I am glad I had already booked at Rockside Cabanas before reading the most recent review. Had I not, I would've booked somewhere else, and that would have been a mistake.

There were no complaints with the service. We found the staff to be friendly, attentive and hardworking. The morning we went off on a day trip, they opened the kitchen two hours early to give us breakfast.

The room was great. Unlike the previous reviewer, we had no complaints with cleanliness. In fact, I was very pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness of the bathroom in our rooms. I had a chance to see some of the rooms at a highly regarded resort down the beach, and Rockside's were much better. We both enjoyed the quiet and privacy of the cabanas. Matara Road through Unawatuna is very busy, but we couldn't hear the road from our cabin. People we met on the beach spoke enviously of how quiet our cabanas were. We spent several afternoons on the porch reading, playing cards and sipping tea or beer, feeling like the only people in the world. It was great.

Our greatest issue was with the expense. At 30 Euros/ night, it was more expensive than many places, but we decided that we were paying for the quiet and privacy, and were happy with the decision. Lunch and dinner were a little more expensive than elsewhere on the beach, but not significantly; breakfast was roughly comparable. Other than that there were no "hidden" expenses we found.

Other than that, we had few complaints. We are very happy we stayed there.

The cabanas have a great design and are very well built. The beach is nice.

They tried to charge for an extra days breakfasts and drinks by counting one day twice (obscuring it by having several loose sheets of accounts) for about £9.

The website says breakfast for 1.5 euros. This is toast and jam, if you go for the 'english' bf you get fruit and eggs on top, for double the price, but still need to pay even more for tea or cof fee. Having bf for 2 and i beer each an evening adds £10 per day.

The cabanas are great but the sheets are stained and dirty, not sure they are changed between guests. Mats on either side if the bed are beyond filthy and the daily 'cleaning' is inadequate, a vague sweeping near the entrance and nothing else (not emptying bins (including in the bathroom)).

We stayed 4 days and were provided small towels with no replacements (environmetal reasons so pay 1 euro for replacements but the lights were all high energy wasteful spotlights, several lights did not work consistently)

They do say in CAPITALS that rats can smell even the smallest piece of candy in your room, so don't buy any and NO RATS MEAN NO SNAKES. We didn't buy any lunches or dinners from them but two times (immediately after the room had been 'serviced') found one 'rat' dropping on top of the bed. (it wasexcrement but smelt human which I doubt rats' droppings would)

Due to the construction design there are lots of little gaps so plenty of mozzies so count on 3-4 bites a night.

This could be a good place to stay if cleanliness was attented to and greed was abated.

Thaproban restaurant in Unawatuna is excellent.

My husband and I stayed at Rockside Guesthouse and Cabanas for 3 nights in March as part of our honeymoon tour of Sri Lanka. We had climbed Adam’s peak in the early hours of the morning, and then endured a 7 hour journey to get to the south coast so were very happy to finally get to our destination! Rockside Cabanas is run by the Pussewala family; they all made us feel very welcome and offered us food and drinks on our arrival. We stayed in the garden bungalow which is slightly set back from the beach (only 15 metres so still very close) - the other two bungalows look right over the sea. The bungalows are very clean and spacious with modern, light and airy bathrooms to the rear. The home cooking on the menu is superb; most curry dishes come with side servings of vegetables, dahl and poppadums - there is enough food to two! Every morning, the very smiley youngest boy served us a breakfast of fresh fruit and cooked options on our veranda – a great way to start the day! The beach here is beautiful but if you did want a change of scenery, Unawatuna is a very short tuk-tuk ride away. Overall we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Rockside and really didn’t want to leave as it was so relaxing. We especially enjoyed waking up to the sound of the sea, morning and sunset walks along the beach and relaxing with a couple of drinks on our veranda in the evening. Perfect!

We had a great time at the Rock Side Cabanas. The rooms are quite basic but very clean and spacious. And you are RIGHT at the beach!! It is quite noisy at night so as the ocean is right in front of you doorstep. Staff is very nice, food not so great but there are plenty of restaurants around. Very good value for money!