Malaysia | Island Water Villa in Kota Kinabalu! Highly recommended!
| Island Water Villa in Kota Kinabalu! Highly recommended!
The name is Gayana Marine Resort
Booked a 4-day, 3-night Ocean Villa
I was worried it would be boring, but the 3 days were actually very fulfilling 🤿
Flew from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu early in the morning, took a taxi to Jesselton Point Pier, checked in at the store, and waited for the 12:00 pm boat to the island
As soon as we got on the island, we started taking pictures 📸 Opened the balcony door to see the crystal-clear jelly sea, and someone was so excited that they jumped right in 🏊
Then we tried snorkeling for the first time. We weren't very skilled at it yet, so we just floated around near the room and watched the sunset before going to dinner
There is only one restaurant, and we almost tried everything on the menu in 3 days. It's mainly Western food, and it's okay, not great but not bad either. The service is very good. There isn't much to do at night, and the massages here are too expensive, so we went back to the city for a massage 💆
We went to bed early and got up early. After breakfast on the second day, we went snorkeling again. The water level is lowest around 10:00 am, so we went snorkeling like crazy and saw fish everywhere. We could even see Nemo from the bridge 🐠 In the afternoon, we went kayaking in the mangroves (MYR 45 per person) for about an hour. There were a lot of mosquitoes, but we could see the typical mangrove landscape and monkeys 🐒
🌳 BTW, the hotel has a great ecosystem. Monkeys occasionally come to the room balcony, and you can also see large Southeast Asian lizards and various birds 🦎
On the third day, I booked a scuba diving session from 8:30 am to 11:30 am. There is a PADI center on the island, but without a certificate, you can only do two dives nearby (including lunch for MYR 350). It was amazing to see schools of small fish up close. For more details, check out the video in the previous post. If you have a certificate, you can go out to sea to see big fish 🐟
At noon, we went snorkeling again, and in the afternoon, we were too tired, so we lay down for a while. When we went out to the balcony, we found that the sun was gone, and we couldn't see anything when we went down, so we just lay on the balcony, listened to music, and played with our phones 🎶
On the last day, we went snorkeling one last time before leaving the island. The small fish patrol team checked if we missed anything. In short, we saw all kinds of colorful corals 🪸 and small fish 🐟. It was a great experience
Finally, we checked out. We spent a total of over MYR 1,400 on the island in 3 days (which is relatively high), and with the accommodation fee for 3 days, it was almost over CNY 9,000 💸