Stayed at this wonderful hotel for 1 night in early Jan as part of a 2 week indepentently booked tour of Sri Lanka.

Arrived in the middle of an English style rainstorm, having endured several hours of Sri Lankan back roads (our driver took a shortcut followed by a wrong turning!).

Check in was relaxing and undertaken on the terrace overlooking a swimming pool with a refreshing juice... could you ask for more! Only issue expereinced at this stage, was that the room reserved for our driver was not available! As the driver was a friend of a colleague of mine I felt I was in somehwat of a predicament! After nearly an hour of various conversations in English and Sinhala (I wonder what was said during these conversations????) a room in the drivers accomodation block was miraculously found!

A long and exciting walk to the room along the jungle surrounded corridor ensued! When we reached the room (a decent 5 minute walk away) we were incredibly surprised. The room had been booked (and paid for) by a colleague of mine (the benefit of working with a number of Sri Lankans!) we were incredibly impressed. I have a feekling the room was an upgrade, but it was larger than our flat! A huge bedroom, large sitting room, huge balcony and a bathroom larger than most hotel bedrooms, all in superb condition and immacutely clean (apart from the monkey handprints on the exterior of the windows!).

Dinner was a buffet... the best choice in any of the hotels that we expereinced... had I have known, I would not have bothered with lunch on the road! I always have a criticism with buffet food however... it is never quite hot enough after it has been sitting in a serving dish for an indeterminable length of time.

Breakfast was also an excellent spread...served at the typical tepid buffet temperature!

All of the staff that we encountered, especially the bar staff and shop assistant were courteous, effiicient and very personable. Another minor criticism was also the length of time it took to check out. The two cashiers were inundated with guests wishing to pay their bills and it took nearly half an hour to part with my money for the dinner/drinks (incidentally, all very good value, I can't even remember how much it cost!).

I would certainly stay again and would recommend it to anyone BUT if travelling with a driver it might be worthwhile ensuring that you get the hotel to confirm to you in wrtiting that they will have a room available for him. Also, if you have difficulies on your legs MAKE SURE you make staff know when you place your booking!

Let me start by saying the Kandalama is simply stunning, after hours of the wonderful Sri Lankan roads, it really is a sight to behold.

It is right on Kandalama Tank, and completely surrounded by rainforest and wildlife - plenty of opportunities for widlife spotting, monkeys, birds, squirrels etc.

We were on honeymoon, so were a little disappointed when we were allocated a small room on the 2nd floor with no view of the tank. The room did look a little neglected too.

However, after complaining at the front desk we were quickly moved to a room on the 5th Floor with a maginificent view of the surrounding countryside, and an amazing 'rainforest style' shower (although it did completely flood the bathroom!)

We stayed for 5 nights and enjoyed the delights of the surrounding area thanks to the excellent 'Excursions Manager' Nalinde who really went out of his way to help us get the most out of our trip.

The food was good, although the buffet could've been a bit hotter - we stuck to the 'live cooking' which was excellent and the restuarant on the top floor which was a great alternative to the buffet for a quiet and romantic evening.

The staff are good, although I'm not sure they really understand that good service is about being efficient as well as the 'personal chat' bit which sometimes got a bit grating.

In Summary, it's a must see for the location, nature and amazing infinity pool.

We stayed for two nights at the end of December 2007 as the start of our tour of Sri Lanka. We'd been looking forward to it as the website looks good etc. However...

While the location is stunning and the brutally modern architecture is interesting, the hotel seems to care more about style than substance. The public areas were poorly thought-out. Our room (right at one end of the 1km long hotel) was small and dirty and not cleaned-up much after our complaint.

The main restaurant was more like Butlins than a 4* hotel with buffet food that was average at best.

The only thing that stops me giving the hotel a worse review is the location and views over the lake which are superb. What a shame !

This hotel had quite a build-up from my husband and his family who are native Sri Lankans and have been there several times - I had high hopes, but was a bit let down. We booked four rooms about six months in advance, but were told when we arrived that since someone didn't call to confirm, our rooms had been "released" and since this was on Christmas Eve, there were no more rooms available. Probably our fault, but we weren't made aware we had to do that. After much debate, we ended up with the rooms. The room itself was just ok - it was large and had a nice view, but it was in desperate need of freshening up, the walls could use a new coat of paint, and the mold and dust in the room set my allergies off like crazy! I was miserable in there. And the pillows on the bed were the lumpiest things I have ever laid my head on. The rest of the hotel is nice (definitely not five star in my opinion, even though there's a plaque on the wall that says it is) and I love how eco-friendly it is, but it seems to be past it's prime and they're not doing a good job of keeping it up. We had a MUCH better expereince at Ahungalla, which is also own by the Heritance group - would HIGHLY recommend that one.