Bad news first: I was booked in this hotel just two weeks after a reopening (and because the nearby already famous "Icebear" was fully booked). The former owner of The Catamaran Beach Hotel must have gone broke. A state controlled unit took the hotel over and is now doing the best to put the hotel back to the market. As a seasoned traveller, I remarked it at every corner and during the whole day. But just within the 5 days of my visit the made remarkable progress.

The good news:
- The location is very nice: absolut beachfront at a not overpopulated stretch of negombo beach. The beach is clean enough for a bath - but I did not find out, where the wastewater of these beach-town north of Colombo were flowing. So you better use the clean (and daily cleaned) hotel pool.
- the rooms are huge measured in square meters and two queensize beds make a comfortable place to sleep The AC worked fine (take a room in the first floor, if you are not afraid to climb the stairs) then you also don't hear the compressor units which are at the backside of the first/ground floor rooms.
- The U-shaped building with two twofloor wings enckloses a small garden area. on the lower floor, the plants are dense enough to provide some privacy if you are sitting on the chairs in front of your room. On the second floor, you have a diagonal view to the sea (and the pool) and enough shadow from the large roofs. Sitting outside and reading or just chatting over a chilled beer is really relaxing - the permanent noise of the surf gives a nice background and you really feel like staying at the beach.
- Room service, breakfast buffet, lunch and dinner buffet seem to be on their way to improvement. A start from zero to halfway working in just two week is promising enough, that I will try the place again next time, when I am visiting Colombo / Negombo.
- Proof of hard work: first day when I arrived, just one of the two WLAN hotspots was operative, Two days later I had a good connection even inside my room. Only the bandwith to the Internet company seemed to be too limited for the simultaneous use of more then a dozen hotel guests. I bought a Data Package with the local Dialog telecom company and worked with this broadband WWAN connection. Nearly everywhere in the Colombo area.
- Not operative were the brand new flat TV Screen installed in the rooms. The cable connection or the antenna was still missing on the days of my stay. Next time it will work I hope.
- the real asseit of this Hotel (and of most of Sri Lankas hospitality business) is the helpfullness and the smile of the employees. The most of them speaks a fair to good English and they do what ever required to make the guests happy.
- The price with more than 80 USD would have been fair, if the overall performance and the facilities of the hotel would have matched the perfect location. But as a house under "reopening" it was quite overpriced. But as everything else in that range and at the beach was either full or even much more expensive, there were no other choices left.
- Go to The Catamaran Beach Hotel with a smile and a balanced approach of tolerance and fatalism, look at the sea and the beautifull place - and not so sharp in every corner of your room or of the buffet - and you will be happy.