Me and my girlfriend stayed here May 2011 for 5 days/4nights and I must say that the resort is stunning and views are priceless! Nevertheless I also have some negative points which mostly concerning the diving (package). We visited the resort mainly because of the diving in the area.

I would like to point out the pros, cons and my advise when you want to stay here and dive at Sipadan:

Pros:
- Resort is beautiful
- See turtles floating around from your sundeck (stunning!)
- See amazing sunsets from your sundeck
- Dive at Sipadan
- Dive crew was really nice

Cons:
- Price
- Only 1 dive at Sipadan: really disappointing because the other dive sites were not special and had bad visability. The resort has only got 15 places to go to Sipadan. On our last day I have done an enquiry at companies in Semporna and they still had permits left. From Kapalai employees I would have been nice to go the extra mile to ensure everybody is happy and more people were able to dive Sipadan once more.
- Dive sites: reading the advertisement the dive sites around Kapalai itself, Mabul and other places around should be really stunning with a good visiability. The truth is that they were not really special (except Sipadan which is stunning). This because of bad visability and lack of coral.
- No pillow on wooden stairs: after repeatingly asking we finally received 2 pillows. I have noticed that a lot of people did not have them and I must say that laying on a wooden chair without one is not pleasant (hot and hard). They informed us we needed to wait because they did not have enough available. This is simply not possible when you are paying such an amount.
- Check-in: we arrived around 11am and needed attend the orientation dive immediately. We could not even change into our swimming clothes in our own room because this was available from 13.00h.
- Dinner: there were long rows to get something of the dinner buffet every night we were there. At the time we were able to pick things all the nice things were gone and we had to wait 30 minutes again to try to secure some nice food (quality of the food was good).

Although we enjoyed our stay partly, I will not visit Kapalai dive resort again. I have got a advise for people which want to visit the area mainly for diving: Sipadan Island is only 45 minutes by boat from Semporna. Every day you are able to book daytrips to Sipadan at the dive companies in Semporna and this way you are able to visit Sipadan every day instead of visiting this once/twice and dive at the other less interesting places (make a reservation to be sure you are able to go to Sipadan). For your stay in Semporna I would like to recommend the Seafest Hotel which is the best hotel in Semporna (fair priced).

- Great diving
- great staff and DM
- good food
- watch out for some guest- loud, noisy and complaining

This was the best resort I've been diving. All spaces are beautiful!

The rooms are huge and beautiful! It has a balcony where you can relax, unwind and admire the fish.

The common spaces are well treated, very clean, with flowers, making this resort a romantic and special place.

Meals are served buffet-mode and always with plenty of variety.

The diving at Sipadan are spectacular! The best I've ever done before! But the other spots are not very good: (

The dives are all included, which is wonderful! You can get four dives per day! :)

Stayed in Kapalai on 24-26 Nov 2011 for our short honeymoon getaway..Transportation to & from Kapalai,Airport,Semporna was smooth..When we arrived in Kapalai,they did some warm welcome to all guests and a short introduction/initiation..

Chalet/Rooms: Romantic chalet type rooms with bathtub facing directly to sea..loves it..every chalet have their own backyard balcony and we always spent our late evening there,gazing up the stars & staring out to the sea..

Food: Breakfast was usually omelet/scrambled eggs made to order..bread & jams are always there..chinese porridge were on place.. Lunch was always heavy..mostly asian food..no problem for us..on one occassion,we had nyummy burger for lunch..cooked on spot.. Dinner was also some asian food.. Overall,you will not feel hungry eventhough there's no other fastfood or shops around..

We are non-divers but we decided to take on the Discovery Scuba Diving package..managed to swam with arnd 6-7 turtles down at shalliw depth and we're very estatic..Snorkelling was great in Kapalai itself..lots of fishies & nice corals too..but im sure Sipadan will have better aquatic life =) Thats why we've decided to get our Open Sea Diving Cert soon

The downsides: There's quite a lot of rubbish floating arnd the area during high tide..and if you are not into snorkelling/ diving,you might find this place a bit boring..

Raimi&Melissa