Gaya Island Resort Gaya Island Resort - Small Luxury Hotels of the World

Resort

Really beautiful location. One of the best holiday resorts I have been to. Would definitely go back again.

Lovely place to stay! Gorgeous chalets. Lovely pool. Complimentary yoga lessons, snorkelling, kayaking, nature walk, library, gym. Lovely restaurants. Buffet breakfast is outstanding!

The resort food, water sport activity, conservation naturalist, hotel activities personnel & receptionist are super friendly, helpful & amazing! Ala cart, buffet & view is superb! Especially Mee mamak goreng, spicy fish, wat tan hor, lamb shank, dessert, etc are very very delicious. Feed my family tummy very well every meal. Take the resident package, very worthy. Because my family is fussy & eat a lot! I don’t have a hard time at all this time due to variety! During the mangroves forest kayaking, jungle tracking, water snorkelling, the staff that’s organizing & guiding us we’re very nice. They were guarding & trying the best to find best coral reef garden to show us. The experience was adventurous & safe! The under water coral garden is truly beautiful, just like inside TV show. Sun rise view is truly exceptional experience. You need to wake up 5am and wait for it. When it happen you can see the majestic mountain Kinabalu. So it balance up the unique beauty nature on the traditional style resort. The location of resort that at the hilly side give assurance, no floood attack, and most important 10 times oxygen better than city. And the activities is all organized by the resort except the paragliding. Staffs all of them are super friendly! Very hospitable! Strongly recommended … truly nobody ask my opinion, but I am so willing to review it!

The best thing to stay in this hotel is their warm and welcome hospitality U will really enjoy ur stay here with only 10min transfer from land to the private island 🥰🥰🥰 and their food is really good.

A true oasis from the world and a little piece of paradise. Superb location, accommodation, facilities and activities. The staff are absolutely outstanding. Nothing is too much trouble and everything is possible. Well done all! We’ve loved being here and thank you so much for the memories Carol & Derek x.

We had great stay and great food and service in Gaya. Eric was very helpful to our requests during our stay every meal at the restaurant. We also met Sean in Feast village and previously we met him in Pulau Pangkor, he is as always very hard working. We remember his movement walking very fast while serving customers. The staffs here are very polite and super friendly. We definitely will recommend to friends and come back here again.

Such a beautiful place, with amazing rooms & facilities 👌

All the staff are friendly and helpful, from the ground staff up to management level, nothing seems to be to much trouble.

Gaya Island is such a beautiful resort. The rooms are spacious and luxurious and the whole resort is so well designed, with so many stunning views. The staff at the resort were superb — very friendly, knowledgeable and helpful. The buffet was excellent but we also thoroughly enjoyed our meals at the teppanyaki restaurant and The Fisherman’s Cove. The latter is in a particularly lovely setting. Our spa treatments were really fantastic — a really lovely experience.

Fabulous place. Really thoughtfully finished. Pool area, bar and food all great. Staff really lovely. Beach and sea not so good but not their fault, due to rising sea levels and rubbish from mainland. All rooms are up quite steep steps, so add in heat and unsuitable for unfit or elderly. Overall, a great location 😊😎

The staff are very friendly and have exceptional hosting skills, nothing is too much. The chefs are happy to cook to request should you been unable to find suitable food on the menu or in the buffet, the food standard was very good. A huge thank you to Ramesh Krishna, Dolis Mongulid & Silih Binidik for you exceptional attention to detail & service during our stay, it made it a very memorable experience.

Helpfull staff — nature — beach — romantic — absolute must see.

Highly recommended. Traveled with a young child and wife. Service from the staff were impeccable. Extremely personalized and detailed. Will definitely return.

Beautiful resort. Very friendly and helpful staff! Amazing food. Beach is small though.

The resort is wonderful, extremely well kept and well run. Very happy to recommend this resort a mere 10 minutes boat ride outside of KK. Rooms are beautifully set out although the walk to them can be tiring since they are built into the mountainside. The views are amazing throughout the resort and the private beach was the highlight. We were able to see bearded pigs, monkeys.
However, end of the day it is the staff who made our stay exceptional. We found the staff to be incredibly helpful, personal, genuine and kind. Nice Resort to stay for a few nights. Staff were all very friendly and service was exceptional. The view at the higher areas was AWESOME. Overall, I love this resort. We had really an amazing stay and will definitely come back if given the chance!

Amazing views, great service, variety of food, interesting wildlife and best sunrise. Kudos for keeping this resort alive and hope to visit again in the near future.

Peaceful, paradise, wonderful staff. The yoga and meditation classes were a touch if class, the spa is welcoming and relaxing.

The hospitality, accommodation, staffs attention to detail is beyond any five star resort I’ve ever been too. They make you feel like you are the most important person on the resort. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ From the ground staff to the management, they all treat you with such kindness and individuality. I would highly Recommend a visit here. Beyond luxury ❤️❤️

An absolutely amazing resort that I could not fault in any way. The staff are beyond attentive and are so passionate about their jobs and have made the entire stay beyond what we expected. The food and atmosphere is perfect and is suitable for couples and families with plenty to do without even leaving the island. We would not hesitate at recommending this resort to anyone. A big thank you to all of the staff who have made our holiday unforgettable.

