Kota Kinabalu (Sabah), Malaysia
 

Has anyone been before? Any reasonable hotel/resort recommendations? Any other tips/suggestions would be great!

Climb Mt. Kinabalu.

I've gone back 5 times now. There's plenty of resorts in and around KK. Not sure of the prices cause I stay with family when I go back. How close to town do you want to stay? There are a couple of resorts that are farther away from town, about 30 mins drive that are nice as well. I'll have to look up what their names are.

Besides climbing Mt Kinabalu, you can go snorkeling, take one of the small boats to some of the small islands, the morning and evening markets. If you go out towards Sandakan there's a crocodile farm and orang utan sanctuary.

You can try checking out this website.
http://www.sabahtourism.com/sabah-ma...orneo/en/home/

Thanks for the responses so far. Yeah, let me know the names of the resorts.

I personally stayed at Sutera Habour Resort at the Magallan Club room. Pretty awesome resort :) Then there is Shangri-la Tangjung Aru Resort, this resort has awesome hawker food stalls :)

From the site i poster earlier, I think this is one of the older resorts. I can't quite tell from the pics. If it's the one I'm thinking of, there's a lot of german, swedish and finish tourists that stay there. Most of the people I saw stay there were caucasian lol.
http://www.shangri-la.com/en/propert...njungaruresort

This one is a little out of town and is beautiful. Was among the first of new resorts that were built and has a golf course next to it. There's a place where you can go rent a fishing boat to take you out fishing and theres a restaurant there where you can choose the seafood you want and the style and sauce you'd like it cooked in.
http://www.nexusresort.com/new/

This one is right along the waterfront in KK. There's a club downstairs if I remember right. A lot of underage kids but a nice little hang out. I think they only opened up about 8 years ago this resort. It's about a 15-20 min walk from one of the larger shopping malls in KK...Centre Point. Complex Karamunsing & Wisma Merdeka aren't too far away either.
http://www.suteraharbour.com/v2/index.php

There's also a bunch of hotels in KK, granted it's not a huge city. There's the Hyatt right along the waterfront, and a bunch of smaller hotels around.
http://www.sabahtourism.com/sabah-ma...-budget-hotel/

I haven't stayed at any of the resorts, I've only gone and hung out there. Checked out the facilities and just chilled with my relatives so I don't know what the prices are like to stay.

Which location has the best beach?

i went to outward bound school there

Nexus Resort and Shangri-La have nice beaches, but then again all the beaches are nice there. They're all white sand beaches. The last time I was there, a bunch of property west of the airport was being developed into another resort to, not sure if it went ahead or not. That was about 8 years ago. The beaches along there are all white sand to.

cool...thanks! now i'll have to decide between the two resorts.

If you swing over to Brunei you should check out the Empire hotel. Its in the middle of nowhere but really gorgeous. Its also really cheap now because nobody really goes there due to its location.

How far is Brunei from KK? What the best way to get there from KK?

mas or rba for about a 30 min plane ride...no reason to go there since they shut down the free amusement park (jerudong)...if you were going 10 year earlier then yah...free amusement park! woooOt! but now...booourns...

there is snorkeling resort in somewhere in sabah...swim with the turtles