Last Friday I took a day off, joined my husband’s company trip to Nexus Karambunai resort.
It was a very nice resort, with a very beautiful beach and next to a jungle. The seawater was blue in colour, the beach was only with sand – you won’t find shells here but it also means that you don’t get those spikes that poke your feet when you walk on the beach. The beach was so clean that you can hardly find any rubbish. The scene is just so breathtaking. I love the place.
It is about 30-min drive from KK town, but the taxi charges were expensive. Well, in fact, everything was expensive there, from food to transport to activities etc.
But I really liked that environment. One thing that is very nice, but can be quite annoying, is the bird singing.
The birds wake up very early in the morning (around 5am??), and starts singing or kehpohing. The sound was so loud and near to our windows, which you can hardly ignore them. When you wake up, you can see whole bunch of birds chatting, singing and playing – everywhere!
What can you do there? Well, if you are willing to spend and has the cash to spend, there are quite a lot of activities. But since they are way too expensive for me (and I don’t see it worthy), I didn’t join any of the activities at all.
Actually I was keen to join the mangrove cruise, but it costs RM70 per person for 1 hour. Imagine the two of us would have cost RM140 already. Some more, don’t know what I will be getting from the cruise. But this seems the only thing that I could do, with Ian around…
And Island Hopping is RM160 per person! Whew! How to afford – two of us would be RM320 already!
I quite like spa, but then the spa tariff is just not worthy. For a Borneo Spa (1.5 hour), it costs RM278. The foot reflexology alone costs RM78 for 30 min – I can get it at RM30 for 40 min over here.
Anyway, one thing I would definitely complain about the place is… Well, it has a very good product (nice beach and place), but there is no service. I emphasize: not “poor service”, but “no service”.
When we arrived late at night, around 8:30pm, we were left at the lobby with no porters to carry our luggage and no one to even speak or check with us.
After DH checked in for everyone and got the key, we were left alone, with no sense of direction of our rooms. Our luggage was still left on the ground.
I had a baby stroller, a trolley bag (3/4 of it was stuffed with Ian’s goods), a diapering bag, and a baby to carry. DH carried a backpack and he had to sort out things for his company.
We waited for 20 minutes, and then I got furious and demanded to know where was our room. Finally someone came to pick us up with a mini van. Yes, our rooms were so far away and needed a ride!
Actually I did some research before going, so I knew which direction we were supposed to go. What we booked was the Ocean Wing (with sea view). The moment we were driven towards the other direction, I knew something was wrong.
After checking with the driver, we were told that we were ‘free upgraded’ to Borneo Wing. Hey, this was really a con game. So called upgrade was actually putting us far away from the main area (where pool and beach are), and all our rooms were garden (or road) facing. The room that I got was even worse – we had two single beds, which we definitely can’t sleep with Ian.
So, we went back and checked with the front desk, it took them another 30-40 min to get all of us transferred back to the Ocean Wing with sea view. In the meantime, Ian needed his potty for poo-poo, which made the situation even worse. I was sweating all over the place.
By the time we settled in, it was already 10:30pm, time for Ian to sleep. But we had not bathed! After bathing, it was already over 11pm. We were so tired, but also hungry.
The hotel sales girl was very apologetic and promised to buy all of us (actually only 13 adults) a drink and some supper at the lounge. Since we were hungry, I didn’t care it was Ian’s sleep time (he was also excited lah!), we joined the supper.
By the time Ian and I went back to sleep, was already 12 midnight.
Such a poor experience. But I believe the organizer (DH), is also not very experienced lah. If it were me who checked in earlier, I would have made sure we got the room type we booked. And during booking, he didn’t specify what types of beds, therefore cannot blame the hotel for giving us two single beds! Since he is not a frequent traveler, have to give chance… 
