Dolphin Bay Island Resort 海豚岛

It’s my first time having one night stay in this resort and I have so many to say about. 1. Before I book this resort, I made sure I was able to talk with the reservation team and ask a few questions but it was so poor service as my inquiries were passed to 4 different WhatsApp numbers and the only staff who responded well to me was Ah Soon (he’s probably the resort manager) and not the reservation team. Reservation team with the one who has the resort official WhatsApp number wasn’t being very helpful at all and was not very responsive. 2. When we reached at the pickup jetty which was 2 hours drive away from KK city (we drove our own car), the beach there was so beautiful and the boat ride only took lesser than 10 minutes to arrive at the island. Be aware pickup time at the jetty is actually 2:30PM. You can literally park near the jetty and it was safe, at least for our car. Staff mentioned that family member will take care of the car but there’s no one around when we first parked there. I guess it’s safe enough 3. Staff helped to carry our bags all the way to our room from the boat drop off which was 1st floor and it was all stairs to go up but that was nice. Weather was so beautiful and sunny and the water was so calm as the resort location is at a bay even during the rainy weather in late March 2025 4. One thing weird and disorganized was they do have reception counter but when we arrived staff lead us to a restaurant and there were a couple of men sitting at a table and had form for us to fill in like name, IC number and sign. There wasn’t any briefing or welcome, staff just passed us the key and lead us straight to our room. It’s more like airbnb hospitality and not even a resort hospitality and I even felt like it’s like a school trip 😂 5. Room has a huge space and bed was comfy. Room doesn’t have tv and water boiler. The floor felt so sandy with our bare feet and it seemed like it wasn’t cleaned properly with mop before we checked in. The toilet doesn’t have a bidet just tissue roll. They have water heater for shower, got a few complimentary small bath materials and toothbrush. Toilet smelled so funky, I think management should invest in better and good quality cleaning materials. 6. The restaurant has a free water dispenser if you want to refill your bottle water. 7. We were keen to do some snorkeling and they had snorkeling gears for free rental actually, but when we suggested that we need to try them to get the sizes correct for our fins, staff literally lead to us to this storeroom which was so far from the main building and to be honest it was so dodgy and the storeroom area wasn’t maintained properly with tall grasses, rubbishes everywhere. Staff was just sitting and watch his phone as we were figuring out which sizes fit us better, and actually made a dry joke like “OH SIZE 12 / XL will probably fit you!” sitting down, playing his phone and laughed his head off. We felt that was very uncomfortable, rude and not helpful, I guess there wasn’t any dive center team to help around. We finally got our right sizes and head to the beach ourselves. 1 star for the service and attitude 8. When we did snorkeling at the beach and was told where the corals at, it was okay. There were a few of healthy corals (mostly bleached and dead) and little fishies: but I think this island where the resort is at has better spots than where we went. If you’re looking to snorkel at the beach, please use their free rental kayak and kayak to the other private beaches next to the resort and I think the corals there probably look way better from the resort beachfront. I also suggest if you don’t mind the lack of hospitality but keen to check out the underwater sites, stay more than 1 night here to do them “kayak & snorkeling” 9. The fried bananas that they served during afternoon tea at 4:00pm were really good! 10. Dinner started at 7pm and they served local foods buffet like rice, vegetables, soy chicken etc. nothing special