Royal Tusker Udawalawa

Friendly staff, ok for money, they over charged for safari tour.

Do not recommend staying at this place. After driving 6 hours we arrived at the hotel and were immediately prompted to book a safari instead of taking us to our room as we suggested so we could shower and sort out a plan. After looking around with no success we ordered dinner because there wasn't much around. It was pretty pricey for what we got, cheese sandwich had parmesan cheese with soggy toast. Chicken was alright. As well they charge you an extra service charge to bring the food to your room, which we were not informed... they also order the food in from another hotel. The wifi wouldn't work so they brought a router in our room and it still wouldn't load a page not allowing us to be able to book our next hotel. The safari we booked through the hotel is 1500 rupee more than if you just go down the road 5 minutes and jump in a jeep. Checking out they tried to charge us again for our room that was already paid online along with breakfast. Dont eat the Jube jubes in the fridge someone did not leave them they say it's the mini bar.... Although they hide the list so you dont know until checkout. And it was 300 rupees for them. They also charge for the water so make sure you bring your own. The "free" breakfast is partial egg on soggy toast that tastes like the cheese sandwich from dinner with two mini sausages and included no coffee or tea. As for the room itself, they are big rooms... the A/C almost kept the room chilled.

This property is suitable for a night whilst visiting the national park. Wifi wasn’t fantastic. Staff helpful.

Property is beautiful and really close to the entrance of the park. Outdoor dining area, fish pond, nice lush jungle landscaping. The rooms are clean, modern and spacious. Water is a nice temperature. The staff is really nice and will help arrange tours and transportation for you. Breakfast and dinner are served on the property which is convenient. There are other places near by to eat but they are usually attached to other hotels. And walking at night isn’t recommended due to dark streets, no sidewalks and roaming wildlife. You will see a few ants, mosquitoes, spiders, lizards, etc roaming about...but keep in mind this area is basically a jungle. No way to keep them all out. Doesn’t mean the property is dirty. I spoke to tourists at other nice hotels and they all had the same insects. Giving 3 stars because room 101 where they placed me (solo female) has a window in the bathroom that has views of the stairwell leading to the second floor. The window is high up in the ceiling and isn’t covered. Anyone walking down those stairs can see into the bathroom while you are showering or at the sink. I pointed it out to the manager and I have a feeling he knew that window was exposed and hasn’t done anything about it. He said he would put black paper up, but why it wasn’t done before I don’t know. I don’t think the other rooms have this issue.

Staff was incredibly nice and helpful! The hotel is very nice and we really liked the room: really spacious, air conditioned, big balcony, decor is nice and modern, really nice bathroom with hot water, bed really comfortable. We had dinner there and the food was really nice. They had a couple of bikes that we're available to use for free to explore the area and the staff then helped us arrange a safari for the next morning - they also packed some breakfast to take with us! The hotel is really close to the entrance to Uda Walawe National Park so it's a great place to stay of planning on visiting the park. They were building some new rooms on the ground floor when we stayed, so there was a bit of drilling in the afternoon but weren't really disrupted by that and we thought the hotel will look wonderful when it's all done up!