Overall it's a good hotel but need bit of attention for small deatils. Other than that it's a great hotel and food was awesome !!!!! Great place to unwind and have a good holiday .

Stayed one night in Bentota Beach Hotel as a stopover on our way further south. Check-in was throughly disorganised and inefficient. We were offered a seat and then had to wait about 20 minutes while the receptionist made several phone calls without attending to us. The sea-facing room was nice, however the mini bar which was open when we got to the room was locked later in the evening without any notice. Most annoying as we would have liked to have had an evening drink in the room without ordering from room service because this would inevitably mean that we would have to face obvious hints for a tip. Which was another thing - I absolutely don't mind tipping for good service and always do, but when a person is just doing their job (such as bringing a drink up to the room) then I don't see why we are compelled to tip them. This was a constant problem even just on a one night stay. Management really needs to look into this issue or raise the salaries of their staff!

Good points: The hotel is set on large, beautiful grounds with the beach on one side and the river on the other. Well-maintained swimming pool and comfortable rooms although the toilet seat had a big brown mark on it which looked very dodgy!! At tea-time, a plate of snacks, fruit and juice is brought to your room which is a nice touch.

The bad: this is a big, beach resort hotel which caters typically for package tourists so it is not exactly a quiet, relaxing retreat. Mealtimes in the restaurant felt like it was in a canteen - noisy, crowded with no hint of a chilled out beach-side ambience at all. Food was ok, nothing special but freshly made naan bread was nice. Would be better to book on b&b basis and have dinner at one of the many beach restaurants instead. Poolside bar service needs to improve and all barmen at the hotel need lessons in cocktail making. The cocktails are truly terrible! The ambience in the bar area by the restaurant is not great and what's worse, a band comes on in the evening playing awful keyboard music. Not necessary, just cut out the music or play a nice CD instead!! There were also large groups of package tourists who 'reserve' deck chairs by placing towels and books on them and not making an appearance for hours. This should not be allowed!!

All in all, a pretty average experience for quite a hefty price. Would not choose to stay here again.

Do yourself a favor and avoid this hotel: Poor service, dilapidated facilities and mediocre food all for more than $250/night! Save yourself the mosquito bites, microwaved food, bad staff and stay at the Taj Bentota, which is close by and wonderful by all accounts. Our experience here really took away from the warm hospitality, friendly people and great food/service that we encountered over the rest of our stay in Sri Lanka. The John Keells group clearly needs to renovate this property or rebrand it as a 3 star..


From our first glance of the wonderfully decorated lobby, when we checked in, we had high hopes for the hotel.

Rooms: We asked if we could be assigned rooms (we had booked two rooms) with a sea view and were told that none of the rooms have a direct sea view and that we were assigned rooms with an “indirect” view of the sea. The rooms clearly need to be renovated - the bathroom was old and smelled faintly of a clogged sewer; the faucets had rust stains on them; and the rooms were covered in mosquitoes.

Food: The hotel has four restaurants – a sit down, more formal restaurant with an a la carte menu, a restaurant upstairs with a breakfast, lunch and dinner buffet, a bar, which serviced bar food and a restaurant outside in the garden. Since the majority of tourists staying in the hotel are on package holidays with “meal plans”, lines around the buffet tables are really long, service is poor and the food is average (though fresh). Since we had mixed success with the buffet (the hotel’s saving grace is the Sri Lankan breakfast, especially the egg hoppers), we decided to try the a la carte restaurant downstairs on our last night. The atmosphere was sterile – dimly lit, no guests, tables decorated in 1980s style (silver platters, napkins folded like swans etc) and a sole pianist playing depressing music. We sat down amid a flurry of mosquito activity (a constant theme) and ordered what looked like delicious (and not cheap!) entrees. While we were waiting for our food, we heard a series of beeps that sounded like a microwave going off and since one of us had a direct view of the kitchen, we could see the chef (there was only one person in kitchen) popping all our food in the microwave!! When the food arrived, the food was tasteless and cold-lukewarm at best. When we mentioned it to the waiter, he remarked casually that he would put it back in the microwave and bring it out again! At this point, we were so appalled; we asked to speak to the Food & Beverage manager. After a 20 minute wait, the chef from the restaurant upstairs and another person (a manager who was clearly annoyed by our request) arrived in. They said the F&B manager was at a client dinner and asked how they could help us. We told them what had happened - how we saw the food being microwaved, bad quality of food etc (mind you, the entrees were priced on average at 2,000 Sri Lanka rupees…not cheap by any standard). Both of them went up to the kitchen and started questioning the chef in the kitchen and the waiter. After a lot of raised voices and head shaking, they came back to our table and said that none of the food was microwaved and everything was made fresh – despite, the fact that we had seen everything happen with our own eyes!!! After 15 minutes of arguing and going back and forth, during which the Chef was very aggressive towards us, they turned to the waiter and said “Just give them 10% off” and walked away without so much as an apology. We paid for the meal in disgust and on our way back to our rooms, spotted the F&B manager having an enjoyable time in the buffet restaurant upstairs with some other staff.

General Service: As one reviewer has posted previously, why do 3 guys have to accompany you to your hotel room during check-in? Why does the hotel staff keep popping up in the evening for random requests and linger around looking for tips?

I know the Bentota Beach Hotel for the last 12 years.
It is a beautiful hotel with a huge gorgeous tropical garden surrounding it; there is the lagoon on one side, the Indian Ocean on the other.
The staff is very friendly and supportive.
The rooms are very nicely furnished.
Everything is clean and tidy.
The food is Western and Asian.
The sports club is catering for many different activities and so is the new spa with its interesting service portfolio.

It is always a treat to return to this beautiful hotel that is just 1 hour by car from Colombo.

Wilja Witcombe