I would highly recommend staying at this amazing resort, I'm trying to figure out how we can get back there asap and we've only been gone less than a week! All the staff go over and above to make sure that you feel completely relaxed. Damian at watersports really looked after our family, Justin with his amazing mangrove kayaking trip and Layla and staff in the well frequented pool bar, thanks for making our daughter's birthday so special. An incredible holiday at a fantastic place!

A fantastic hotel with amazingly friendly and helpful staff! With a special mention to Ramesh, the food and beverage manager and also the general manager Wayne who both go above and well beyond to give a fantastic experience!

We cannot recommend this resort enough. It was exactly what was promised, friendly relaxing atmosphere and the food was out of this world. The room was comfortable and spacious and the bathroom was huge. The activities on offer were excellent and gave an insight into the jungle and marine life in Borneo. The guides were knowledgeable and passionate about their subject.
This was just what we needed after 2 weeks trekking through the jungle.

Great hotel on a pristine beach with excellent service and hospitality. Made to feel special with their thoughtful touches everywhere.

We spent 5 days of our honeymoon at this amazing 5 star resort and it is like paradise. Beautiful white sandy beaches, clear blue sea and stunning corals and flora and fauna. The villas are absolutely stunning spacious and with fantastic views over the sea and the imposing Mount Kinabalu in the distance. The staff are so helpful and friendly and nothing is too much trouble I would strongly recommend to others as the perfect place for a relaxing holiday.

A place that you will never expect how great the service can be. Staff are so positive and warm that makes my stay with family so memorable.
Limited sea sports though so it is really a time to just relax, enjoy the sea breeze and having the good range of food at the restaurant.
Afew staff to give special appreciation to: Ramesh, Jack, Chef Lo from the restaurant, Sylvester the diver coach and Helly who just joined few weeks ago when we met.

An amazing experience, wonderful resort, heavenly views and exceptional staff and customer service. The food is exquisite. A minimum of 3 nights stay is recommended to enjoy all what this place has to offer (lunch at the private beach, Mangrove kayaking, Village spa, Malay Cooking classes and much more). It's Paradise.

It was an awesome vacation in luxurious resort with delicious food, great customer service & perfect amenities. Many thanks to Mei, Lia & Is from housekeeping team for the beautiful room decor ❤️ also heartfelt thanks to Ramesh who came to check on us to ensure everything is perfect during our breakfast & dinner ☺️ The whole Gaya Island team is just fabulous keep up the great work Our deepest appreciation & thanks to Terrence from Front-desk team who helped us to… retrieve our lost HTC RE camera… we thought that we have lost it for good but during a casual chat, Terrence asked us to share the photo with him. Just a minute later, he informed us that he has located the item in the Lost & Found items. Thanks so much for making our day, Terrence.

Gaya island is my home place, im grow up here, im also school here a few years ago.

What is the best things to do after a long week work? Coca cola, junk food, Sun bathing and beach.

Wow … a review doesnt do it justice.

Most beautiful island in sabah.

This side of the service staff is not friendly to foreign travelers, the environment is not neat and there will be bugs, this quality is not worth ranking again in five stars.

Love the island but like Manukan Island more.

Wild Island where nature is the key element.

The island and rooms are beautiful. However…
If you're only here for a few nights, most of the activities get booked up in advance. This is very frustrating as some activities literally have 10 people in — like Yoga for example. Given the number of people staying on the island, this is really quite poor.
There are two restaurants with fixed prices (£80 per couple, per sitting) and the pool bar which stops serving food at 7pm. The food is average — nothing had the wow factor, sadly. There wasn't anywhere apart from a sun lounger to relax which is problematic if you have a spell of bad weather!
The hotel staff don't seem like to communicate with each other — we found ourselves promised one thing by one and yet no one else had a clue about what had been discussed/ arranged!
You are very limited where you can walk, you'd think being on a jungle you could enjoy some beautiful walks — nope! Gaya has the potential to be amazing! But it's day to day running and limitations sadly hold it back. Unless you literally want to sit/ lay all day long and aren't overly fussed on spending out on average food, you could do better than Gaya at this time.

Gaya Island is not what they sell, behind the image of luxury, comfort and natural scenery that offer the resorts this reality of the inhabitants of the villages… Very different to the one offered by the images for tourists. They are "villages" of modest Palafitos, on a sea of plastics and rubbish. The other side of the island.

Very friendly staff, rooms and facilities are spacious and clean, the snorkelling was fantastic and the water activities staff very helpful and obliging. The room rates are on par for a luxury resort off the mainland however I felt the drinks and meals are very pricey. All in all it was a great resort that I would recommend to others. Thank you Gaya island resort.