mabul/sipadan in december

[Lorenzoid]

A lot depends on the mix of the guests at the resort. I was recently with SWV for four days and went to Sipadan two of those days. The resort was full, but it was full of Malaysian, Singaporean, and Hong Kong Chinese; about 90% of Chinese people can't swim, so they snorkel, and they do use some of the passes for snorkeling at Sipadan, but mostly they snorkel someplace else. This may also explain why at CNY ocdiver was able to get to Sipadan so many times.

Two years ago my wife and I had the same sort of experience at SWV as Quero. We were there for three days of diving (i.e., a "5-day package") and went to Sipadan one day, which is what we expected though we of course hoped to luck out and get two out of three days. The resort had a large group of Asians on a trip hosted by their employer, and many were non-divers. The resort was otherwise lovely. My wife and I were lured by the bungalows on pilings over the water--something we had never done before--and our bungalow was indeed wonderful. I can highly recommend SWV as a "couples thing." That said, some friends of ours had been at Borneo Divers a week earlier and dived Sipadan twice in four days of diving. We were envious, but it was our own fault. In hindsight, three dive days is just not enough at any of the resorts to have any reasonable likelihood of visiting Sipadan twice.

 

[njcfm]

just to give an update..

SMART was ok, it was our least favourite resort that we stayed at during our trip.

divemasters force a hard stop at 45min per dive, even if you have half a tank left, they asked for our cert levels and experience and we did nothing that required an advanced cert (we both have 150+ dives and are advanced)

You have a different dive master each day, which means each day your skills are questioned and some divemasters tend to hover over you the whole time.

Their gear has seen better days, every tank I had had an issue (O-rings are cheap, replace them!), Had an issue with a rented regulator and asked that it be swapped out, it wasn't until I swapped it out myself.

They make it very clear that you are not supposed to touch anything, yet the large group of Asian tourists were grabbing turtles and riding them around, it is a shame that this kind of behaviour is allowed. They even filmed it and were entertained by it later in their visit.

The food catered to the Asian tourists, they don't offer any water on the boats or any fruit in the dinning hall in between dives, most surface intervals are 1-2 hours.

Sipadan was nice, but I don't see a need to go back. Lots of turtles, schools of bumphead parrot fish, and jacks, we didn't get to see the barracuda.

Sipadan Mabul Resort charges for each day you go to Sipadan if you don't do a 5-day package, this adds up if you go multiple days.

Some of the staff at SMART was terrific, Jen who did our check-in dive, and Matilda who had just started working there were both extremely nice and helpful.

The rooms were nice and everything was very clean.

Overall we met some great people and it was a nice stop on our trip but I will likely skip this location next time around.