I reiterate the comments made by previous reviewer massively. This place is a paradise to look at and aesthetically you think how amazing it is and have such high hopes for your stay and then you realize so many basic and obvious customer service qualities/amenities are just missed. The management team could market this in such a better way that would attract way more divers and visitors.
This might be down to the fact that 90% of the visitors are Chinese, who are largely just come for the views as they tend not to dive. One day it was literally just me and my husband who were diving and around 50 Chinese guest snorkeling so they had to transfer us to the other resort. With this comes a multitude of photo shoots. everywhere you look there are Asian tourist (who are staying or visiting) just going round to take photos for hours and it becomes very intrusive and annoying and just changes the atmosphere of the place. This seems to be the main reason these tourists stay and are not really interested in the marine life.
As a by product of their main clientele there is not much of a night light. They have several nicely located bars that have so much potential (one has sunset views) but their is no atmosphere, a poorly stocked bar, no music, no other people, and it basically just feels like the staff are just sitting around as they are often not there, wear no kind of uniform that shows they even work there and just sit on their phones the whole time. In addition to this the buffet food was terrible. We were on honeymoon and had been completely spoiled with some amazing locations full of amazing food. This paradise stay to finish our trip was meant to be the creme de la creme but unfortunately that was not the case. Now i have been travelling Asia for over a year now and, as a gluten free vegetarian, I have always been able to manage. Especially at buffets where i just eat what i can or the chef kindly makes amendment. Now i would expect this not to be the case at a budget location but not a resort that markets it self as luxery. It is the food that is the main factors of this luxery status failing. When i ask if they had vegetarian options on my arrival i was made to feel like it was my fault for 'not putting it on the booking'. This w=may be correct and my fault but basic customer service technique do not make the customer feel at fault as soon as they have arrived. All of the buffet options were meat, and even my husband, as a meat eaten, was servery unimpressed. Every day i was given rice and veg or noodles and veg and i had to ask for it each day and hear myself just being refereed to as 'the vegetarian' each time i entered the room. Now, some of these dishes were very nice. But when you are spending over 6000USD on 5 days you expect a little more. And, as i said, for the rest of my holiday this was what i got for the same standard of trip.
That being said, the staff were always incredibly polite and friendly and they work very long hours. On our last night they had a new chef and the food was very tasty and had much more variety. Just a shame about the other 4 nights.
The diving was very good and was the reason we visited the area. The house reef is low advisability but there can be a lot to see. Kapalai has the better house reef where you can see a lot of macro. Sipidan was very good and full of mega forna and you saw an abundance of marine life each dive. Definitely worth a visit however it is very expensive. If you have ever been to Komodo National Park i would liken the experience to that, but Komodo did not ask you to pay extra. So with this, we got enticed to pay for 5 nights here because that was the only way we could guarantee diving in Sipidan and we thought with it being high season we might struggle. That was not the case. We ended up having doing 2 days dive (which we felt very privilege and lucky to do), despite not asking for it, and were offered a third but we refused. It seems to be very easy to get a permit (maybe because of there being so many Chinese people who didn't want to dive). Anyway, to apply for a permit costs approx $200pp each day. Because we were offered it they gave it to us for approx $80pp each day. There was 2 of us so that added up quickly which was why we refused the last day and instead opted for some macro diving. We were made to feel very stupid about this decision as multiple people kept saying to us 'people normally would love to have as many dives as possible in sipidan'. Yes, that might be the case but, going back to my previous point, it was not head and shoulders above Komodo so we felt why spend more money for what we have already seen. That being said, we did see some incredible things and the diving is definitely worth it. Massive schools of baracuda and jack fish, plentiful sharks and turtles it's definitely worth the trip, just don't buy into having to stay 5 nights. Although we do not regret the length we stayed solely for the diving experiences and what we saw.
In terms of the place as a diving centre, we did not feel they added much to our experience. What made our trip great was the location and not the company. There were times when our dive master surfaced before everyone else so we were left down having not even been told we were surfacing. Secondly, there knowledge of hand signals includes of shark and turtle so I found myself unanswered when asking what they were trying to show me. We had to pay to hire all the equipment on top of the large sum of money we spent to stay here. This was very annoying and very expensive and something I have not seen anywhere else we have dived. My husband and I spent about $50pp per day on hire.
Do not buy the honeymoon package it is not worth it. But do have a sensual couples massage. This is by far the best massage we have had (and that is out of a lot). The whole experience was amazing, romantic and special. Thank you to the very talented ladies who did it.
Airport transfer was very good, efficient and easy. Thank you for this it really helped.
To conclude, kapalai and sipidan are a dive location that should be experienced by any keen diver. Mabul Water Bungalows offers beautiful views and if money is no objects then i guess that can suffice. If you take an pleasure from food when you travel i would not recommend staying here. In fact, i would not recommend staying here unless you have too much disposable income and find the price worth nice views and a the odd but of house reef snorkeling. Go somewhere else and have the same dive experiences. I hope this helps if you are planning your trip in this area.
