Sea Gypsy Village Resort & Dive Base — Hotel in Pulau Sibu

Honestly can’t fault our stay at Sea Gypsy Village. Make sure you look at the website and reviews before you go because this is simplicity at its finest which is exactly what we were looking for and were expecting. If you’re looking for air conditioning and five star luxury then this isn’t the place for you but the hut we stayed in was absolutely perfect. It was just me and my two young children so I shared a very clean and comfortable double bed with my 3 year old and my 1 year old was in a perfect wooden cot with fresh linen. Mosquito nets were provided. Fresh bath and beach towels were in the room. There was a very effective ceiling fan and the windows were perfectly placed to allow the sea breeze in so we slept comfortably even though the temperature didn’t really drop below 27 degrees. Having young children, the sea provided a fab background of white noise to listen to as you went to sleep as well. There were power sockets (UK 3 point) and lighting in the room too. The wet room bathroom was fab for rinsing all the sand off. Theres also a shower attached to a tree by the beach!

The whole process of getting to the island was fabulous. We were picked up by a private car from a central Singapore and taken across the Malaysian border to the boat jetty which was about a 2.5hr drive. All our luggage was put into dry bags and taken aboard by the lovely dive master Kat. We then took the rather bumpy boat about 25-30 minutes across to the island. It was great fun! The sea was a bit too bumpy to take us directly to the resort so they dropped us to the opposite side of the island and then we walked about 15 minutes through dense mangroves and rainforest which was amazing and such an experience. We were then greeted by the lovely bar staff with a welcome drink. Well needed after our walk!

We then checked in and went to our accommodation to find our bags already there. The resort itself was made for children. It even had a children’s bar where they could order ice cream and milkshakes. Outside our hut, there was a net with wooden boxes containing badminton equipment and volleyballs. There were swings, sand toys, lawn games, a wooden boat for the children to play in and a climbing frame. And then of course the beach which was absolutely stunning. Palm trees surrounded the coast and the water was so warm. It was early season when we went so the breeze was quite strong so it took the edge off the heat. You could hire snorkelling gear, boogie boards and kayaks from the dive centre. We hired a boogie board which my 3 year old loved. I was also with some friends who looked after the little ones while I went on a snorkelling trip - highly recommend. We took a boat out to sand bank and snorkelled off the beach there onto a big coral reef. Saw bat fish, parrot fish, butterfly fish and lots more!

The food was also amazing. Breakfast was buffet style and you could get eggs and pancakes etc to order. Lunch and dinner was served in a table d’hote style so you didn’t get a choice but all of it was amazing. Very tasty and fresh. Traditional Malay style. The prawns were the biggest and yummiest I’ve ever eaten. Any alcoholic or coffee shop kind of drinks were extra but you just order everything to your room number and then pay at the end. They provided children’s tea at 6pm and then usually they do a kids club from 7-9pm ish but my two and only two other children were in the resort and they were all under 4 years old so we thought they were a bit young to stay up so they didn’t have it running when we there (our choice). The resort provides baby monitors and you can see every room from the bar so I put my two to bed at 7pm and then adults dinner was at 8pm followed by drinks at the bar. This was perfect as it allowed me to switch off and enjoy some time with the friends I’d gone with.

We met the owner, Linda who was lovely. The resort has been running for 33 years and it was just beautiful and everyone was so friendly and approachable. Places like this are suffering and need our help. PLEASE visit - I will...

Sea Gypsy delivered two fantastic elements: back to basics relaxation and a great experience for kids. One negative which I need to share is the patchy advice regarding gluten free diet/coeliac.

First the positives - which are the enduring feelings. Richard the resort manager along with his many great colleagues create a very welcoming experience - especially for children. The experience for children is first class. There are plenty of games and things for them to do which do not involve screens. They all dine together at kids dinner time (6pm) and he entertains them beautifully while encouraging them to eat their food, which is all cooked from scratch. After dinner, they blow off steam (6:45) with running around games outside, followed by movie night (until about 8:30). During this time, parents can enjoy some drinks and dinner and the kids are happily entertained. He knows every child’s name and interacts appropriately with the different ages of children. Think “kind summer camp leader” meets “reliable holiday rep”.

