Went with friends to Blue Water's for a weekend getaway ..... and enjoyed the stay. The food was great the service was good..... since it was the holiday seasone hotel was kind of full of locals however that did not have any advers effects on the stay.

We stayed at the blue water for 5 nights as part of our honeymoon. The hotel is set in lovely grounds on the beach at wadduwa and is about a 2hr car journey from colombo airport. If you've not been to anywhere like Sri Lanka before the car ride is a great experience!

If I had to rate one thing about the hotel it would be the staff. I've never stated anywhere where all the staff are as friendly and helpful as they were at the blue water. There was the odd exception but they were very welcoming and seemed genuinely pleased to have you there and visiting their beautiful country.

The hotel itself was very clean and the grounds were really well kept. The rooms are a little in need of a revamp, it wasn't 5 star by uk standards but it's a poorer country and it was very comfortable and had everything we needed.

The food was great and they had a good selection everyday. There was always curry so if you are a fan you'll love it!

We also took a one day trip with ruchi tours. Many previous posts mention ruchi so I won't go into detail other than Ruchi and the trip were excellent. We booked with Ruchi by email (ruchitailoredtours@hotmail.com) and when we arrived everything was arranged and ruchi met us and gave us some great advice and info about Sri Lanka. We found he was the best priced after our tour operator offered us the same trip for twice the price.

 We did a 1 day trip to kandy and it was great although very long, 0530-1800 and there are a lot of windy roads! If you have time I'd recommend doing this over two days so you can relax a bit more. Sri Lanka is amazing and you cant experience it from the hotel so it's well worth doing a tour!

The only thing we struggled with was tipping. It feels a bit like its expected but with so many helpful staff you'd run out of money if you tipped everyone all the time. The best success we had was one the first day we gave one of the pool boys $5 and asked him to look after us all week. Everyday as soon as we set foot outside he was there with towels and sun loungers ready for us and made sure we got drinks, etc as we needed them. Other than that we just used 100 rupees for tipping waiters and bar staff in the evenings and they seemed happy with this.

We have just returned from 11 days at the Blue water Hotel. A very relaxing time , staff & people in general very friendly & helpful, food very good & plentiful in buffet style although there is an A La Carte if wanted. Pool excellent with nice range of drinks available on the All Inclusive tarrif as we were. Room good although the Air/con fan was a little noisy. Splendid beach & fun to watch the fishermen hauling in their nets. we went on a tour with Ben Tours, they have an office opposite the hotel. Our guide was Saman ,we called him Sam, again very helpful and would do anything to help. Would recommend him to anyone as he was full of knowledge & always aware of our needs on the trip etc,.A very nice man. We also bought some trousers, made to measure from Michael, ask any of the tuk tuk drivers outside the gate , shop about 10 minutes away in St Patricks Rd, excellent quality & cost. Ordered on sat am ,collected mon morning! Geoffrey & Gillian

We have stayed 10 days at the Blue Water hotel in Sri Lanka. I read many reviews before deciding on this hotel and made the right choice. We had initially booked 1 room. There are only 4 in the hotel on top floor, so great views. 2 were still being refurbished when we left but I would really recommend paying the extra. We did have a look at the standard, unfurbished rooms and were not impressed with them at all. It will take a long time before these are all complete.

The food in restaurant was all buffet style and theme nights. It was ok but nothing too exciting. There was a bar menu but if you wanted to eat there instead you had to pay, even if on HB.
Breakfast was good.

We used "BEST TRAVELS COMPANY-WADDUWA" company for all our trips as we had seen recommendations on Tripadvisor for him. He was good and drivers he used friendly. He did quote us very cheep rate for our all tours including Elephant trip. He arranged a tuk tuk into nearby town for us and his guys walked around with us to the market which was great. A real must and eye opener to Sri Lankan life. Loved stilt fishermen and fished ourselves, badly and the turtle hatchery too. snkjayan@hotmail.com - Jayantha (near Blue water hotel)