hotels – Page 4 – 2 J's World of Adventure

Day 23– 27th February 2024- Our Last Full Day in Sri Lanka – sun, sea watching, pool and packing.

Published on February 27, 2024November 22, 2024 by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

The waves were really crashing in during the night. They woke me a couple of times and I could not only hear their force but also felt as if I could feel it. Finally back to sleep and didn’t hear John get up and join the sun lounger saving brigade…oh! we are hypocritical!!! But sometimes if you can’t beat them you have to join them. I woke about 8.00 am, John was sitting up editing photos and uploading to our 2Jsworldofadventure Flickr account which you can find at https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldwildlife/

He once again took on the task of making coffee…unfortunately the plug socket which worked yesterday no longer wanted to do its duty…having tried all plug sockets we decided we would wait a bit and see if the electricity strengthened…after all during the night several, lights in the bedroom, which had never worked, decided to flash on and off several times….sure enough half an hour later the kettle started to boil…yeah coffee time…

We headed off to breakfast at 9.00 am and our friendly Floor Manager, told us he was The Food and Beverage Manager…the FBM …he has a great sense of humour…he added “ But I do everything else as well”, which actually he does. He also has a great memory and from day one he remembered we both have black coffee no sugar, no milk, fruit, pancakes and toast, no eggs or omelettes. Having finished with the breakfast ritual, we retired exhausted to the sun lounger, John had earlier reserved….even though some one had already nicked one of the parasols, we still managed to get some shade.

The waves weren’t quite as big as on previous days so quite a few from several hotels were in the sea…The waves were still too rough for us to venture in, so we had several pool swims instead and enjoyed watching others braver than ourselves.

Having had a doze we both looked out across the sand to the sea and said in unison “Mad dogs and Englishmen, go out in the midday sun” ….sure enough it was midday and a jogger who could of been English went past us on the sand..Really!! In this heat !!! …time for the cool solace of our room.
We went down for lunch and occupied our usual table. The FBM came for a chat..

Having eaten, the chef came out of the kitchen to ask what we wanted for supper as he was about to go and buy fresh fish…after a brief discussion he said he’d get me some tuna….i love it straight from the sea….and John fancied jumbo prawns again…..That sorted we took up residency on our sun beds again. I was pleased when the 2 couples of Russians who had arrived yesterday decided to go into town….One of the men was loud and his tone was always brash…. it interrupted my peaceful ideal world. We had a swim and a long chat with a family who had been there for two weeks. They were Ukrainian, but the day before war broke out they had gone to Moldova to carry on to Romania for a holiday with their 2 children, they have been living in Moldova ever since. It was interesting talking to them and learning about their views.

We spent a little more time sunning and beach watching.

As the heat of the searing sun began to disappear we returned to our room and virtually packed our bags. Tomorrow Suminda will be collecting us for our transfer to the airport.

Our friendly FBM came to say goodbye as he was taking his daughter to Colombo. We gave a tip big enough to make him smile and thanked him for his kind service.

We went for supper at around 7.30. Our chosen meals were soon served….I am afraid my tuna became a bit insignificant and I turned into a green eyed monster when I saw Johns…

I am certain we would have called them lobsters!!! John was kind enough to give me a mouthful…yuuuummmmmy!! The elderly Indian and English couples who we had been chatting to for a couple of days ( the 2 men met at Oxford University probably 50/55 years ago and have been friends ever since) had ordered baked Red Snapper it looked devine and the chef carved and deboned it at the table. What a lovely meal. We thanked the chef profusely.

With the FBM on leave it meant the Manager had to stay late. Some guests arrived around 7.30 ish accompanied by, we can only presume, the owner. Suddenly everything was singing and dancing…the water-feature wall was switched on, the shallow end of the pool it seems is a jacuzzi, all frothy and foaming..wow… I asked the manager why in 4 days of staying we hadn’t experienced this…no answer..I said perhaps we just weren’t VIP enough…he looked embarrassed and said “ no, no, not at all”…..but that’s what it felt like….the hotel had been full at the weekend and even then it wasn’t shown off at its full potential, but when the owners friends arrive that’s a different story…what a shame……when we got back to our room the bathroom leak which had been fixed was no longer fixed and a steady drip began to soak through the 4 towels we piled up …

Having said that…the FBM and the Chef were superb and the waiter lads were very professional, it’s just a shame that some of the facilities are hidden and only aired for the very most important guests. However we retired to bed happy with our great meal and our last few sun drenched days.

Day 22 – 26th February 2024- Same again Please – sun, sea watching, pool and not a lot else.

Published on February 26, 2024November 22, 2024 by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

We awoke in the early hours to find the bathroom wet and mopped the large puddle up with a towel, realising the water was coming through the ceiling in a steady drip we put another towel down so we wouldn’t slip and promptly went back to sleep!!!! John made me a lovely cup of our own coffee in the room after a couple of false starts when the socket he’d used yesterday had stopped working….but not to be deterred he walked the kettle around the room until he found a socket which did work….what heaven at last a decent cuppa coffee!!! I’d forgotten about it whilst we’d been having our early morning get-ups.
We made it down stairs for breakfast by 8.30 am to find that although there were few people about most the sun-loungers facing the sea with a parasol had already been ‘baggied” by none viewable people who had obviously then gone back to bed..grrrr…..this is a real pet hate of mine and really cheeses me off particularly when we are cruising…it’s so selfish, especially as some people don’t pitch up to take up residency until late morning by which time we would have gone for some cool-off time in our room….any way RANT over particularly as we then hypocritically put our towels on the last two remaining front row loungers and sat at a table nearby for breakfast….this was much the same as yesterday only this morning one of us got pineapple and one of us got passion fruit…..we also managed to get the pancake served without sugar sprinkles all over it…and of course it was all swilled down by the normal undrinkable coffee!

