Have you ever thought of taking your fur kids along for a beach holiday? If so, we found the perfect place for you: Ruby’s Resort in Cherating! This place is just three hours drive from KL and it is famous for its fine sandy beaches with clear sea water.
We brought our three dogs along – Lola the Rottweiler, Bonzo the mutt and Bella the Border Collie. Auntie Ruby runs the resort since 2007. The place is also home to her 76 cats and seven dogs. Quite a crowd!
Ruby’s Resort shares the same entrance as Club Med Cherating. Upon entering Ruby’s, there is a huge field where you can park your car and let your fur kids run loose. Ruby’s is a no-frills no-nonsense kind of resort. There are a few strict rules:
- Make sure you clean up after your pet.
- If your dog chases cats, it is not allowed in the compound where the cats roam.
- The front gate must be closed at all times.
The rooms
There are a few types of accommodation to choose from. The largest of the rooms can accommodate up to six persons. All room comes with air con, fridge, hot shower and a kettle. You will need to bring your own towels, bed sheets and blankets. If you want the resort to provide all this, you need to pay a surcharge. There have been incidents with fur-guests leaving dirt behind after check out, hence the ‘bring your own’ request. Please also bring your own toiletries.
There is a ‘pet shower’ area in front of each room, so you can wash your dogs or clean your feet before entering the room. No housekeeping is done during your stay. There is a broom and mop though just outside your room, so you can clean your room if it is too sandy or ‘fur-ry’!
Your furkids can either stay inside the room or outside. There are fences outside the room, so dogs cannot easily escape unless they are good jumpers.
The food
The room rate includes breakfast, which is very simple local dishes like nasi lemak with fish or chicken curry and tea or coffee. If you have young children, the kitchen will make some toast with jam for them. Ours had French toast one morning, which they loved. You may request for eggs of your choice if there are not many guests around and the kitchen is free.
Aunty Ruby can prepare a scrumptious BBQ dinner for RM70 per adult and free for kids under 15 years old. You may order lunch or dinner at Ruby’s restaurant if you feel lazy to go out. They serve both halal Asian and Western food. You will need to bring your own food for your fur kids, as Ruby’s does not provide pet food.
Tips: bring along some snacks and drinks if you are lazy or too occupied (with your fur kids) to go out. You can also bring alcohol or wines to consume in the restaurant, for which they won’t charge you corkage.
The beach
The beach is right in front of Ruby’s resort. It is a fine white sandy beach with clear sea water and it was very quiet when we were there. There are no facilities on the beach, so bring along beach towels, a picnic mat and a cool box with cold drinks. The dogs had great fun playing fetch at the beach and they swam in the sea. We spotted a couple of jellyfish in the shallow part of the sea, so beware. We were told these jellyfish are normally only present from July to September.
Activities in the area
We engaged with Hafiz Tour Cherating during our stay. We joined their mangrove tour, the firefly tour, and two turtle tours.
- Mangrove tour – this tour takes about 1.5 hour. We spotted quite a number of Kingfishers, mangrove snakes, a mangrove python, dusky leaf monkeys, monitor lizards and tons of crabs!
- Firefly tour – This is a magical evening tour that I would highly recommend. Hafiz the ‘firefly whisper’ can actually communicate with the fireflies. The fireflies just flew toward us. You can hold them and some of them landed on our shirts and head. It was amazing.
- Baby turtle release – This was really fun and the kids had a great time releasing the turtles. We had a total of four baby turtles each to release. You can name the baby turtles and make a wish before you release them.
- Turtle laying eggs event – Unfortunately we did not witness this. We were told that the mother turtles only comes up at 4am. You will get a full refund if this did not happen. The watch starts from 9pm – 11.45pm.
Check out Hafiz’ activities here. For more things to do in Cherating, please have a look at our review here.
Overall we were very happy with our stay at Ruby’s and the dogs had lots of fun running around safely, meeting other fur kids and swimming in the sea.
Don’t have a dog? Never mind. You can bring your cat, rabbit or your bearded dragon, Aunty Ruby will always welcome you with open arms! Have a look here at Ruby’s website for more info and bookings.
Fancy lunch on your way back to KL? Read our review of Puteh Beach bar here.
