This hotel is quite run down and you will see that everywere but what can you expect at the low rate. English is only spoken by the night man in reception and he is very nice. As the center of Sandakan is quite small location does not matter much as long as you are in the centre. Stayed for 3 days and they did not clean the room in that time. Poor wi-fi if you were not standing right under the router. All in a good value.
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2015 price 58 Ringat a night, next to the CBD near all the shops and seafront Restaurants, a bit musty but let me run the aircon for a few hours while sightseeing, came back nice.
The car parking ladies out the front, gave me a 30cent fine [10 cents US] asked for the rest of the day, 1 Ringat in total, [30cents US]
Basic but good, large room central - Suited me fine
what you see is what you get, price of offer is this $, place of offer is this. not too bad for a little hotel locate in a quite area that not far from all the main places and also easy to find taxi at all time up to after mid night. as receiption has people always around to help open and close and safety of this place. great location as well after all. not expensive at all and cleanses are ok.
lovely people in town of this place. had some good recommendation from the reception and had a great seafood dinner by the waterside and great value for dinner. thanks for recommend us for the dinner place we went, we wish to remmeber what name it was but was so good and had so much fun we forgot to take bussiness card of theirs and forgot to take photo... thats how good the food there is... thanks again for your recomendation. much appriciate your work. thanks.
I had my doubts when booking this hotel, as the price was suspiciously low and the reviews a bit disturbing. But I was arriving rather late and needed a place to sleep before pick-up by a tour bus at Wisma Khoo Siak Chiew building, which happened to be right next door. As a solo female traveller I didn't want to risk esploring neghbourhood on my own, so I decided to stick to this nearest option. I made a booking via some Sabah tourism website because the hotel wasn't answering my email. However, one can call them to confirm the booking, which I did the day before.
There was no problem getting there by taxi (paid something like 25 MYR at the airport's taxi counter). Check-in went smoothly, I got my key and paid on the spot (58 MYR for single room), though my room was on the top floor, and without any elevator it was a bit tricky to get the heavy suitcase upstairs. There were 2 guys working at the reception, but nobody offered to help, even though I was the only guest at the time.
There was a fridge at the reception where I bought some water, which was good as I didn't fancy going outside at that time of the night. The street hotel London is located at is fairly busy during daytime, but totally deserted at night, not a soul apart from some rats and stray cats chasing each other. However, it doesn't look criminal (judging from the view outside my window...) I could swear I heard a goat bleating outside in the middle of the night, quite a surprise given the totally urban-looking environment.
The room was quite ok, clean apart from a couple of cigarette burns on the bed covers. Bathroom was surprisibgly big, and shower was working, though water pressure could be better. A/C unit had some problems, looked like it was on all the time, and wouldn't switch off, but then in the middle of the night I would suddenly wake up sweating because it was not cooling anymore. However, it wasn't a big issue for such a short stay.
I didn't hear the mosque many seem to be complaining about, sleeping soundly until 10am. Thanks to my good friends called earplugs, I sleep well no matter where I am! :-)
This hotel serves no breakfast any longer, but I didn't need it as I checked out next morning and left. If I happen to be in Sandakan for 1 night transit, I'll probably stay there again.
While the price for a night heavily influenced our decision to stay here (50MYR), I could not have stayed for another night. The room was filthy- cobwebs hung from most surfaces and the bathroom smelled of pee. Bedlinen was clean but the mattress and pillows underneath were not and smelled heavily of mildew. The location is fine, but as Sandakan is quite small, that's hardly a plus point. The mosque next door will wake you at 5am.
At US $9.00 per person for a double room (my wife and I), this hotel is fine. It is fairly well located, relatively clean, seems safe enough, and provides a breakfast with Nescafe coffee.
Here’s why it is US $18.00 per room:
The location is OK for the 5 minute walk to the water front cafes, and shops etc, but the setting is not pleasant. The view reminds me of news reel from 1980’s Lebanon.
There is no elevator, so it is quite a hike up to the 4th floor, especially when you forget something.
The WiFi signal is not great, we had to lug our computers down to the lobby and use them there. Having said that, on the 4th floor, and the rooftop patio it was possible to pick up the signal from the nearby 4 Points by Sheraton, obviously, that can’t be guaranteed.
Most of the other guests seemed to be renting rooms by the hour; this really wasn’t a problem for us. There wasn’t any noise, and it was fun timing the activities, and giving the participants a knowing nod when they passed through the Lobby.
There is no hot water in the rooms; the shower is the wall heater type that my mother used to have 30 years ago. I never really felt either wet or clean after showering.
The breakfast is Nescafe instant coffee, toast & jam. It’s OK, and better than you’d get at an EconoLodge or Motel 6 in the US. Just don’t get too excited at the prospect of feeding yourself for the day.
They didn’t clean our room for the nights we were there. I guess they are not used to “Long Term” guests.
The staff were helpful enough, but didn’t really say much.
The air conditioner was positioned over half the bed, blasting cold air directly onto it. This effectively made it a single bed, as we both had to squeeze onto the non affected half. The sheet and blanket were also too small.
There is a Mosque next door. Each morning were we awoken at around 5:00am by the wailing. It went on long enough to ensure we were sufficiently awake, and couldn’t get back to sleep straight away. It sounded nice, but 5:00am – no thanks!
Having said all that, I’d stay there again.
