Excellent stay! Very welcomIng and friendly and helpful staff! Great value for money and very clean! Highly recommended!! Breakfast basic but good!!

We stayed 2 nights at the Lavender Lodge, one night before going to Mt. Kinabalu and one night after. We really appreciated the friendly, helpful staff and owners. They gave us excellent advice on how to get a taxi to Mt. Kinabalu and had city maps available plus other helpful brochures about site-seeing spots around Kota Kinabalu and Sabah.

The 1st night, our standard room with 2 twin beds was on the 3rd floor and since they don't have an elevator, it was a real chore lugging our bags up there. They don't have any male staff so one of the girls offered to carry my suitcase up for me. We shared the toilet and shower with the other guests up there but since no one else was booked in on that floor, we had it to ourselves. Everything was new and clean, though the towels are pretty thin. Our room was on the street side and we could hear the traffic from down below into the wee hours of the morning. The 2nd night, we chose to stay in the dorm room with 6 beds on the 1st floor next to the breakfast area. It was much better with our own washroom/shower and cheaper. And it was super quiet as it's at the back of the lodge. In both rooms, the beds and pillows were very comfortable.

The breakfast isn't much to speak of, just toast with butter and jam, fruit and coffee, tea or juice. But, you can have as much as you want.

The TV is on the 2nd floor in a lounge area. Looking in, it looked like a nice big room.

It was really nice having free internet. If you don't have a laptop or phone to get on the internet with, they have a desktop computer in the lobby area that you can use.

The close proximity to the taxi/bus stand, malls, the night market and restaurants made the Lavender Lodge a wonderful place to stay. We only had to walk 5 min. to get to the taxi/bus stand going to Mt. Kinabalu.

We arrived on Chinese New Year so most of the establishments were closed. But right across the street from the Lodge is a seafood market where you can choose what you want and they'll cook it for you. Nice, though kind of pricey. Next door is another restaurant with very cheap prices and good local food. We loved their desserts. On the other side of the lodge is a convenience store with snacks, drinks, etc.

kota kinabalu was my second stop for my 25 day vacation around SE asia... i booked this hostel months before i travelled to kk. it was my first time to visit...when i arrived atvthe hostel, i was surprise that that there are some filipino staff...the lady at the reception was great giving me tips on what to book, i book all my day tours with them and the prices were quite reasonable. about the rooms, i got a single room, spacious enough and clean...the toilet and shower are communal but it was also clean....the only down side is that i got 2 flight of stairs to climb to gonto my room....they also serve very simple breakfast in the morning....but no worries, there are a lot of food choices just a short walk from the lodge, they have this hawker type set up just across the lodge, whe you can choose live seafood and have them cooked to your liking...and the chicken wings are delish....although for me singapore still has the best ones...haha...shout out to all the filipinos in kk, sometimes im unsure, if i should speak tagalog or english while im there...

When we checked into the Lavender Lodge we were given a family room rather than our double room that we had booked so we had a lot of space and our room was cleaned everyday. The shared bathrooms were quite big and always clean. There was no view from the window but that is something we have gotten used to in Malaysia. The breakfast was nice and pleasant – tea and toast and fruit. KK isn’t the most picturesque of cities but we were able to explore most of it on foot from the guest house. Big pool table in the common area, although it wasn’t free. We left our bags here whilst we went on a side trip to Sandakan and they were safely were we left them when we came back. The staff were friendly and helped us to book tours and transport (although the Poring hot springs tour that we booked was a disappointment, but can’t really blame the guesthouse for that).