I first saw SWV several years ago when I was staying at another resort on Mabul, so this time I booked it. It looks very nice, with bungalows over the water on stilts but I have to tell you, staying there is simply spectacular!
The rooms are well-built, well-appointed, spacious, and have wooden balconies....and the VIEW!!! OMG!! Open sea, coral seabed below, reef fish drifting under the bungalow, cool sea breeze, the sense that somehow you have blundered unwittingly into paradise.
And it doesn't end there - the restaurant is over the water as well, and one evening I saw 3 turtles swimming in the water nearby while having dinner! It's far more spectacular than words can describe - somehow the combination of open sky, shallow and clear sea, and those wooden bungalows make the whole more than the sum of its parts.
Diving? Sipadan is 30 minutes away, and it's better now that there are no more resorts on the island (all moved out by 2005). Mabul offers muck diving and SWV has a nice house reef with resident barracuda and school of fish....very very nearby is the hidden treasure...a coral which harbours the very elusive mandarin fish. Sign up early to go on the guided tour, it's worth it.
Diving facilities are generally excellent - good dive masters, good boatmen and the luxury of hot water showers!
You can visit Mabul island as well, you can walk all...I first saw SWV several years ago when I was staying at another resort on Mabul, so this time I booked it. It looks very nice, with bungalows over the water on stilts but I have to tell you, staying there is simply spectacular!
The rooms are well-built, well-appointed, spacious, and have wooden balconies....and the VIEW!!! OMG!! Open sea, coral seabed below, reef fish drifting under the bungalow, cool sea breeze, the sense that somehow you have blundered unwittingly into paradise.
And it doesn't end there - the restaurant is over the water as well, and one evening I saw 3 turtles swimming in the water nearby while having dinner! It's far more spectacular than words can describe - somehow the combination of open sky, shallow and clear sea, and those wooden bungalows make the whole more than the sum of its parts.
Diving? Sipadan is 30 minutes away, and it's better now that there are no more resorts on the island (all moved out by 2005). Mabul offers muck diving and SWV has a nice house reef with resident barracuda and school of fish....very very nearby is the hidden treasure...a coral which harbours the very elusive mandarin fish. Sign up early to go on the guided tour, it's worth it.
Diving facilities are generally excellent - good dive masters, good boatmen and the luxury of hot water showers!
You can visit Mabul island as well, you can walk all around in less than an hour and its safe and quite interesting. There are 2 villages on the island, but at the end of the walk, you can walk on the wooden walkway and back to your own private paradise at SWV. nearby are the water bungalows of Mabul Water Bungalows - they also look very nice, but I don't know what it's like staying there.More
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