There are only two places to stay in Mulu - this place and the Park Headquarters. I just stayed at the Royal Mulu for 3 nights and 3 days. The place is ok. If you know what is important to you, then its an easy decision where to stay. Stay at the Royal Mulu if:

1 - You want air conditioning
2 - You want a reliable hot shower and good water pressure
3 - You want the option of a massage or a spa
4 - You want a swimming pool

If none of these are important to you, the Park Headquarters is perfectly good, well managed, convenient, and cheaper.

The Royal Mulu is set up to cater to large tour groups - why else would you need 188 rooms in the middle of the rainforest that can only be accessed by plane or a 10 hour boat ride? The food is terrible, horribly overpriced, and that you have to pay for your water is unlike any other place we visited in Borneo. They will overcharge you for guides and tours, but tht is easily avoided by arranging directly with the Park Headquarters. The "show" each evening is embarrassing. Staff are friendly but not incredibly helpful - the staff at the park headquarters are much better.

Having said all that, after a scorching day sweating in the sun, I didn't mind a few days of A/C, and after getting absolutely drenched for 45 minutes straight at night walking back from the caves, I didn't mind coming back to a hot shower.

Keep your expectations low, your sense of humor up, and the Royal Mulu will be just fine if you need/want the creature comforts in the jungle.

We have just returned from a trip to Malaysia, and did the 3 day 2 night full board at Mulu Resort; it included the 4 cave tours. If you shop around, you can get all this at a good price on the web…
We thought the Mulu Resort was just wonderful, room was nice and we had TV ok and the food was good. But I agree the price for drinks are a tad expensive. The staff were very friendly and they have a flag raising ceremony every morning which my Husband did one morning it is great…
I would recommend The Mulu Resort to my friends, because I loved it…
Newcastle Australia.

Well this resort is just not it. We stayed in total 3 nights (in 2 different rooms)

First of all the rooms:
All the mid-range and top class hotels in Malaysia we stayed in (and even some budget options) offer complimentary mineral water, usually 2 bottles of 0,5 litres. Not the Royal Mulu, they just put up a sign in the room that you cannot drink the water unless you cook it first... and then they sell a bottle of 1,5 liter water for RM 8!!! Usually the price is only RM 2 to RM 4.

Then the door of the shower is one of those panel doors, consisting of 3 panels. However, you have to take out the panels to enter the shower, the doors won't slide anymore, too old.

The TV in the room does not give you any clear screen, I guess they have to adjust the ASTRO cables to be able to give each room a proper TV channel.

The balcony has 2 chairs and a table, but maybe in the old days this was white, it's grey and dirty now.

Then the place itself. There's a nice terrace, called headhunters terrace with nice views on the river. But if you sit there under the roof when it rains, don't be surprised if pieces of roof land on you. The mainenance is something they have never heard of!

The food is really awful. And the worst part is that you cannot book a room without the breakfast and dinner. I think that in every Malaysian hawker stall the quality is better than at the dinner here. We had diarrhoea from the dinner more than once.

The breakfast is very funny, according to their brochure, they promise fresh hot pastries, but they only make muffins once every 2 or 3 days, so the other days, you just get the left overs. Then one day we discovered fungis on the bread! We informed the staff and they luckily removed it, but did not even thank us for our alert! The jam is usually the left overs from the day before, including the dirty spoons, like cherry jam in the pineapple jam.

For lunch they serve some food from a menu, but we never took it. The prices are ridiculous. RM 38 for a burger with fries (I mean that's even higher than in Europe), while the restaurant in the national park serves burgers with fries for RM 15 and you know that this is made fresh!

Then if you book sightseeing the caves with them, you're sure you'll get cheated. The Deer and Lang cave will cost RM 10 per person, and an other RM 10 entrance fee to the National Park. Then add the transport from the Resort to the Park, you will come to max RM 26. The Resort offers these caves for RM96!!! So that's RM 70 ringgit more and they just put you into a group of people that booked directly at the headquarters.

Then the accomodation at the headquarters is not bad at all. It's private rooms are quite ok, so for us, we really regretted that we made our booking with the resort and not with the headquarters, it would have saved us a lot of money, diarrhoea and feeling that we are cheated.

Esther
The Netherlands

The hotel is the only alternative to Mulu National Park lodge when you are staying in Mulu. The very idea of going to Mulu is to explore the surrounding caves and nature and does not imply spending much time in the hotel. Staying in Mulu for 3 days we merely used the hotel as a place to sleep and have breakfast/dinner. The food was OK-ish and the beverage prices above average in the restaurant, so we preferred to stop by at a bistro at the park entrance.
It is too far to walk from the resort to the park so be prepared to pay 12MR/person return trip each time you leave the resort