However, I do have to call out the challenge we had with my son’s coeliac disease (gluten allergy). Coeliacs or people requiring a gluten free diet will read on the website that all food is cooked from scratch and therefore catering to gluten free is absolutely doable. In principle, the premise holds up. Even the mention/awareness of coeliac will make most people with the condition hopefull. However, my advice for coeliacs has to be: don’t be lulled into a false sense of security... you still need to ask the questions.

Our experience showed that you will need to closely interrogate the ingredients in order to be safe. The kitchen staff were very amenable and helpful, but in the end, did not fully understand what does/doesn’t contain gluten.

Here are three examples to reassure the resort management that I’m being fair and balanced here and so that action can be taken to reassure future guests: I was advised that a chicken dish was gluten-free. I asked if it contained soy sauce and was told that it did and so they offered to prepare some without soy. More chicken was provided, but I was not left feeling totally comfortable. On the first day, I was advised that the bolognese sauce was gluten free… It was then available again on our final day, so having had a few flags by now, I queried whether it had Worcestershire sauce in (which is not usually gluten-free). I learned that it did, so could not feed it to my son. One day at breakfast, we were given some eggs that were ‘cooked with olive oil instead of butter’ so they would be gluten free. This is erroneous, since butter doesn’t contain gluten and is the kind of misconception that undermines a customer's confidence.

It’s quite likely that this was what led to my son (who is coeliac) to vomit and be lethargic for one day of our trip - although it’s impossible to be 100% sure.

On the plus side (and I’m inclined to be positive) they did make gluten free pancakes and have gluten free pasta available. They were also happy to provide plain rice.

With some deliberate steps like providing menu ingredient lists, labelling and some training in local language, my confidence level would much better.

I would really like to visit again, but would be much-relieved if I felt steps had been taken to mitigate the risks for people with specific serious allergies. Thanks again for all the good elements which were...

Food was very basic with little variety. Beach area and sea was great, clean with clear waters. Pre departure information was helpful and kept us well informed. The room while understood not to have hot water and air conditioning was uncomfortable, not thoroughly cleaned and little has been done to ensure that insects, bugs and other pests were managed, at least to a satisfactory level, given the nature of the resort. The A chalets were also unexpectedly cramped and ventilation was poor.

Bed bugs/ flea bites On the first morning at the resort, I had a lot of bites all over body but did not give it much thoughts and assumed that they were mosquitoes bites. On the second night, I woke up in the middle of the night due to the itch. I went back to sleep after applying some ointment but only to be woken up again at 6am by the terrible itch. I had bites all over my body (legs, arms, chest, abdomen and back) In suspicion of bed bugs after looking at photos online, we decided to leave the room and brought it up with a member of staff we bumped into on the way to the lounge area.

At around 8am, while we were having breakfast at the dining area, a second member of staff, unprompted, approached us about this issue and questioned if we took a night walk at the beach and if so, it’s possibly sand flies. He may have had good intentions in trying to identify the cause of the bites but on the receiving end, it felt like an attack on our characters - as if we were lying to gain something out of this.

When informed about the issue, the person in charge approached us a few hours later, offering to change our room while the team investigated. During this conversation, there was no apology received, even at least for our inconvenience and experience we’ve had in their rooms.

During the situation, we only had a single member of staff to commend who quickly went to pick up a tube of cream to aid in the itching (Mopiko really helped with the itch). We felt that he was the one person who cared about our wellbeing there.

Hours after leaving the resort and upon searching online, we realized that it could be flea bites not bed bugs since pet dogs are allowed to be brought to the resort.

All in all, we would have been better comforted if we had been treated with more empathy and...