Sipadan - is it WORTH it?

[Guam]

Planning a SE Asia trip which includes Borneo April 14 - 30th. The obvious choice was Sipadan, but I have a problem booking at a dive hotel for $500 a night that may or may not include actual Sipadan diving. It seems I would be lucky to get ONE day of diving sipadan which now does not even allow cameras?

Is it worth paying $2500 for the CHANCE of doing 2 dives in Sipadan? I live in Guam. Palau is a 2 hour flight from here. Is Sipadan as good or better than Palau? Or, more importantly, do the dive sites on the other islands besides Sipadan (Mabul, Kapalai, etc.) compare to Palau?

I guess we could go to Layang Layang and know for sure what we are booking. How does LL compare?

After Borneo we were going to head down to Indonesia. We were going to plan on diving there as well. Just didn't know if we should put the bulk of our travel funds into diving 2 great dives off Sipadan followed by 8 so-so dives on the other islands.

What do you guys think? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Dave

 

[The Wolf]

1) There is no such ban in place as far as diving with cameras that I have heard of and whoever it was that started the rumor did so without any foundation or much evidence of any impending ban.

2) Its well worth a go but there are options other than the USD$500 a night now days with a variety of options to suit most budgets from back packer accomodations in Mabul and reasonably priced dive rates and permits for sipadan to seaventures which is sorta in between budget rates and the expensive chalet rates per night to the high end Kapalai experince.

3)You will get dives on your trip over to Sabah at Mabul and Kapalai at some point in time during the 3-5 days you are there and that should be sufficient I think depending on how much time you want to and can spend over there. 7 days is really a maximum for me..2-3 days at sipadan, and more time also spent at Mabul and Kapalai who usually don't get as much respect as they should.

Just my 20 cents on the questions.

 

[Zippsy]

I've not been to Palau - yet - but from what I have heard, and if I was living on Guam, I'd be going to Palau. It's true that there are much cheaper options to go to Sipadan though. Also, there isn't a camera ban in place, at least at the moment and Mabul and Kapalai have pretty decent muck diving but.... Palau sounds like a damn good option for you to me.

 

[Quero]

I can say that given the choice between Sipadan and Palau, I'd go to Palau, all else being equal. I like Sipadan, and I send some of my customers there every season, but unless you're on the liveaboard, you will generally only get 1/3 of your dive days at Sipadan dive sites. The other 2/3 will be around Mabul and Kapalai. Personally, I love the Mabul dives--lots of little stuff, and I can spend an entire dive just with the mandarin fish, but that's me, and I realize that not everybody gets excited about nudibranchs, frogfish, and ribbon eels! The thing I dislike most about the Sipadan area dive operators is that most of them limit dive time to 45 minutes. I hate that, given the effort and expense to get there and dive there.

 

[Searcaigh]

Planning a SE Asia trip which includes Borneo April 14 - 30th. The obvious choice was Sipadan, but I have a problem booking at a dive hotel for $500 a night that may or may not include actual Sipadan diving. It seems I would be lucky to get ONE day of diving sipadan which now does not even allow cameras?

Is it worth paying $2500 for the CHANCE of doing 2 dives in Sipadan? I live in Guam. Palau is a 2 hour flight from here. Is Sipadan as good or better than Palau? Or, more importantly, do the dive sites on the other islands besides Sipadan (Mabul, Kapalai, etc.) compare to Palau?

I guess we could go to Layang Layang and know for sure what we are booking. How does LL compare?

After Borneo we were going to head down to Indonesia. We were going to plan on diving there as well. Just didn't know if we should put the bulk of our travel funds into diving 2 great dives off Sipadan followed by 8 so-so dives on the other islands.

What do you guys think? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Dave

$500 per night :shocked2: didn't know there was a Grand Hyatt in the area ..... you are being well ripped off my friend.

Spent a week there two years ago and had two days diving at Sipadan based in Mabul, I could have had a third but had an ear infection after 5 days of diving. My daughter and I had a total of 8 dives each at Sipadan though, go back in a heartbeat.

Diving around Mabul was pretty good too, loads of macro stuff as well 90 minute+ dives off Borneo Divers Jetty

 

[pazz]

If someone offered me an all-expenses paid dive trip to either Sipadan or Palau, I would choose Palau. Personally, if I had already dove Palau and had never been to Indonesia, I’d make this trip all Indonesia. Fly to Bali, do some dives there, and then you have your pick from such excellent dive spots as Komodo, North Sulawesi……..

 

[The Wolf]

Palau sounds interesting now that you guys mention it

 

[Guam]

Thanks for all the replies!

I guess I did a poor job of explaining that. I was planning on diving Sipadan April 16-20th. 5d/4nights. Since I will be traveling with the wife, I'd be paying for two divers. And since she got to the computer first, she picked out the resorts with the pretty pictures... Since I've been talking about Sipadan off and on for a year now, I figured we'd stay at a nicer place on the water.

We emailed Kapalai Dive Resort (RM 7520), Sipadan Water Village Resort ($3200), Borneo Divers Mabul Resort (RM 9148) among others. These prices, again, are for TWO divers so they average about $626, $800 and $762 a night. Now this DOES include diving. It does not include taxes, permits, gas surcharges, etc... Most limit diving to one day the last day and you only get a dive or two the first day, if any, due to it being the day you arrive.

That leaves three solid days of diving, with maybe - MAYBE -1 day of diving on the actual island of Sipidan. (well, not ON the island, but in the water AROUND Sipidan) There were a lot of wiggle words thrown in the email correspondence as well (we'll try our best to get permits..., while not guaranteed... etc.)

I've been to Palau six or seven times now. I heard Sipidan was a better dive spot than Palau. I don't mind spending a little more cash for a great, "once in a lifetime" dive spot. I just didn't want to spend the time and money to travel to Sipidan and be disappointed. I sure as S#*@ didn't want to pay that kind of cash only to see Sipidan's ugly sisters. (Sorry to offend fans of Mabul and Kipalai - just kiddin') I am a fan of muck diving and could hunt for nudibranchs all day for a couple of dives in Mabul or Kipalai. My wife, on the other hand, would be doing cartwheels underwater. I am glad to hear that they allow cameras (although I don't really take too many photos) but if they limit your diving to 45 minutes, its a no brainer. There's no way we're going there.

I guess we could head up to Layang Layang for a 6D/5N package and actually know what we're getting. Pazz, I'm with you. We're headed down to Indonesia after Borneo to check out the diving down there.

Can't thank you guys enough for the help!

dave

 

[Quero]

90 minute+ dives off Borneo Divers Jetty

Yeah, I should have said 45 minute dive time limits on boat dives. Shore dives are altogether different, but then they're not at Sipadan....

 

[Guam]

45 minute dive limit would be worse than the camera ban.

Thanks again!