Having had a nice, albeit short night of sleep in the transit hotel at Changi Airport, we wandered off in search of breakfast. Fed and watered, we boarded our 08:45 flight for Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah. We touched down there around 11:00, bought a pre-paid SIM card with a couple of GB of data allowance, bought a pre-paid taxi voucher, and found a cab driver to take us to the Horizon hotel, our abode for the two nights prior to our tour departure on Saturday.
We were told upon check-in that we had been upgraded to a suite. Nice! We were on the top floor of the hotel in a room that would have to be rated as a solid 4.5 stars! All except for one thing…. there was a king sized bed for Cath and me, but no bed for Max. Not even a couch. What tha? I rang reception to ask about a bed for my son and was advised that an extra bed would cost us one hundred ringgit per night on top of what we had already paid. Now, while one Australian dollar is equal to about 3 ringgit, this only amounted to about $30 per night extra. But we had only paid 225 ringgit for the two nights, so this was going to almost double the cost of our stay! I showed the reception staff our printed receipt from hotels.com which showed “one queen sized bed, 2 double beds”, only to be advised that this meant that the room would have EITHER a queen sized bed OR 2 single beds….not both. Huh? Seriously? Where in the world do you book for two adults and a child (it was explicitly stated on our booking confirmation), and not get beds for everyone?
After much discussion at the front desk, the receptionist received a phone call. Despite my lack of ability to speak Malay, it was obvious that the mystery caller was enquiring about my predicament, given that the receptionist kept running her finger across my paperwork while quoting numbers to the other party. Suddenly, she farewelled the caller, smiled and told me that on this occasion they would supply the extra bed at no extra charge. I can only assume that the hotel manager had observed me on the security camera and wondered what was taking so long, and had subsequently intervened.
After this slight hiccup, the rest of our stay at the Horizon Hotel was fantastic. The staff were exceptional in every respect, there was free WiFi in every area of the hotel (Australia, please take note and get with the program! FREE wi-fi, not “you-can-have-wifi-in-exchange-for-your-firstborn”), and the location made for easy walking to just about anywhere in the central business district.
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After getting settled, we headed off for our first exploration of Kinabalu (the locals don’t generally say Kota, as this translates to ‘town’).
We soon discovered just how cheap most essentials were here. A 1500 ml bottle of water cost about 3 ringgit (A$1.00)!
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