We stayed for 3 nights in "Royal" Mulu Resort. We just booked the "special" last minute rate of 88 MYR per night/person. Food was not included and there were no room service within this rate! Food there was absolute overpriced but decent. Although just 10 m from mainentrance was a non resort restaurant with good local food and fair prices. The Service was bad, even though everbody smiled all day. Big disadvantage is the distance to the Mulu National Park (extra charge for the transport). Try to get a deluxe long house rooms at the Mulu National Park.

The self contained Royal Mulu Resort is hidden deep inside the Gunning Mulu National Park and we reached it by Fokker Friendship aircraft from Miri (two or more services depending on season per day) . Arriving over the narrow bridge like a moat to castle. Most things were done well without fuss. Like the welcome. There were national costumes and drinks. low key but effectively well done. The best first impressions. We noticed a considerable understatement in this place.
The all inclusive price of near $A135 a day included double accommodation, breakfast, dinner and nightly cultural show.
The delux room was island decor and pleasant and clean and well serviced with a worn wooden floor we hardly noticed.
The quality and variety of food was good , we sometimes sampled all the unfamiliar Asian dishes mini entree size to see which were tastiest , then went back to the buffet to make up a more substantial actual dinner . The buffet cuisine included whole fish and variations and changing nightly roast dishes
The cultural show was good and invited participation at the end for the bamboo cultural dance and for photos with the performers. It was possible to take a candlelit table at the swimming pool edge away from the bustle of the show to enjoy more personal moments under the stars. We particularly enjoyed the evening food feast and the swimming pool after the jungle walks to the caves in the surrounding National park.
We opted to take the hotel shuttle ( on demand) to the nearby Park HQ for the guided walks to caves both upriver and in opposite direction to the evening surge of bats from the Deer cave. Malaysian cooked lunches in the park cafe were good and not expensive. On arrival back to the Park HQ , a mobile phone call to the Royal Mulu Hotel, they would send a vehicle for pick up. Vouchers are sold at the hotel in advance. We stayed 4 days and relaxed and took in the easiest show caves from the large number of adventure options available. On the Clearwater/Wind cave trip up river in narrow boat , there was stop in the locals village to buy souveniers. Particularly blowpipes and darts. At night the jungle noisily closes in on this jungle oasis.
Our time at Mulu was a highlight of our Malaysia holiday.
Gary and Daranee Chenhall

I went to resort for my honeymoon and the stay was excellent. The staff knew I was recently married and had roses in a love heart shape on our bed for the first night and then made me guest of honour for raising the flag the next day.

I loved it and wish I could afford to fly back from Germany to there again soon.

P.S.
Hello to the cook who made my wife the nice "steam boat" meal. She loved it

The Royal Mulu resort is one of only two easily-organized lodging options near the gateway of Gunung Mulu National Park, and the only one that can be considered a "real" hotel. (The others being the National Park on-property housing, and a few non-publicized local longhouse/B&B offerings.) Nonetheless, it fails to live up to most of the expectations from a luxury resort, and manages to actually be less enjoyable than the more rustic park accommodations nearby. Read on for more:

LOCATION:
Despite its Miri address, the Royal Mulu is a few kilometers from Mulu airport, and about the same distance from the headquarters entrance of Gunung Mulu National Park. The resort is situated directly on the Sungai Melinau river. It is slightly too far from the park to be considered an easy walk, particularly if you plan to enter the park every day, but the resort offers a truck shuttle service for RM6 per person round-trip. The resort is laid out in a series of "longhouse" buildings, with rooms in outbuildings, connected by boardwalks to the main complex which houses reception, the restaurant, a pool, and other facilities. One thing to bear in mind is that Mulu is _remote_. The 30-minute plane ride obscures the fact that there are no overland routes, and that it's 12 difficult hours by boat to the nearest major city. As such, you'd expect things to be more expensive here than in other Malaysian cities -- but the Royal Mulu takes this to a bit of an extreme. This is doubly inexcusable when, with a tiny bit of effort, you can get better meals at a fraction of the price just a short trip away, near the park.

ROOMS:
The rooms are reasonably nice mid-range hotel rooms, with only a little of the musty funk you'd expect out of a rainforest-based lodge. They have air conditioning, and claim to treat their tap water, even though they still advocate using bottled water for drinking purposes. (I'd not suggest drinking the tap water anywhere in Malaysia.) Hot water is provided by individual switch-controlled heaters in each room, and you need to remember to turn on the heater about 20 minutes before you shower if you want to have enough hot water available. All electricity is controlled by a key-insert switch near the door, so leaving items plugged in to charge, or keeping the A/C or water tank on when you're not in the room, is not possible. Beds were a bit firm, but serviceable, and there were plenty of pillows provided.

