“Good value hotel”

The hotel is a large modern place on the edge of the Kota Kinabalu CBD. It is a 10 minute walk to the main harbor front restaurants. Most of the locals prefer a 2 minute taxi ride, which costs USD 4. The staff of the hotel are polite, friendly and very helpful. The rooms are spacious and comfortable. Because it is such a big hotel, when it is fully booked breakfast can be a bit of a zoo with staff struggling to keep up with the demands for more plates, more glasses and more food. So it's a matter of either being patient, or getting there as early as possible. Similarly, the swimming pool is popular - especially with young children. Overall the hotel is good value for money.

“Not for us”

We stayed at the one bedroom residence. Room was near new. Check-in process took a while because the staff wasnt sure what to do with booking made thru Expedia. They both kept asking each other questions & it looked like they were not sure about the process. We experienced electricity failure for 7 hours (3am-10am) and we had no running water & unusable toilet (couldnt flush) because no electricity. Room was very hot & stuffy after no running aircond for 7 hours. All guests had to use stairs. Guests had breakfast in dark during this 7 hour power failure. Other hotels/businesses nearby had generator in place to prevent power cut, but Ming Garden didnt have one & they didnt know when electricity would be back up. We decided to check out because we dont like the idea of paying for unusable room (no electricity means no water, no flushable toilet, no aircond, dark room). No apologies, no explanation, nothing from the hotel management/staff. In conclusion, I would NOT recommend Ming Garden. I expect a 4 star hotel would have had their own generator as a back up power supply when electricity failure happens. which claims to have 4 star. The 7 hour power failure just did it for us.

“Nice rooms, but location, crowds, & odors aren't.”

The hotel room itself was quite comfortable and the staff were extremely friendly and helpful. The hotel as a whole, though, smells quite mildewy. The hotel is populated almost exclusively by Koreans and Chinese tourists coming on packaged holidays. The hotel is a bit out of town.