Kinabatangan Sunshine Lodge

Nice, rustic place, great to visit the river, everything was OK.

The location of this lodge is so beautiful and peaceful. It’s small with only a few lodges which takes away the ‘resort’ feeling from the other surrounding properties. You can easily book tours for river cruises with their personal guide. It gives you a more intimate experience than the fully loaded boats from the other hotels/lodges. The chef from the lodge makes very good local cuisine that is fresh and super tasty!! The rooms are super clean, cozy, new and very nice! Definite recommendation!

Cabins were good, shower and beds fine. Lunch and diner were also good. But: we waited for almost two hours at the busstop for our transfer. On arrival there was no reception, the restaurant had been destroyed by a fallen tree and the place looked and felt like a construction site. We didn’t feel very welcome. The night walk was cancelled because of rain. The rivercruises were ok. For us it a not the experience we had hoped to have. At this moment the lodge should focus on rebuilding instead of recieving guests. And please don’t charge us for boots if we pay for a whole package....

The origianl restaurant area was destroyed by a tree that had not been logged the proper way. They had a replacement which was alright but lacking any charm. The room was okay with a little private verandah. Food was good and the cook was a very nice guy. We had booked a package and had the same guide for all activities. He was doing a good job at the river cruises.When we asked him if he could get us as far down as Sukau where Elephants were around he asked his boss for the costs and was apparently told that we would have to pay 500 Ringit for extra petrol - a ridiculously high amount of money. He also made sure that he didn't like the walks, especially not nightwalks. All over, too much money for too little.

If you book here, with all tours included and you expect basic than you are fine for a good price. Especially compared to the surrounding lodges. But: there is nothing extra. No restaurant, no bar, no shop, no room for flexibility. It is a boardwalk with 6 cottages , you are not allowed to walk around without your guide. Staff does not speak English. The guide does a little.

Sunshine Lodge sent a staff member to pick us up from our hotel in Sandakan for MYR 120 (USD 30), but about an hour into the 2 hour drive he began driving erratically - drifting into the wrong side of the road, speeding up drastically then slowing down to about 5 mph, then speeding up again - all of this while the rest of the highway was empty - and then he fell asleep at the wheel. I suspected he was drunk. We made him pull over at a roadside shop and then we called Sunshine Lodge to tell them about the situation. The woman repeatedly told us no one else could come get us and that we needed to get back in the car with him, that he was "just sleepy", and that he would drive very slowly the rest of the way. The driver became very angry and he too insisted that he was "just sleepy" and that he was fine and kept trying to force us back into the car. Horrible customer service, I would never stay there again.

Excellent place inside the jungle with local rooms.The staff was very polite and helpful. We make night safari in the river and morning at a good price with staff of hotel

Had a wonderful time staying at sunshine lodge. Mus is a wonderful guide and host and made our stay extra special. Easy contact and transfer across the river. Accommodation is basic but has everything you need and great jungle setting. Food was all lovely and no problems catering for 2 vegetarians! Managed to see elephants, proboscis monkeys, eagles, silver monkeys and many more on the boat tours. A great stay overall, would highly recommend :)

We booked 3 days 2 nights. After booking they will email you offering a package. Well worth doing and great value for money compared to neighbouring hotels. Rooms are basic but your staying in the jungle! Our guide Moose was great, such a nice guy and tried his upmost to find us Orangutans (sadly we were unlucky). We did however see macaques, proboscis and langur monkeys, as well as crocodiles and snakes. Only issue is that we were the only ones staying so did not meet anyone else! Overall though a fantastic experience with a great guide

