McDonald's Sandakan finally opened!

McDonald's Sandakan finally opened its door bringing the only second town in Sabah other than Kota Kinabalu to have an outlet. For many especially the locals, it have been a long wait. As for me, I been monitoring the progress of the McDonald's construction every single day when I passed by the site. It's good to see how an empty land had turned to a brand new favourite fast food restaurant. 

I have been always a fans of the McDonalds's Breakfast and McDonald's lunch. The food here in Sabah is not cheap and above the normal price. Hence, the menu here is comparable of those other local foods thus bringing a new choice for the consumers. 

We came here for McDonald's Breakfast at the second day of the opening. No doubt, this was just the second day, everything seem very messy and not well organised. We were stuck at the counter for about 20 minutes despite the lesser queue in the morning just because the staff do not know well about their product and do not know how to operate the cashier machine. Sigh~~

Well, this was an unusual phenomenon as now this place was crowded with humans almost at all times. Bear in mind the time this picture was taken was about 7 am in the morning of second day.

I like the long tables here which is suitable for large group of diners. However, I think this only McDonald's outside Kota Kinabalu which is purportedly here in Sandakan should have a two floor restaurant instead of one as to cater larger number of people and it was built on empty land and not on built premises.   

Me and Daniel with the premium roast coffee, 100% from Arabica beans. I always dislike coffee with the exception of this premium roast coffee from McDonald's. However, the hot water used wasn't that hot that day and the staff really need to look into preserving the standard quality of the signature coffee. 

The new Chicken Muffin made from chicken tender meat. Taste good, yummy. Ironically, Aun Chyi ordered for an Egg Muffin. The staff repeatedly said Chicken Muffin despite telling her she wanted an Egg Muffin. The staff really need to be well trained at the very basic thing which is the products offered.

Our not so pleasant day despite a pleasant meal. We ordered the McMuffin set which included McMuffin and a roast coffee. However, the staff keyed in ala-carte price for McMuffin and coffee separately. This caused long delay up to 30 minutes to rectify the problems and to return us the additional charges.

We were almost late to our working place, just few minutes close to 8 am. So, diners out there, do double check the receipts to ensure you are not extra charged for the time being. I am pretty sure the staff will get use of the products and machine soon, but not for now. 

It's good to know McDonald's Sandakan is a 24 hours restaurant and do have McDonald's Drive Thru. The McDonald's Drive Thru was indeed the main core business here. The queue were never ending causing jam from the roundabout leading to the main entrance. In my opinion, the one who designed the layout really failed in designing. The road leading to the car park is always blocked by the cars who are waiting in queue for Drive Thru. All this due to only single lane road and the design of the Drive Thru lane which was not in a strategic location. 

The average waiting time for Drive Thru is however faster than queue time inside the restaurant which is about 15-20 minutes. In the other hand, the waiting time for the queue inside is about 40 minutes to 1 hours ++. The waiting lane is too short and thus making the consumers need to queue from outside of the entrance door's at times. Why in the world the designers did not design a longer waiting lane or larger space?

On the next day, we wanted to dine in for dinner but the queue both inside and outside (Drive Thru) were packed with humans and cars. So, we decided to Drive Thru than to wait for a longer queue with virtually almost full dining tables available at that time. We chose this McDonald's Beef Prosperity Burger (MBPP) Dinner box which came with 2 beef Prosperity Burger, 2 McChicken, 6 pieces Chicken McNuggets, 3 Twister Fries, 4 Prosperity McFizz and 2 sundaes. (strawberry & chocolate). The apple pie was FOC if you have the McDonald's VIP sticker on your car windshield. 

Gee Pang, Me, Daniel & Aun Chyi

On the very next day, we had another session during Friday long lunch breaks. I had the Spicy Chicken McDeluxe, yummmy! 

We decided not to come again to McDonald's as we had been taking it enough this week. However,  the heavy downpour on the Christmas Eve on Saturday basically from early morning till 830 pm restricted our movement. This round I had Double Cheese Burger for my lunch. 

Finally, as written in the congratulation card, TQ very much to Mr. and Mrs. Amir for bringing McDonald's to Sandakan. You bring us with joys that everyone outside KK and Sandakan would envy at us. 

Lastly, I really think a Quality Assurance Officer or somebody from McDonald's Management should come over and monitor the quality of the food produced, the services provided by the staff and others in order to preserve the standard of the usual McDonald's food that we had elsewhere. 

Alright, the last sentence. Wishing all my readers:

                              Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!! hohoho..