I found a few reviews that I thought I’d share although I’ve never been.. looks amazing!!! I found these reviews on TripAdvisor and there are quite a few more:
Our four nights at Mabul Water Bungalows were absolutely wonderful. The resort is built over the water. Our chalet, #214, had wide open views across the sea to Sipadan. Rooms are spacious with private balconies, mini-bars, and tea/coffee. The resort is compact enough that the dining and diving areas are central for all chalets. Public spaces are cool and open to the sea breezes. While the furnishings and art are a bit eclectic, the resort overall is beautiful without being stuffy or pretentious.
The resort is geared towards divers and there is not much for non-divers to do here, although the spa looked quite nice and the prices there were reasonable. Meals are served buffet-style, which is the norm throughout Borneo, and were of a higher quality than most other places we stayed. However, the food here was even saltier (who knew that was possible?) than at our other accommodations. Soups were inedible due to salt. Grilled mackerel was a highlight, and the mango for desert was amazing.
Staff were very warm and welcoming. Eva, the manager, is a very funny person with lots of great stories about island life. The dining room manager and her staff are extremely gracious and helpful. We had an early departure for our long trip back to LAX, and they packed us both breakfast and lunch for the roadfood that kept us going for over a day!
We had two full days of diving on Sipadan, and permits to dive there seem to be plentiful outside of peak season. The dive masters from Mabul Water Bungalows, including Neneng and Yusri, were great. They have amazing skill at spotting the small stuff, and Neneng calmly coached me through my first night dive, which was amazing. Beware that Mabul Water Bungalows is under the same ownership as the beach-based Sipadan Mabul Water Resort (SMART) and when the resorts aren’t full, the resorts pool resources. This is clearly ecological, but means that the Bungalows’ diving guests have to go to the land resort’s jetty, may have dive masters from the land resort (who didn’t seem as good as those from the Bungalows), and will have the picnic from the land resort (which definitely is not as good). So you basically pay for the Bungalow level of service, but get the lower level of service of the less expensive land resort. I think management should do it the other way around and give the land resort guests an upgrade to Bungalow cuisine and divemasters on days when guests from the two resorts go diving together.
Our dives at Sipadan were wonderful with hundreds of turtles, the famous barracuda tornado, napolean wrasse, and bumphead parrotfish. We also really enjoyed diving at Mabul and Kapalai, where we saw cuttlefish, crocodilefish, turtles, octopus, mandarin fish, seahorses, and some nudibranches. Guests may go on unlimited dives on the resort’s house reef, which has great big schools of jacks and giant frogfishso you don’t have to go far for great diving!
I wish we had spent 5 or 6 nights here instead of just 4. This is one of those places where guests just feel comfortable. Couple the wonderful accommodations with the gorgeous diving and this is a perfect spot! I wish it were closer to us so we could go back soon.