Near the hotel there are a huge number of different restaurants, shops, pharmacies, souvenir shops, a supermarket and a fruit market 1 km from the hotel.
Food - Breakfast is very simple. Dinners when Swedish, several types of meat and fish, if there are few tourists - a la carte food, also delicious.
The rooms are a bit dated, but spacious and with comfortable furniture. A nice side view of the ocean was also a delight.
The staff is quite friendly, the reception is very good people, the restaurant is a bit forgetful, but still a good impression.
We recommend the hotel! At a good price - a very worthwhile option!
- Hotel: normal, clean, new rooms (in the reviews I met that the hotel is old, I don’t know, or the review was written by someone who had never been there, or after that everything was updated), regularly and well cleaned.
- Friendly staff, everyone is trying to help, any request or wish was resolved quickly, with a smile and without reminders). By the way, when buying a Sea vew through a tour operator, our neighbors lived in a room where the ocean was only visible if you climb out the window and look out from behind a huge cabinet right in front of the window), so it’s better to take regular rooms, and on the spot or negotiate with by someone. when you see the room, or even according to the rules, there is about + 10 dollars surcharge for sea vew, so at least you can see which room they will put you in.
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- Convenient location - I left the hotel and there are many shops, restaurants, cafes and anything for every taste nearby. Opposite a shop offering tours of Sri Lanka. (We found out there, went with a local, (Jivan, in our opinion Vanya). There are a lot of surf schools nearby. There are a couple of restaurants nearby, the hotel has free leaks, or in cafes nearby closer to the shore. to use it, they ordered fresh juices there mostly, but even with us, many simply used the sunbeds and no one even came up. Rather, to order something you need to call the waiter or stomp to the bar yourself.
- The food is good (but the second time they would not take dinner, because at the hotel dinner is $ per person, in neighboring restaurants for the same money and even less you can buy very well (a plate of seafood for two is $ 23, they serve departure almost from french fries and salads, rice with seafood about $ 7. , fresh juices $ 2.5-3. By the way, they drank awesome pineapple fresh juice in Moon Beam (5 minutes walk from the hotel, along the beach or along the road) on the ocean (one of those establishments . that we visited in Hikkaduwa, this is probably the most beautiful and well-groomed), they also took fish dishes there. For 5000 rupees - about 33 dollars there was a set: a huge plate of seafood, a side dish, and wine). all local cafes and restaurants - not at all). Everywhere +10% in the check for service. We also ate at the JHL restaurant (probably a couple of kilometers from the hotel, 5 minutes by tuk-tuk and about 1 dollar) - delicious and fresh seafood, large portions, friendly staff, right on the ocean). The hotel prices are average, a little more expensive than in restaurants in the area) By the way, in other hotels dinner is usually cheaper, then it turns out to be cheaper to eat at the hotel. We did not take lunch for the first or second time in Sri Lanka, as for me, it is needed only if you live in a hotel very far from civilization. Because firstly, you still want to try and eat seafood, fruits, and just instead of lunch or dinner, you can go to local establishments, buy fruits, order shrimp, etc. I don’t remember the names of the rest of the establishments, the roommates went to Top Secret, they liked it, the local guide advised Moom Light (my friends went, they liked it, but it’s not on the shore)
- Settling - long and problematic, and not only with us, but with almost everyone with whom they communicated. In our case, it was the fault of the tour operator, because. we arrived at night in the morning, and when buying a ticket they said that they would settle in immediately (early check-in), in practice this was not written in the voucher until everything was figured out, after an hour somewhere (at 4 o’clock in the morning and until morning) we were settled in dead number, in the morning without problems and surcharges moved to a normal one. For the rest, I don’t know if the tour operator or the hotel is to blame.
- The beach is clean, large, no reefs, no stones. There were waves, but there were much more swimmers here than in January in Koggall. It was not so drawn into the ocean, it happened that the scythe washed up, and in general it was possible to swim well. (By the way, we dined at a restaurant near Citrus Hikkaduwa, and noticed that people always go back and forth. Directly opposite the Citrus hotel there are stones. In order to swim, you need to walk, and very decently. Or to the left, for a long time, I don’t know, 300 meters exactly, along a rocky and then sandy shore, or to the right (on the Internet it says that there is a lagoon, I don’t know, maybe I didn’t see it, but immediately to the right behind the citrus there is another 1 hotel, and then the ocean with the beach along the road, if there is a lagoon further, then it’s decent to cut to it, it seems to me that it would be quite annoying, to walk so much to just swim, while living on the coast. Although the hotel itself is quite nice)
- There are no scourge fights at all on the beach (as in Koggala, they really don’t give passage there), we were looking for them ourselves to go on an excursion).
By the way, the hotel is small (a couple of years ago we were in Long Beach in Koggala + there are 2 more hotels of the same company nearby, the territory is much larger, you could find something to do on the territory of these 3 hotels, but there was nothing nearby in the area, so who what do you like more)
- Often in the reviews they wrote that the hotel often had weddings, yes, during the time that there were, there were 2 or 3 days of weddings. But they didn’t interfere at all, as a rule, preparations are visible in the morning or in the afternoon for an hour or two (guests come, the bride, the groom, on the contrary, it was even interesting to look at their traditions), again, this does not interfere with vacationers, this is at the entrance to the hotel and in the reception hall, then the celebration in the hall on the second floor with a separate entrance. No one is seen, no one is heard, there is nothing to interfere with.
