Sling & Stone Mountain Suites - Heritage House

Homely. Building is dated but they renovated sometime last year so facilities are still fairly new. Not all rooms have mt Kinabalu view but can easily walk around the building to admire the Mountain View) They provide ample drinking water. Also possible to request for more if need be. Breakfast is a very cozy affair. It’s conducted in a dome shaped glass building with comforting music. Owner herself sees to the breakfast preparation and service and often chats with guests. Breakfast is not buffet style but they have choices of dim sum platter (somewhat omakase as the owner will decide what dim sum goes into the platter). For guests staying more than a night, it’s possible to opt for western style breakfast (did not try) or if opting for dim sum again, she will make it a point to serve different dim sum. Kudos to the owner Melissa and staff Fong (hope I get her name right) who did their best to make us comfortable.

Some signs of age. Some insects seem to somehow be able to enter the rooms even though we did not open the balcony door throughout.

The comfort level of the bed, the cleanliness and the equipment available in the room

The breakfast could be improved better

Friendly helpful owner. Clean.

Access road and immediate surroundings. Building in foreground of mountain view with bright lights at night. Limited storage in room. Handrail on outside stairs to room.

This is a tough one to review but we have to be honest having shared our thoughts with the owner who was very receptive to the feedback. They have started an ambitious project to extend the family home into a boutique style hotel - for which they are already charging prices consistent with the envisaged finished product rather than what we actually found. See below. The staff were lovely and the owner very responsive - there had been internet issues for over 2 weeks and she remedied this where possible with the use of her phone as a hot spot (although we couldn't access the TV). Likewise the room was cold - she provided a heater as soon as we told her the next morning. There is a dome in the garden for breakfast which is a feature and if this could be extended to serving an evening meal which would resolve a major problem with the location.

To stay here you absolutely must have a car! We decided to take a driver from Sandakan to KK to see the area. There is limited hotel accommodation but this sounded like a good choice and we were prepared to pay what is a high price compared to other places in Borneo. Understandably we had high expectations. The location, a 20-minute drive from Kundastan, is not ideal for tourists without independent means of transport. To get to the hotel means driving through a building site onto a building site is not welcoming sadly. The nearest restaurant which means walking through this area in the dark is a good 10 minutes walk away. The hotel offers a takeaway service from this restaurant at an additional charge and opened up the dome for us to eat it but the food was not good. The main restaurants are in Kundastan and we couldn't vouch for them. Offering a restaurant service as mentioned above would be a massive improvement.