The Magellan Sutera Harbour – Kota Kinabalu
Our first Christmas in Asia was spent in Kota Kinabalu, at the amazing Magellan Sutera Harbour Resort. This resort had come highly recommended to us by many people and we loved it.
There are two resorts that make up the Sutera Harbour Resort Complex – the Magellan Sutera and the Pacific Sutera. We stayed at the Magellan as we felt it had more for the kids and were recommended that particular hotel. Both properties are situated on the harbour and have a golf course, country club and marina and some incredible views! To get into town it was around a five to ten minute taxi drive which the lovely staff at concierge can arrange for you.
THE ROOMS
We decided to upgrade to the Magellan Club Room which I cant recommend enough, its so worth the extra dollars. Our room was absolutely beautiful – our bed was the most comfortable king size bed I have ever slept on, and the kids had an incredible built in daybed at the ginormous window – with views straight out over the water. An amazing way to wake up! The room also had a bath with shutters opening to the room (the kids thought it was super cool to watch tv in the bath), plus wardrobes, and a beautiful bathroom.
The benefits of the club room include free coffee and tea throughout the day, free drinks and canapés from 5pm (get there early to make sure you get a seat), an amazing breakfast in the club room, aswell as a dedicated check-in area. Highly recommend the Club option!
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THE POOLS
There is one large main pool which is centred around the restaurants and overlooks the beach, aswell as a kids pool which is situated outside the kids club. Over at the marina there is another family pool with waterslides and a large lap pool. There is a small private beach at the hotel but it was really rough and choppy when we were there so we didn’t get a chance to have a swim.
KIDS CLUB AND FACILITIES
The kids club was great for smaller kids but they do need to be four years to be left without a parent. On one rainy day I took him in and he had a great time making cookies which he got to take and share with the older kids!
Besides the kids club there is a playground just outside the kids club and next to the kids pool, a giant inflatable waterslide that they set up each day at the main pool, games around the pool like Angry Birds aswell as a bowling lane over at the marina which is between the two hotels! That is the bonus of the Sutera Harbour -you can use both properties facilities and restaurants! The bowling centre came in handy as we had a few awful rainy days and we needed to fill some time. There is also a cinema at the marina complex for those kids that want to chill out for a bit in the late arvo!
DINING
There are two restaurants at the Magellan Sutera Harbour – a buffet restaurant and a casual dining restaurant. We had our Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas dinners at both restaurants and the buffets were amazing! The Christmas decorations were just beautiful and the kids loved having Santa come around – even if he looked nothing like him (more like a skinny Asian Santa haha!). We had our breakfast at the club room every morning so didn’t try the main buffet but I am sure it would have been amazing.
We absolutely loved this hotel. The kids loved walking over to the marina each morning to feed the fish in the marina and spot all the jellyfish and then decide which pool they are going to swim in! The weather was our only really downside as we had lots of rain and it wasn’t overly hot most days but we really couldn’t fault the hotel.
If we ever come back to Kota Kinabalu this will definitely be the first place we go and will definitely recommend upgrading to the Magellan Club Rooms…it made our stay that extra bit special.
April xx