Breakfast finished and having told the manager about the water coming through our bathroom ceiling we took up our positions on the sun beds. A kind Austrian man helped us move a rather heavy parasol to give us some shade and eventually I asked the waiter to move another so we both had shade. The sea wasn’t quite as rough as it had been and some brave souls went for a swim, however we only got as far as thinking about it when some rollers came in and knocked people flying. So we took our hot bodies to the pool to cool of.

After a few repeats of sun and pool we retired to our room to enjoy the view from air conditioned surroundings. Thankfully the leak had been stopped and the bathroom no longer had an identity crisis thinking it was the swimming pool!!!

Having rested, away from the intense heat, we went down to have lunch under the fans. We both had the same as yesterday …John a cheese and a tomato sandwich and I had seafood Ton Yum again. We then had another hour or so of sun and pool and generally enjoying the beautiful surroundings.

The heat of the afternoon sun soon got the better of us and we retired for a siesta prior to getting ready to go for supper. We sat at our usual table under the fan for our evening meal. I think you would call him the floor manager, brought us menus. He is a very hardworking man…there at 7.00am and stays until the last person goes to bed…he seats people, hands the menus out, takes orders, organises the other young staff, collects the sun lounger cushions in etc, etc. in fact I don’t think there is anything he doesn’t do….he has a dry sense of humour which we both like. Soon after he had handed the menus to us the chef appeared and greeted us like his favourite customers. He once again told us what fresh fish he had and ended off with jumbo tiger prawns ….well that was us sold….we did ask how much he said £10 for 10 but because it was me he would give us 12…..well that was the budget blown but you only live once so we went for it and we’re very glad we did….

The floor manager came back and said he could see from our empty plates we hadn’t enjoyed the meal and why hadn’t we finished the soup (that was the finger bowl). He then asked if we wanted the same as last night for desert…well! It would have been rude to say no….so we rounded the evening off with John having his fruit salad and ice cream and me having banana fritters and coconut honey….what a scrummy meal. We thanked both the chef and the Floor Manager for yet another lovely meal and retired to our room …sleepy and contented.

Day 16 – 20th February 2024- Yala to Mirissa

Published on February 21, 2024November 22, 2024 by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

We said farewell to Tringa Villas Yala and we were not sorry to move on. The owner was conspicuous by his absent and we only saw him the first evening, when he was concerned we might give him a poor write up. The rest of the time the place seemed to be managed by the cook who tried to do everything and was obviously so busy that raising a smile was hard work. It’s a pity the owner, who had a lot of charm didn’t spend more time growing the business particularly if he wants customers to give his setting glowing reports. We were disappointed with our choice of accommodation, the food it served and the complete lack of cleaning over our 4 night stay. What’s more they charged us for daily water… even in the cheapest of places we were given 2 bottles a day…… and they charged our driver for his food which was no more than very basic…. They also didn’t take credit card payments, luckily we had enough cash on us to pay….. Would we stay there again… No .

So we headed to the fast toll road and whizzed along to Mirissa. We were quite excited about our 4 night stay at The Sea World Botique ( their spelling!). It was more expensive than a lot of our accommodation so we had high hopes of a wonderful relaxing couple of days……

Alas …. The Sea World Botique didn’t have us booked in until 21st February for 3 nights and they were fully booked….you can imagine I was not amused…we had specifically booked this boutique hotel because it was small, more personal and more upmarket. Suminda our trusty guide and driver had several discussions with Jetwing travel and the lady in charge of our booking. She apologised and admitted it was her mistake but this didn’t really sooth my annoyance. She gave us one option for the night, which she said was a better hotel ( it was nice but at first sight it didn’t seem as nice as our original booking). This was Beach & Bliss hotel. When we got there they only had a second floor room which meant doing about 50 steps…I said “ no way” I’d have to go down to the pool, beach, restaurant etc and back up again to change, rest etc…so several hundred steps which I just can’t manage. They were very kind and said they would serve our meals in our room. But I didn’t want to be a prisoner in the room because of a booking mistake. I asked Suminda to request that his Jetwing lady to give us other options…this went on for a considerable length of time with no other options being offered apart from we could have half board at Beach & Bliss….considering it was a cheaper hotel ( according to booking.com) this didn’t really cut it with us. The manager at Beach and Bliss was very kind and altered all his bookings around to give us a 1st floor room, which we had no choice but to accept. It took a while for me to stop feeling cross because not only didn’t we get to stay in the hotel we had selected and thought we had booked but we were going to have to give up a half day to change hotel again.
Having said all that Beach & Bliss is a lovely hotel, the food is superb, the manager and waiters very caring and attentive and they have been extremely kind. The pool, deck area overlooking the sea and the restaurant looking at surfers is sublime….it could well be nicer than the hotel we’ve booked…we don’t know because we haven’t seen our room there or eaten there…..we can definitely recommend Beach & Bliss. Lovely room overlooking the sea with balcony, good air-con etc.. We had a well needed swim in the pool a relax on the sun-lounger then retired to our room to make use of the speedy WiFi.

We decided to eat off the half board menu and for our evening meal we had – spring roll followed by pumpkin soup and assorted breads followed by pineapple sorbet. I chose grilled tuna steak for my main course and John elected to have pork chops. For dessert I had “grape sausage’ with ice cream which was pancakes with a lovely sauce and John had fruit salad and ice cream. The meal was sublime… the best we’ve had in Sri Lanka by a long way.