AVANI Kalutara Resort

Designed by Geoffrey Bawa, one of Sri Lanka's Premier Architects, and located in a magnificent setting where the Kalu River goes out to sea, this is on the left side of the river mouth. There is plenty to do such as water sports, beach walks and some sight seeing. Since we went on a holiday weekend most sights were closed, so we decided to go again in the future to explore the area. Truly a Bawa style building with large open spaces and internal courtyards, pools and through ventilation. The Management was truly awesome, and nothing was too much trouble. We would like an improvement and more variety to the menu in the way of sandwiches suitable for lunch and a small serve of soup rather than a gigantic bowl which left no room for any other food. The breakfast was good with a variety of local and western dishes. The rooms were clean and well maintained, and they had free WiFi throughout the property.

Beautiful hotel in beautiful setting, right on the beach on the end of a headland. Very remote, no shops in hotel or restaurants/ shops nearby so would recommend all inclusive if stopping for a long period of time although there is a snack bar menu which is never changed day to day. Hotel staff all friendly and very helpful. Rooms quite large, cleaned daily and comfortable bed. Free mini bar with soft drinks as well as tea/ coffee making facilities and 2 bottles of water left daily. Insect repellent plug-in in the rooms and a nightly enquiry if you want repellent sprayed in room. Pool lovely, same depth through out, small pool for children but no play area for them as such. Beach is hard, sharp sand and it shelves down to a very rough sea which is not suitable for swimming in. There are touts on the beach, the ones selling clothing do not really bother you but the ones with Tuk Tuks offering trips will not leave you alone even though you say no. They will remember you and talk to you whenever they see you even when you are trying to watch a very romantic sunset! The only gripe that we had was that there was not a good choice of European food or vegetarian. Lots of curry/spiced food for breakfast, lunch and evening meal and not everyone can eat 3 spicy meals a day. Would have been good to have the option of plain food occasionally. Plenty of salads, fresh fruit and some lovely desserts. Waiter service was not as good as it should have been, there is a compromise between the dirty dishes being whisked away as soon as you put the cutlery down or before you have swallowed the last mouthful (I hate this action) and the dirty plates being left on the table until you are eating dessert. Nothing worse than eating food on a table overcrowded wih dirty dishes. On the whole I did enjoy the 4 days there but would not be able to cope with the isolation from civilisation for longer as I would get bored just lazing doing nothing all day every day. Would recommend this to people who enjoy that type of holiday.

Great location, lovely hotel, great service very friendly staff. Excellent facilities, we had a very relaxing stay in the hotel at the end of our touring holiday. We would definitely stay at the hotel again in the future.