived we discovered other than the 3 meals a day, you had to buy drinks. This would not have been much of an issue for us had it not been advertised as ‘all-inclusive’. The prices were not too bad, but as we were on a tight budget we probably would not have booked here knowing it was not all inclusive. | The food that was included was for the most part delicious, if a little limited, with a buffet taking place for breakfast, lunch and dinner. ||We would like to say that the staff there were absolutely brilliant. They were incredibly friendly, and really made our stay that much more enjoyable. However, through no fault of their own, they seemed somewhat inexperienced, and we got the impression that many of them perhaps hadn’t had as much training as they should. ||Personally Im not sure we would come back for another stay due to a mixture of the dirtiness of the island and the incorrect advertising...