Maintenance does seem to be a bit of an issue. The external entryway for our room had a rotted-out ceiling that was partially torn-away to reveal the mildew-rotted insulation inside. The bathroom was in fair condition, but here too, the effects of constant humidity and heat were evident in mildew and other staining in all of the grout and in the corners. Nothing was too out-of-place for a remote rainforest outpost, though anyone looking for a 5-star resort experience may be distressed by the conditions.

FOOD:
The Royal Mulu offers three meals daily in their restaurant, and most are done buffet style. The food was plentiful and widely varied, but almost universally a disappointment. They seem to be catering to the "not too strong, not too spicy" eating philosophy, which is really out of place in a culture whose cuisine is based on strong and often spicy flavors. As such, the local food is a bit bland and mediocre. They also offer a selection of Western favorites, but since the available ingredients are quite different from what Western eateries would serve, these selections just tasted weird. Drinks were a selection of overpriced juices and alcohol, and water is only available bottled, in 0.5 and 1.5 liter bottles, at significant cost even by local standards. The only complimentary beverages were coffee, tea, and two juices with the breakfast buffet only.

AMENITIES:
There is a full spa on-site, and treatments are perhaps the only reasonably priced offering at the resort. Perhaps because they also try and attract trekkers from the Park to indulge in massages, a full-hour massage is only RM135 (about $40 USD). The hotel also has a full activities center, which includes excursions to the park's Show Caves, river activities, nature walks, and on-property activities such as Archery, Biking, Rock Climbing (at an on-property rock wall), and a new ATV tour. Most of the park activities tout having a guide as a benefit -- but here's the key... ALL Mulu Park activities require a Park Guide, and the National Park HQ sells passes to visit the Show Caves and other areas of the park for as little as RM10 daily. The Resort's fees are substantially higher for almost exactly the same thing you can arrange on your own.

STAFF:
There's no other way to say this: The resort's staff are surly, largely unhelpful, and not especially responsive. As merely one example, when our neighbors at dinner discovered a large colony of ants living under their banana-leaf placemat at dinner, the hostess did not re-seat them (or us), and "solved" the problem by brushing most of the ants onto the floor, and our laps. This is not exaggeration when I say that there were literally hundreds of ants on the table, and after she removed their banana leaf, they spread out across the table and spent the rest of the meal trying to invade the dinner plates of everyone within 6 seats of us. I expect there to be insects in the rainforest!! The ants weren't the problem, really... the staff's refusal to re-seat those at our table, or do anything more than try and brush the little buggers onto the floor while we were eating was the annoying bit.

ENTERTAINMENT:
Every few days, the staff gets rigged up in costume and performs a "Malaysian Cultures" show during dinner. It's supposed to highlight all of the various cultures that melded to form Malaysia. The show features theatrical smoke and thumping techno dance music. The resort tourists seemed to love it, while those of us just sleeping there and spending most of our day trekking through the Park sat slack-jawed at what we were seeing. It's like being plucked out of a natural treasure and deposited at Disneyland... Just too weird.

NOTE TO POTENTIAL GUESTS:
Unknown to us when we planned our trip, the Royal Mulu is not without some conflict with the surrounding area. As the locals will happily tell you (if you venture out to eat in the park, or the small canteen just outside the park entrance), collusion between the hotel operator and the local government basically "stole" the land from the local Berawan residents, and evicted some previous owners off the land, for a settlement of about $1000. There is an ongoing battle with the locals over the state government's plan to annex another 100 hectares to build a golf course for the resort. It turns out that most of the locals were settled there when the government annexed their land elsewhere, and now that it's a tourist attraction, is trying to squeeze them out again. They're diligent in pointing out that they love foreigners coming to visit the park, because the natural wonders of the park can only be preserved through this sort of tourism. But they're less thrilled about what's happening around the edges, particularly with the Royal Mulu, and would prefer that there be more attention and opportunity for the locals. For whatever that's worth, it may affect the decisions of other travelers as to where to stay when visiting the Mulu park.


Overall, we were disappointed with our stay in the Royal Mulu. We expected a nice, cushy visit to clean up and relax after spending 3 previous days in one of the National Park longhouse rooms, while we were trekking in the park. It turns out that our dirt-cheap longhouse room in the park was almost as nice as our room in the Royal Mulu, the food in the park cafe was significantly better, and we'd avoided the fake glitz and outrageous expense that actually detracted from our visit to this natural wonder. Add in the moral complexities of how the place interacts with the local community, and you're left with a strange taste in your mouth over the huge discrepancy between the overwhelming beauty of the area, and the faux-luxury of this overpriced outpost.

Still, it's a MUST for any eco-traveler to someday visit Gunung Mulu. If you, or any in your party, just cannot do without air conditioning or other big-hotel amenities, then hold your nose, open your wallet, and stay here -- because Mulu really is well worth it. But if you can stay in the park cabins or longhouses, do it... you'll enjoy your visit more, and have a more enjoyable -- not to mention authentic -- experience at this wonderful World Heritage site.