We just got back from one of the best holidays we've had from Shangri-La's Tanjung Aru, Kota Kinabalu.

We booked the Kinabalu wing Mountain room, which was ample for me, my husband and our 2 kids. The room was beautiful and spacious. We were lucky that it was a corner room, so it had gorgeous views of the mountains, the water village nearby as well as the sea. We spent a lot of time on the balcony enjoying the views. Room was very clean, as was the bathroom, with all the necessary amenities and more. Bed and pillows were very comfortable. The fruit basket was a nice touch too.

Housekeeping was more than excellent. They take pride in their evening turn-down service and their work was excellent.

Most of our meals were at the Cafe Tatu. Nice especially with the kids, a lot of choices of international cuisine. Choices changed everyday, but not by a lot. They have a stir-fry station at dinner which is quite nice. The pasta station was much loved by my daughter. Also had dinner at Coco Joe's (average) and drinks at Sunset Boulevarde (view is absolutely stunning).

The jetty was about 2 mins from our room, which made it very easy to travel to the nearby islands. Kids absolutely loved the snorkelling. Recommend taking some food along though, as choices limited on the islands.

The highlight for my kids was by far the kids' club. Very, very large, with a lot of top-of-the-range play equipment and very nicely furnished. The staff there were excellent, kids were always well-entertained with numerous activities. They especially enjoyed the Friday night Party!

All in all, probably the best beach resort we have stayed in. We are all very rejuvenated after the short but lovely holiday. Can't wait to be back there again.

A weekend getaway during a business trip. Took the advice of locals and booked here, and what a perfect choice it was. I just wanted a place to unwind and chill. The property is so large, that though there was a crowd around the pool at peak hours, there were plenty of spots to escape on the beach. Beautiful and lush grounds, well maintained, nice rooms and friendly staff. Loved it.

My husband and I and 2 of our friend have just returned from a short 4 days trip to STAR. The hotel is huge and well-maintained.

We opted for Kinabalu Club Mountain View rooms. Its worth to pay a bit more to enjoy the exclusive club facilities. 2 suggestions to improve club facilities: (1) as soft drinks are being provided free-of-charge throughout the day, why the mini bar of our rooms (stock with same kind of drinks) are not free-of-charge? It’s not so convenient to go to the club to take the drinks to our own room every time. (2) the breakfast menu can offer more options. It seems that the menu is the same for everyday and we found that Tatu restaurant offers more varieties of food.

Our rooms are spacious and clean. We enjoyed a partial seaview though we didn’t pay for a full seaview room. The only complaint about our room is the housekeeping. Except for the first day, we were provided with 1 set of toiletries for 2 persons. It caused us inconvenient to call housekeeping everyday in order to get an additional set.

The location of the hotel is perfect. It closes to airport and only costs 15 ringgit to city. It’s much more convenient than its sister hotel, Rasa Ria.

Overall we enjoyed our stay in this hotel.

We stayed here for five days last week. Overall, it is a good hotel and we enjoyed the stay.
Likes
the resort is well-kept and well maintained. We stayed in the Kinabalu wing which was renovated a year or so ago. The room was nice and fairly fresh and housekeeping service was good, though there was nothing "special" about the room and it was quite standard for a 4/5-star hotel. No DVD or music player in the room. The standard of finishes (particularly the tiling in the bathroom) was pretty ordinary -- the tradesmanship is not good The gardens were lovely and there was plenty of space. Hotel at just over 50% occupancy but it felt much less
the buffet breakfast was really excellent and changed every day. Fantastic array of foods, lovely service and well-stocked right up to closing time (none of this "we say we are open until 1030 but after 930 we don't bother filling anything up and after 10 o'clock start taking stuff away")
the foyer is impressive and the bar was lovely, though the piano there desperately needed tuning.
The blue note bar/club is a really nice and attractive facility -- the only club I have ever been to where the drinks are cheaper there than in the rest of the hotel. It was a pity that the place is pretty much always empty

Dislikes
quite a few little things
the beds were like concrete. Housekeeping were very helpful at trying to soften it up with a second quilt underneath the sheet, but it was still not great. My wife woke up with great big red patches on her hips from pressure every morning. In fairness, we have found this in a lot of Asian hotels.
Room service was painfully slow. We like to have a glass of wine as we're getting ready for dinner in our room and I took a couple of nice bottles with us, but forgot the corkscrew. The hotel wouldn't put a corkscrew in our room but insisted we call room service to have our bottle opened and each time it took well over half an hour to have the Cork pulled -really annoying
It was nice to hear the sound of the ocean lapping in the resort, but the sea itself is pretty muddy and unpleasant. There is a village on stilts a few hundred metres up the inlet, and I can't imagine that their sewage and refuse systems are particularly efficient....
Kota Kinabalu is 10 minutes or so away. An hourly or so shuttle bus into town would be a really helpful addition that there is no other option but taxi at 15MR each way.
Some of the outlet food and beverages were very ordinary (but pretty pricey). the pool bar veggie burger was a triumph of Bland over taste and the Sunset Bar cocktails we tried were terrible but the same cocktails in the blue note bar were great.
We had booked a package which included a day trip to the orangutans which left very early in the morning. Our tour operator told us to get breakfast in the room as it was before the restaurant opened and it would not be charged. I rang reception to confirm this and was told it was correct, ordered the breakfast and of course........ was charged. They were quick to remove it from the Bill at checkout though.

Overall though we did enjoy the stay and found the staff generally to be very pleasant and helpful with fairly good English