In general, when we went there, we doubted and the first impression with the settlement was not very good. But having lived there for more than a week, we were satisfied with almost everything, and did not regret that we chose this particular hotel. We walked along the coast and traveled quite a lot, in Hikkaduwa this hotel is one of the best, in that part of Hikkaduwa it’s even definitely the best, the most decent in appearance so sure, after listening to the reviews of vacationers on the same days (we traveled by bus back and forth together) in other hotels , just confirmed it)
In general, the rooms are so-so . . 3-ka! There are toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, balm, shower gel, body lotion, refrigerator, plasma, hair dryer, iron (bring). They carry luggage. The furniture is old, instead of a large 2-bed, 2 single beds can be combined - this is inconvenient. In one of the rooms, the bed was shabby so that, for example, the husband gets up from the bed on one side, and I bounce like on a swing, on the other, plus a wild creak. Curtains, bedspreads are also fufu . . but the most inconvenient thing is the lack of a shower screen in the bathroom. After taking a shower, the floor dries up only in the morning - I had to throw towels on the floor.
The territory of the hotel is well guarded, the guard is always visible. Removed, there are enough sunbeds, but there are no umbrellas. Just when we brought brand new beach towels.
Crazy waves caught us in the first days - I almost drowned, broke my chin and got a slight concussion. My husband called deeper into the ocean, where the waves are soft, but I didn’t have time to cross this border . . I remember how it dragged me to the depths and my hands went numb, I remember how I screamed in panic and called for help, but there was no one around except my husband - I pulled it out. Horror! Still, the hotel area and looking far enough from the water, there is no one on the beach, everyone is by the pool, so if you go swimming alone . . no one will hear you. Be careful and don't swim alone! The ocean is scary!
We only had breakfast. He's not bad on his own. A couple of times we dined at the hotel at "Grill Kitchen Evenings" - that was terrible! . . and expensive, and stone tender and non-cut meat, and evening sweets were quickly snapped up. There are many cafes on the coast in the neighborhood, where pleasant music and delicious food are prepared. The only miss that I will not forget is the healthy octopus in red sauce and scanty oysters . . apparently, normal oysters are not found in these places. And the octopus . . as I remember - I will shudder so much, it was even unpleasant to look at it! Be careful with the frills) We ate ice cream with fruit with pleasure - very tasty! And here, the local cuisine . . uh... where I just haven’t been, but I haven’t tried spicier food in my life! Moreover, what tourists bring from the local cuisine (I'm talking about curry mainly) is insipid food compared to the food they eat themselves. We somehow ran into such a place on an excursion . . it’s impossible to eat absolutely anything! . . don’t impose full plates on yourself without trying it !! ! This is from a person who likes spicy food! )
The staff is polite, smiling, beautiful, sweet! In general, well done - they try! They know English better than ours - it is their second official language in the country.
Sri Lanka is a country of dogs! ))) What does it have to do with the same breed! The feeling that the same dog walked with us throughout the vacation, sometimes doubled and tripled)))
About excursions a separate long conversation. But I'm short. We did not like the complex offers from the hotel because a lot of things are crammed into one excursion, mainly what we have already seen everywhere, for example, and waiting for everyone on the bus is not an option. The road to almost all excursions is very long. We went to the city of Galle only from the hotel - in general, not bad. But, in Kandy - to the Royal Botanical Garden, to the spice factory and the tea factory, we got through one pleasant young man who speaks excellent Russian, who has his own company not far from the hotel. We had a personal comfortable transfer with a driver, our own personal guide, we stopped where we wanted and when we wanted, we built and changed the route ourselves. It was fun and interesting. We paid a little more than if we had gone from the hotel in a big bus in a big crowd, and we saved half a day!
And in Sri Lanka it is quite expensive! More expensive than in Thailand, and even more so than in Vietnam. Keep this in mind.
In general, a good country, great vacation! But for some reason this is not the place to which you want to return again.
in general, the hotel left a good impression, we only had breakfast there, and we went along the coast to other hotels to eat, because the prices at the hotel were much higher and simply because we wanted movement and variety, we ate in different places until we found a couple of good ones places where it was tasty and cheaper, so I recommend eating in different places every day and you will find what you like, one thing I will say was not categorically bad anywhere,
And now for some vacation tips:
1. the cheapest tours in newberlintours galie road 307b
2. no need to go to yala safari tour, lost day and money
3. A tuk tuk in hikaduwa costs no more than 100 rupees, and the procedure is as follows: say where to go and immediately give money, otherwise they will look for reasons to raise rates later))
4. I recommend to ride elephants and go on a river safari
5. be careful with stones, you can buy beautiful glass, if you yourself don’t specify what it is... they don’t deceive, they just keep silent))
6. you can change money in jewelers and shops
7. visit the public beach near a large dive center, big turtles come there for lunch and beg, you can swim with them
8. do not smoke a hookah, they do not know how to do it
The hotel is small, comfortable and clean. Beautiful beach, very clean ocean. Rooms are cleaned and bed linen is changed every day.
Ordered breakfast and dinner. The food was buffet style, there was enough food, a lot of vegetables and fruits.