It's all great if you just want to lounge around and swim. What made the holiday for us was a 'beach boy' called Nikki. He arranged trips to the hill country, national parks ,elephant sanctuary, every thing. His vehicles are modern and air conditioned. Can't reccommend him highly enough.

This hotel is dirty, run-down, tired and does not even deserve a 2 Star rating. For the first 10 days of our fortnight's holiday we had no hot water, only lukewarm or cold. The first room (305) had a shower that leaked water into the hall/bedroom area (I mopped it up with a dirty bath towel) and the outer wall of the bathroom showed, by the foot high damp patch at the bottom of the wall, that this was a problem of long standing. We asked for a change of room and tqo days later were given room 411. This room had no safe, but since the safes are not fixed to the wall and are just placed in a wardrobe, we carried it up to our new room. Likewise coat hangers, since there were none in the new room. We were not offered anything to drink on our arrival at 6am after a long flight, not was there any water in our room. We were not told that we should refill our water bottle from a Water Cooler in another corridor as bottles were not replenished by the room staff. My husband received a severe electric shock from his bedside lamp and the a/c competed with the trains for noise. (We thought that a train passing was actually a helicopter overhead, the noise was so loud). We could only use the Waves cafeteria (calling it a restaurant would be too kind). The C Green Restaurant was available but only at full price, not included in our package. It was the same for the C Green Bar, even though the drinks were the same. Our bath towels in the room had holes in and there were no drawers for clothes, only the two wardrobes. The food was cold, unless you opted for the food that the chef cooked in front of you, using, it seemed, pre-cooked meat and fish. We were also offered Brown Beef Stew (very tough beef - couldn't chew it) and Spaghetti Bolognese. Other delights included Roast Chicken with gravy (covered in a thick brown liquid) and grilled fish (also covered in a liquid, yellow this time) We did not partake of any of these meals and it was certainly not 4 star standard. The desserts, apart from pineapple and papaya, were flavoured, solid gelatine confections mainly. The ice cream came in two flavours, sometimes it was even frozen, but without any nuts or sauces to enliven it. We investigated the ;floodlit tennis court'. This was outside the main gate and across two open and unguarded train lines. Although the wire gates were padlocked, it was easy to that the net was missing, the lines of the court were only partial there and it was badly overgrown. Local people said it had been like that for over a year.
Insects or white ants were eating away the stairs - piles of sawdust were visible every morning from their activity. The sunbeds were few and mainly broken, while the mattresses were split and damaged. there were still broken tiles around the pool, damp patches on walls.....I could go on but by now you will have got the gist.
This hotel is due to close, we understand, at the end of March 2011 for total refurbishment and a new build at the end of the hotel. It should have been closed at least two years ago. IT IS NOT 4 START STANDARD. We note that Mercury Direct are advertising a 7 day holiday at the Ramada Resort, starting on 27 March 2011, but it is not in their new brochure. We have never stayed in a worse hotel and it ruined out holiday. We would have returned earlier but the rep informed us that no earlier flights were available. Lovely location - shame about the hotel..

This hotel is not fit for purpose, and the Sri Lankan authorities should be ashamed of themselves for its totally false four star rating. The staff, as met by visitors, do their best for clients as is their way, but all else is total failure. Rooming furniture is many years past its sell-by date and is being eaten away by insects, (did we bring any eggs home in our luggage?). Staff were not surprised by the discovery of a cockroach in our room (identified by local staff). Food quality was diabolical, and hygiene from the viewpoint of preventing flies contaminating salad items was non-existent. We are surprised that Mercury Direct allowed its clients to suffer the conditions in this so-called resort.
The hotel is now due to be refurbished. With hotel management and travel company condoning the above, we will not return.

after a long wait for the plane, checked in at the hotel all fine until we were checked into a room outside the boiler room, changed room away from boiler to find no hot water, next morning requested to to chnage hotels but was promised to change rooms again as was asured there will be no problems with the hot water as the new room was run by a boiler rather then solor power, rep from atkin spence also assured there will be no further problems, went away for a night on excusion, returned all hot an sticky to the hotel looking forward to a nice hot shower to find no hot water again, manager was called on nurmerous occasions however no response, requested to be transfered to another hotel immediatly however hotel staff did everything possible to stop us leaving, atkin spence rep was not helpfull as the booking was paid via atkin spence they had to agree a change of hotel. however change was granted the next day after speaking to managing director of atkin spence on top of all this i was ordered to pay a further payment for the change of hotel...