Travel: Malaysia - Kota Kinabalu

[Mrsbongz]

erm, I went in October last year, it's quite fun. n we plan to go again next March holidays.. We stayed at Shangrila Tanjung aru.. very good service, we took the standard rooms.. but they made up the sofa bed for our kids, breakfast was fantastic.. there were activities for adults n children.. very good resort.. In fact we plan to stay there again if the current renovations are completed by March.

[keenDaddy]

I was there just last month (Aug), with wife and 5 year old kid.


Stayed at Pacific Sutera Harbour for 2 nights. Island hopping was easy with the jetty just next to the resort... my boy enjoyed the snorkelling experience very much and the close encounters with the fishes... He also loved the pools with nice landscaping and slides at the resort.

Overall, it was a good getaway with plentiful of activities. We did day trips to KK park and Klias Wetland's River Safari (river cruise to see fireflies and proboscis monkeys).

Food was great with the seafood at Ocean Restaurant and Secko & local laksa, noodles and bah kah tea..

Recommended esp with cheap airfares via budget airlines!

[Prettydol]

I am planning to bring my 3 children to KK this coming Dec. However, my friends told me Dec is monsoon and raining season so it’s not advisable to go. Is it true?


Has anyone stayed at Seamaiden before? The unit has 3 bedrooms and charge at RM400, big enough for my family of 5.

[SullyM]

looks like its monsoon alrite http://www.asiahotels.com/weather/Malaysia

[kuzco]

Just came back from KK last week. Doesn’t seem like the monsoon season to me. We had fine weather in the morning, and like our local weather, the sky changes and tended to rain in the late afternoon and evening. The rain doesn’t last very long. It may rain more in the highlands, especially on the way to Kinabalu Park and Poring Hot Springs.

[Charmaine_chong]

We plan to go Kota Kinabalu for 4 nights next month. A group of 17 pax.


Can someone advise

1. hotel- convenient and affortable - budget $100 a night
2. Seafood- good seafood stalls to recommend and the price
3. island/beach - we intend to spend a day on beach/island. Please advise which one is nice for young kids, how shall we arrange for transport to Jetty and prices.
4. Anything that we need to take care of
5. We plan to rent 7-seaters for a day to KK. Does anyone know about the car rent, any nice places along the way to and from KK?

Thank you

[micollh]

i went there in 2008, stayed at Hyatt Hotel. but i was so disappointed with the hotel and facility. really so below my expectation. maybe i would have though Hyatt Spore standard… so must lower expectation. i went to the Mt kinabalu, very nice place,. but we din climb up as i brought my girl who was 15 month-old then. and went to the near by island for a dip. vety nice island. but dun expect shopping… nothing special actually. and the local food at their pasar malam, really… nothing fantastic. but starbucks there was cheaper haaa…

[Charmaine_chong]

Hi Micollh,


Thanks for your reply.

We DIY our trip. So, need to find out more information. Tried to get quotation but it is way too pricey.

Any updates?

[Dnls_mum]

We just realize that each of our kids have KF miles expiring in June 13. They all have sufficient air miles to redeem tickets to Malaysia or Indonesia. Since we just went Bali last year, we are considering KK for next june. We are considering staying at the Shangrila Rasa Ria since it seems to have lots of kid friendly activities.


We are planning on going snorkeling and visiting Mari Mari cultural village. Can anyone advise how far is the Rasa Ria from jetty to get to Gaya Island for snorkeling or to Mari Mari? Is Rasa Ria a good base for such activities, or will a split stay with Tanjung Aru be recommended? Also, if we go snokelling for a full day, will we be able to leave our youngest at the kids club, as in will the kids club staff take care of her meals? She is very independent and has no problem being at the kids club the whole day and we are also willing to pay extra for her meals. Just wondering if the club will keep her for so long.

Any other advise on KK will be appreciated. TIA!

[Dnls_mum]

Part 1 : Resort and Snorkeling


We just came back from a one week trip to KK. We had a great time, enough activities to keep the kids interested yet relaxing enough too. Thought i'll share a simple trip review here in case someone is looking for a fun and sea vacation and yet sick of the usual Bali and Phuket type.


Hotel:
We stayed at the ShangriLa Tanjung Aru which was only 15 mins from the airport and 15 mins to town. Thee are 2 Shangri La in KK. The other one is next to the orangutan sanctuary and has a better beach but an hour or so from town. We pick Tanjung Aru as we planned snorkelling trips etc which is more accessible. Furthermore we weren't keen to see orangutan. Have seen enough at the Sg zoo.

The hotel has a good pool area with 4 slides and a water war zone in addition to the usual family pools and adult pools. Great fun for kids and adults. There is even a ice cream bar next to the pools which were great for an afternoon snack or swim break. The beach here is almost non existence so if you want beach, go to Rasa Ria.

We booked the Kinabalu club sea view rooms which gave us a wonderful view of the sea and access to the club lounge for bf and evening snacks and happy hour which were substantial enough if you want to make a simple dinner out of it. We did that on 2 nights when we were too lazy to go anywhere further. Being able to have bf in the lounge is great as the main bf restaurant is quite a mad house in the morning and you may need to q to get a table at certain peak timings. We had dinner twice at Shang palace the Chinese restaurant and felt price was extremely reasonable. We spend between RM220 and RM270 for 5 pax for a good Chinese dinner. We don't order dessert but go up to our club lounge for dessert, coffee and drinks.

View from our club room:
http://i57.tinypic.com/xfu9tx.jpg\">

The resort at night:
http://i60.tinypic.com/34ns0ma.jpg\">

Snorkeling:
We book a full day snorkeling trip to the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine park with Dive Downbelow. There was only 8 people in our group, ie just our family of 5 and another family of 3. We had 2 dive guides and a boat captain. I wanted my kids especially my scaredy cat DD8 to have proper coaching on snorkeling and as it was DD's first snorkeling experience I wanted to make sure we got it right. DD refused to try snorkeling when we did it 2 years back in Orlando.

The guides were very patient and in fact one of them was so patient with DD and so reassuring that she who initially refused to try actually finally took the plunge and she loved it so much she refused to get out of the sea after that. I felt safe leaving DD in the guide's able hands. The boys just took off like 2 fishes in the sea but the guides and boat captain kept a constant eye out for them too.

The whole trip was split into 3 sessions. 2 sessions in the morning after a briefing session on the proper techniques. Then we break for a simple local lunch of rice, veg and chicken with fruits for dessert at Dive Downbelow's base camp at Gaya Island. Then we had a third session in the afternoon before heading back to the mainland. Each of the 3 sessions were at different locations near different island including Sapi and Manutik.

http://i61.tinypic.com/2qnnmnk.jpg\">

All in all a wonderful day and now the boys want to do diving! :imcool:

To be continued.....