Travel Guides And Tips: Sipadan-Kapalai Island Resort

Spent two weeks diving in Sipadan area, Did not want to spend all the time at one resort so did a week at Kapalai & a week at Sipadan Water Village.

Kapalai beat SWV for:-

1) Food, plenty of it, always fresh & a good selection.

2) Dive master’s tended to be slightly better at finding the smaller stuff.

3) Hotel better laid out & was a lot shorter walk from room – dining room- dive centre than SWV. Important cos it can get hot around lunchtimes.
4) Rooms were excellent, no air con, but again you don’t need it. Very comfortable.
5) Plenty of hot water, never seemed to run short, but have seen comments on here about it.
6) The place is immaculately clean & credit to all the staff who always seem to be cleaning & getting rid of rubbish by recycling / sending it to the mainland.
7) The majority of dive sites away from Sipadan are around Kapalai so it is only a short 5 -10 minute boat ride away. The other resorts tend to come over to this area for diving, so a good recommendation.

Now for the bad stuff
1) the internet can get expensive if you need to check emails on a daily basis.
2) Tried to watch a DVD one night relaxing, but had to call on receptionists help as they did not have enough leads to connect TV – DVD – Sat system. Also had to borrow batteries to get the remotes to work. Small stuff I know, but annoying.
3) There are no happy hours, so even a couple of drinks can start to get expensive.
4) Can’t buy single shots of alcohol, fancied a Whisky one night & was told I had to buy a bottle.
5) Boats tended to be full 11-12 divers, with 1 dive master, however we were stopping to take photos & the rest just tended to swim off. After the first day, we were paired with other photography divers & the boat was a lot less crowded. Again only cos we complained.
6) During the welcome briefing told that all our dive equipment would be looked after. Went back to it, for our afternoon dive to find it was exactly where we had left it.
7) Wetsuits left out to dry after the last dive were just thrown in a heap on the floor. Everybody fighting to find their own suit in the morning. We complained about the way the staff looked after the gear & the manager did go down. It did improve for the last few days. SWV are very well organized in this department with lockers & wet suit hangers all marked
8) Staff never smiled until the last day, could be that they were glad to see the back of us though.

If Kapalai ran the dive side of the operation like SWV then it would be the best by far.