The setting of the lodge is lovely but rustic. We are vegetarian and the food was amazing. The chef made tofu and egg based dishes for us especially every mealtime. Eggless can be requested too, so vegans would be well catered for also. The tours were OK. The guide has worked there for only 4 months but is quite good at spotting wildlife. Unfortunately on one of the cruises he got too close to a group of monkeys, who got very angry and stressed at our presence. Yet he did not react to questions from my partner and another passenger regarding us intruding and seemed happy to carry on distressing the animals. Also we had to wake up the guide our last morning as he overslept which resulted in our last morning cruise lasting just 60 instead of 90 minutes. We saw proboscis monkeys, Langurs, hornbill and many other birds. We didn't see any Orang Utans or elephants. Unfortunately elephants had been seen near our lodge 2 weeks but now seemed to have moved on to Sukau. We asked about the possibility of taking the boat to Sukau on an afternoon cruise. We were told by the manager that Suakau was too far away to visit. We would have been happy paying the extra on top of our 3D/2N package. The decision came across as inflexible as we had seen a Sukau forest lodge cruise boat just 20 minutes towards Sukau from our lodge. Also there is free time from noon to 4pm we could have left early to make it there and back again. Perhaps they were hesitant as there is just the 1 guide and thus it is difficult to accomodate anything outside of the package, which most people seem to take. The customer service in terms of what is on offer and the guiding needs to be improved.

Stayed two nights. Sue cooked up a storm meals were delicious. Sunshon was the perfect guide. Passionate about the wildlife and fun to be with. Thankyou for a great stay kimbatangan sunshine lodge

We had the best time here! The lodge contacted us with a package to add to our hotel room and it turned out to be fabulous. For three nights, we received six boat tours, two day hikes, and three night hikes, although one night hike was rained out. Our guide was beyond friendly and knowledgeable and really went the extra mile to help us spot animals and have a great time. We spotted orangutans, proboscis, crocodiles, macaques, hornbills, snakes, monitors, a gibbon, and a myriad of beautiful birds. The food that came with our package was delicious. The lodge itself is rustic, but that only adds to the feeling of actually being deep in the jungle away from civilization. The room was clean and the bed comfortable. No wifi, but that turned out to be a bonus. We will definitely come back some day!

Perfect

enjoy the back to nature feel, river trip is good close to nature.

Firstly, the place was a bit difficult to find. They will arrange to pick you up from various places I think, but we had our own car, and did not have a chance to correspond back and forth. Once we reached Bilit, we had to get out of the car and ask around, the locals had not heard of it. I young man overheard us and said he would take us there in his boat, it turns out the place is across the river, and there is no road access. This would have been okay if we were expecting it, but we were not packed for a river crossing so it was a bit awkward. It's only a 30 second boat ride. Be sure to apply bug spray before getting on the boat because you will get attacked as soon as you arrive. The place is serene, right on the water. The accommodations are a bit rough, the rooms are not sealed well. We had a mouse crawl under our door and scamper around the room before hiding in one of the box springs. Mouse poop elsewhere showed this was a regular thing. If your light is on once the sun goes down, insects start to make their way into your hut through all of the gaps in the siding. There are not bed-nets, so you may want to bring one with you. The staff was not very organized, did not know how much their own boat tours cost, when or how much dinner was, etc... The boat tour ended up being RM60 per person per tour which is a decent price if you're by yourself, but if you're with a group you'd be better off organizing a trip independent of the lodge as you could probably get a whole boat for RM100. All in all, good value for the money as most of the other places in the area charge close to 10 times the price, but things are a bit rough around the edges.

The surroundings are awesome, you're in the middle of the jungle. The lodge is very clean, and although it is very basic, it has everything you need (remember you're in the jungle). One thing to bear in mind is that this lodge normally works selling accommodation+activities packages, so if you book the room through Agoda these guys will contact you to offer the rest of the package, which is quite overpriced but it is fine. Actually you don't have many choices other than getting the package, as there is no way to get to this place on your own or do anything else around without the guides. In any case, the place is wonderful.

It was a good stay, difficult to get to if you are a solo traveller without it costing heaps though for transport.

Everything this place is great, the staff are great, the walks and boat trips are great, the room was great the food was great and plentiful,just a couple of little things that need addressing air conditioning would be great it was so hot in the room with only a ceiling fan for cooling and a few shelves and bed side tables would be great

Love this place. the staff very friendly. resort located across Kinabatangan river. Need to call them when we arrive there. the boat pickup arrive less than 5 minutes.

Really enjoyed our night at Sunshine, they picked us up across the river. Tour was excellent, Elephants, Wild Orangutans, Monkeys. Excellent experience..Price was much cheaper then the other places..Put very happy with the entire experience..Would rate the place a 3 star....