Diving in this area is simply amazing! Limited access to Sipidan with a lottery based upon length of stay and number of guests, but we lucked out and dove Sipidan twice out of 4 days of diving. Other locations are good, not amazing, but fun, easy, lots to see. Some currents, but dive masters are excellent and make sure you don' t work too hard. Valet diving....they load, set up, rinse...just put on your suit, grab your weights, fins and mask and out to enjoy. Resort is nice. Important to be where wind can blow through your cottage....sure it changes depending on season. Wish they had air conditioning as those on inside of resort were miserably hot. Great private lanai. Major negative is the meal lines! They do not put more of same dishes out. If you miss an item, it's gone. Large groups load up and one keeps letting others in front of lines. Rather than a good meal in a fabulous setting, you have to race to be there before everyone else or end up with the leftovers. Salad and fruit disappear immediately. There is an outside grill which often is serving a short time. No one tells you about it, if lucky and you see it before they run out of whatever they are serving there, it is great. Too bad they cannot get a better system for dinner. If you are assured of a fresh selection of the same foods for the whole dinner hour, it would be much more enjoyable. Food taste above average. All buffet. Nice wine selection.
Staff and service very good throughout resort.

We are a family of three, with teenage daughter. I felt the peace and serenity this place offered the moment I sat foot on it. The feeling goes beyond words.

The scenery was breathtaking given the fact that you are staying in the middle of the sea. I'm not an outdoor person yet I found my bliss here- simply reading, doing yoga by the balcony against the breeze and the sound of the wave. My husband simply enjoyed the many dive sites they offered. My daughter enjoyed the discovery scuba and snorkeling.Food wise, it was good , with varieties and good taste. Staffs were helpful and friendly.

We'll definitely be back next Christmas!

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