We stayed at the Tanjung Aru for 5 days in early January and had a wonderful time overall.

Airport Pick-Up: We arranged a pick-up car with the hotel since there were 7 of us and they were waiting for us as soon as we arrived. We piled in and were at the resort in 10 minutes.

Check-in: Not so good. We had booked 3 rooms but upon arrival they were 1 room short. The hotel said we had cancelled it even though we had our confirmation for the 3 rooms and no confirmation for a cancelled room. They then said it must have been a mix-up between the hotel and our travel agent but still suggested that it was the travel agent's/our fault. We did however get our 3rd room. Also, at the time of booking, the hotel specifically asked for the age of my daughter because they said they had a welcome gift for her. Of course when we arrived there wasn't any and when we inquired about it the next day they didn't know anything about it so the front desk said they would follow-up. We didn't hear back from them until the day before we left when they delivered a bag with some crayons and colouring pages. The morning we checked-out, someone came and delivered the exact same gift again. I suppose we could consider it a farewell gift. It definitely reflected some poor administration and organization.

Rooms: We stayed in a Tanjung Seaview Room. Lovely view and great location close to everything (pool, water park, Cafe Tatu). It had a big balcony and a fantastic bathroom with a separate tub and huge shower. Housekeeping and turn-down service were excellent. The hallways are paved in stone though so sound echoes and travels into the rooms as clearly as if you did not have your door closed. You can hear any talking, walking, closing of doors and the housekeeping carts especially make a very loud rumbling noise. In addition, you can hear the shower and toilet flushing from the room above. If you can sleep through a bit of noise then it's not an issue. I wouldn't recommend staying by the elevators as there is much more traffic. Thankfully we were further down a hall and most of our neighbours were pretty quiet.

Pools: The infinity pool was beautiful with a postcard perfect view. It was, however, quite a deep pool so if you are not a strong swimmer you might not feel very comfortable in this pool unless you stay along the edges. There is a more shallow end that leads into the family pool but it is small and quite noisy. It would have been better if the pool was more equally split between the deep and shallower parts. Perhaps they thought the water park would attract enough kids that a small shallow area would suffice. My daughter does not like water parks at all and loves just swimming in the pool. She preferred the infinity pool mainly because it was less crowded but they were very strict so she could only use her water wings and no other inflatables were allowed. The lifeguard whistles were also constantly going off, especially when people would prop themselves up or sit on the edge of the infinity pool. It might have helped if they put a bigger, more visible sign at the edge of the pool because after a while, all the whistling got a bit irritating. We barely heard any whistles at the Shangri-la's Mactan Resort infinity pool where we stayed 2 years ago. We did have to save a few loungers before breakfast, otherwise the ones under the umbrellas would all be taken and shade was a must during the hot day.

Food: We had the breakfast buffet at Cafe Tatu each morning that came with our room package. It was good with lots of variety and we loved the cappuccinos and coffee. Although it seemed busy we were always seated right away (table for 7). Lunch was always by the pool. We ordered food & drinks off Coco Joe's pool menu...the selection was decent and the food was good. Staff were always walking around with menus in hand so it was never hard to flag someone down to place an order. For dinner we had a la carte once and the dinner buffet once at Cafe Tatu. The a la carte was okay. The buffet was better but pricey even with my daughter eating for free. We dined at Shang Palace twice and found the food to be very authentic and good. The prices were also very reasonable. We celebrated my mom's birthday at Shang one night and I called ahead to see if they could do a little something special. At the end of our meal the staff sang Happy Birthday as they brought out a lovely dessert for her. She enjoyed it very much although I do want to mention that they wrote out her age on the dessert's well wishes. She didn't mind but for others I could see it being considered a faux pas. Sometimes people just don't want their age spelled out in black and white. We didn't dine at Peppino.

Gym: My husband used the gym once and was impressed with the facility and the equipment. One of the trainers was also very helpful in showing him some exercise tips.

All in all it was a good trip and we would stay here again.

easy to book thru internet. the room is very romantic with a champaigne as our welcome drink and fresh fruits. the view was breathtaking at morning and night. the breakfast buffet was okay but not outstanding. the kids pool and water facilities are good!

I stayed in this hotel for the first time last week, the staff were very welcoming.
We had sea view rooms that were lovely looking out over the sunset bar. Cleaned daily and we had the rooms turned down at night which was a lovely touch.
The pool was great, an infinity pool looking out over the sea and the islands, stunning views. All staff around the pool were helpful, offering water and fruit. The breakfast was a buffet, it was amazing, whatever you could think of was there!
While we were there we taxied into the centre, ate a few nights at the strip along the waterfront, had traditional Thai, Indian and went for a few drinks in the bars there too, taxied back as it was about 10-15mins in a taxi to centre, too far to walk in. About 20 ringit each way.
We ate in the Italian in the hotel, peppino, beautiful meal and fantastic service, quite pricey but it was the special meal!
We went to the tanjung arus sister hotel the rasa ria, there was a hotel shuttle bus between to see the orang utan sanctuary, great half day and are very close to the orange tans, bus journey takes a bit longer than needs to be but a good trip, definitely worth it! Also organised a snorkelling trip, meet at 9, then to an island close by for snorkelling, lunch provided then anOther shot in the water, about 3hrs snorkelling altogether and sooo much fish to see, we used Borneo dreams tours, excellent, they do scuba diving too.

All in all an excellent few days, the hotel was outstanding and would definitely recommend an stay there again

This resort is clearly the best in KK and entitled to its 5-star claim - it is well located, has lovely gardens/green spaces, attentive staff, quality fittings, good food, excellent pool and our room, while not over-large, was well appointed. There was a problem with our booking in that we were not expected until the following day, but the staff sorted that out promptly and upgraded us in the process. While KK as a whole was a little disappointing, the resort more than made up for it. The only down side was the noisiness of the hard-surfaced corridors when drunk end of Chinese-new year revellers returned to their rooms late at night!