The peoples' democratic blog of Matt Hayward

Well this is the first in a whole bunch of holiday updates. In short absolutely no complaints about this place. Stayed for 6 days, during which time all was sublime and a lot of fun was had.

We stayed in late March 2009, which is starting to transition into the wet season. Basically meaning you may get 1 or 2 hours of downpour max a day but within minutes, the scorching hot sun is back out again!

What is there to do? Well you can drink at the pool bar, the ‘fun pub’, or the main bar. There’s a great happy hour in the pool bar. The pool itself is in good knick, modern and quite pretty. They have a of private beach with volleyball, jet skis, deck chairs etc. Sadly the beach activities aren’t included in the price. Nor are the 2 or 3 restaurants which mostly get great reviews.

Getting around the resort would be quite difficult without the trucks that ferry you around. They run 24 hours a day and can even take you into the ‘Oriental Village’, a kind of tourist town with a great cable car and a small cluster of duty free shops and restaurants. More or less an extension of the resort.

Facility wise, the time of year that we went, the occupancy rate was fairly low. So if you go for 7 days, you’re more than likely to get an upgrade by default to a villa closer to the water. If you’re really lucky, you’ll get a chalet actually on the water. Our villa was meant to be 1000 Ringgit a night (roughly $450 AUD). We didn’t pay that clearly. These waterfront villas, with private deck chairs and verandas are unbelievably opulent. I’m told the occupancy rate was well below 50%, but that’s simply hearsay.

Worst possible case, you’ll get a forest view villa. These are mostly fully detached and brilliant, only watch out that the monkeys don’t climb into your room at night!

In short, Berjaya is pretty ‘up to snuff’. It’s well run and maintained and is not too kitschy. Not having done a resort holiday before, I feared it could be a lot worse. Thankfully it wasn’t.