Ridi Vihara Tours

Decent quality 3 star hotel on negombo seafront. Nice garden facing the beach and great views of sunsets. Guests were a mixed crowd of locals and foreign tourists. Check in process was slow and inefficient. Staff seemed to struggle to process a group booking ahead of us and told us to wait. This took more than half hour. The older lady who showed us to our room incorrectly told us that there was no room service. Her younger male colleague confirmed there was room service and said he was frustrated with this older ladies capability to do her job. We struggled on our first night as the air con didn't work. The maintenance staff struggled to fix the issue and we had to be moved. Many of the sockets were not to the current Sri Lankan /UK standard. In other words they were the 3 round pin sockets.. Buffet on the saturday was very good and wide ranging. Sunday was a lot worse, we think it may have been cos there were less guests All in all a mixed bag but the staff are reasonably friendly, garden is nice. Rooms need updating but compared to some so called 4 star rival hotels i would say this place is decent value for money.

The food at the restaurant was delicious and the staff were helpful and nice. The rooms were quite run down for the price. Our tv, kettle and multiple lights didn’t work and the bathroom was musty. Our laundry also came back with new stains on it. We stayed in a room with a plunge pool and it lacked privacy. There were no sheer curtains so we had to keep the curtains closed (which meant a dark room) for most of the stay because staff were always walking past our room or standing near it. I would recommend booking an upstairs room.

Fabulous room, very tastefully appointed, with a huge bed and good size en-suite shower room. The staff are, without exception, friendly helpful and obliging. The architecture is unusual, attractive and interesting, with a little bit of a safari lodge feel to it. The villa is a little bit remote but there is easy access to local facilities via taxi, or Tuk Tuk. Our only slight disappointment was the limited range of choice from the menu available in the evenings and the portions were sometimes less than might be expected. In summary, a fabulous place to relax for a few days among quiet surroundings and you may be lucky to have some interesting wildlife visitors.