Dont believe the negative nonsense here!

This is a quite fantastic place - right on the edge of the jungle. Rustic but charming and clean chalets, excellent breakfast and pleasant staff. For those who want to save a few bucks you can take the boat over the river for cheap food and drinks.

The resort directly borders the jungle - with many trails linking straight to the hotel. The national park office is also in the grounds of the hotel and the rangers there are very informative on what is happening.. The hotel also provide guided simple guided tours on nearby treks. I personaly didnt take these tours and rather used the hotel as a base for the more extreme trekking, which is exceptional (ask the national park rangers on where it is best to go in the vast expanse of jungle to possibly see tiger, elephant, the more testing treks etc). The extra benefit of this hotel is that in the evening, the wildlife comes to you - we saw Tapirs, barking deer, Samber deer, wild boar, civet cats, monkeys, monitor lizards and a spectacular array of bird and insect life in the resort itself...

If you are coming to Taman Negara and want to actually experience the jungle, then stay here. It is fantastic. I would urge that all to read this to come to Taman Negara - governments will only protect wild areas if they can get a return and eco tourism is the best way to do this.. Teman Negara is unforgettable and I will certainly be back soon.

The hotel is located in the Taman Negara jungle close to a small village. In order to reach the village (some restaurants, very small shop) you have to cross the river by boat (Fee 1 Ringit).
The hotel consists of a variety of buildings (small houses, guesthouses for groups) and has obviously seen better times. Some of the buidlings are not longer in use. Our room was in a small house. It was clean but very much outdated. Furniture etc. showed signs of long use. The bathroom was quite poor. There is no TV or phone - but we did not miss it. The bed was ok and the room was quiet. However this is a very simple hotel and by no means a luxury place.

Breakfeast buffet was ok (western and asian food) and the food in the restaurant was ok too. In fact it was much better then the food we had in one of the floating restaurants on the river opposite of the hotel.

There are some excursions (jungle trek) but I agree with my predecessors that this is not very special. The jungle trek consisted of climbing up a 400 m high hill but the view was not worth the climb. You have to be quite fit do do this trek because you will climb quite steep.

We booked this hotel through a travel agent, so I did not get to check the tripadvisor ratings until a day before we went...and i was freaking out after all the negative comments. Thankfully, we were pleasantly surprised when we got there. It is true, it is not the cleanest of places, the bathrooms are really tired, there are no TV's or phones in the rooms, but it is in the middle of the jungle, so I didn't let those things bother me.
Unlike other reviews, we (a family of six) found the food really good. Lunch was better than dinner though... even if the same item was ordered. They also ran out of certain things... like apple pie. We went on a jungle trek, a night walk, and rapid shooting... and we were not too excited about any of them. We saw more animals at the resort than we did in the jungle. We stayed for 2 nights and i wouldn't recommend staying for more.

We booked for 3 nights and stayed only 2. The whole experience was a disappointment. This hotel is not cheap by any measure, but the standards of accommodation, food and service were not in any way reflective of the cost.
1. On arriving at the hotel, there is a step stairway leading from the river up to the hotel. There is a pulley contraption to transport luggage, but no-one available either to explain the process or to load the luggage. When some guests started struggling up the VERY steep staircase with their bags, my husband and several other guests formed a chain to load the pulley - a process which involved leaping over a stretch of water. This is an accident waiting to happen and not the welcome I would expect of a 5 star resort.
2. Our rooms - we had booked the most expensive rooms in the resort and they were just awful. The fridge in the room did not work; There was one socket ( shared by the lamp) to plug in the kettle, which meant putting the kettle on the floor in order to boil it; there were damp patches all over the ceiling; the couch in our friends' room was ripped and the bathroom was frankly disgusting - dirty and ill-kempt with grubby fixtures and fittings
3. The service - on the first night we were there, it rained heavily, so we decided not to go for the night walk. There was a knock at our door and a member of staff asked if we were going. My husband answered that since it was raining, we had decided against it and the staff member spoke to him very rudely saying ' Why you not inform us?' My husband reminded her that she was speaking to a guest and she went off without an apology.
4. The food - I was ashamed to bring friends from overseas here. Malaysia is renowned for its food and this was utterly appalling. Flies buzzed around uncovered fruit, bread was left to go stale and the cooked food was nothing more than fodder. A previous reviewer has described it as prison food and I would agree absolutely with that

I have lived in Malaysia for 10 years and this was by a long chalk one of the most expensive hotels and one of the worst experiences I have had. I was ashamed to bring my friends here and I feel that which such a wonderful natural resource in the National Park, with visitors coming from all over the planet, Malaysia should really make sure that they have a showcase hotel. The Mutiara is a long, long way from that. I thoroughly recommend Taman Negara, but if you go, don't stay here.