Кто уже купил его - не читайте. Who has already bought it - do not read.

We rested from 11/18/14 to 12/02/14 as a couple. Flight from Yekaterinburg via the UAE by FlyDubai. And now directly a review of the hotel, and not a story about how we rested in Sri Lanka. There are more minuses than pluses. Immediately about the main thing - cons (bare facts):
1. Location. In both directions along the main and only street, a bunch of representatives of local small businesses. The infrastructure is as follows: cafes, restaurants, alcohol stores, massage centers, a supermarket, diving centers, rag and souvenir shops, banks, exchangers. By the way, next to, for example, Centara in Bentotta (where I also had a chance to relax), this is a little less BUT! this is not a minus of Bentotta, this is a minus of Hikkaduwa, all of the above is so miserable... Yes, we ate in most of these "restaurants" and never even got poisoned, but please do not go into their kitchen, your life will never be the same. Massage parlors also do not shine with cleanliness. Souvenirs and clothes are of poor quality. There are no standing clubs or bars, so I can’t attribute this to pluses.
2. Hotel. Although they write that it has been recently reconstructed, this does not mean at all that everything there is new, i. e. elevators, shower rooms in the rooms, furniture - in some places they are pretty worn. Find mold in the joints of your tiles, a loose lid on your trash can, a broken sink drain, don't say I didn't warn you.

3. Room cleaning does not depend on the size of the tip, the concrete floor of the room is only swept, they do not climb into the corners with a rag. The excrement of animals and birds on the terrace furniture and railings (and this stuff is in bulk every day) is swept onto the floor with a dry rag, very large stains on the pillows are eliminated by turning the pillow over with the other side up, but it’s the same there d. Everything that is supposed to sit on should be lined with, for example, beach towels.
4. The territory is not large and is equipped on a budget, a large area of ​ ​ the footpaths is not covered, they are just unpaved, and naturally dirty in the rain. But the locals still like it, that not a day is a wedding photo session, as they say, if they have never tried anything sweeter than carrots...
5. A narrow strip of beach from the concrete parapet of the hotel to the water's edge does not belong to anyone, that is, it belongs to the state and therefore the presence of garbage is acceptable, moreover, the locals accumulate garbage in heaps, contrary to common sense. The left side of the beach is not bathing, there are stones and dead corals, but in the absence of strong waves, you can climb with a mask about 100 meters from the shore. The right side of the beach is more suitable for swimming, there is a sandy bottom and a coral reef quite far away, but even here it is not without flaws. After heavy rain, and during our stay it was every day, a small river that flows into the ocean on the right side of the beach turns into a black, turbulent gutter with a very characteristic appearance and smell. It's strange that I didn't find a single comment about this. When sailing further from the shore, take into account strong undercurrents, only local sellers and fishermen are the lifeguards.
6. Special thanks to the hotel staff for the recipe for "freshly squeezed juices" that local waiters offer to everyone sunbathing on sun loungers. Expensive, and as expected quality. Not on purpose, just accidentally spied on, just happened to be in the wrong place, but I saw how they made my pineapple fresh for me. We throw a few pieces of pineapple, those that remained on the trays after breakfast, with a total volume of two tablespoons to the bottom of the blender, pour a glass of cold tap water (! ) Or rather, directly from the tap on the beach and pour it in, grind it all up and pour it into filled up edges of ice two glasses. The cost of the service is equal to the cost of two, large, whole ripe pineapples in the street market. But this may already be my nitpicking before the most important minus.

7. And the main disadvantage is the “Air conditioning system” or designed by an illiterate engineer or implemented by handless adjusters. I explain: the existing system does not condition (does not dry) the air in the room, does not remove moist air, but stupidly supplies cold air. Thus, if the neighbors on the left, right, above or below set the temperature in their room to 18 degrees, and you, God forbid, 20, then all the walls and ceiling of your room will be in non-drying condensate (see photo). To be honest, this is the first time I've come across this in many years of travel, but it's a fact. I read about it in the reviews before the trip, but I did not think that everything was so bad. Claims were accepted by the staff for the first week, the cleaners came in a crowd of 4 people and wiped drops from the ceiling and walls with mops, after which they (drops) again flowed along the walls and dripped from the ceiling. The dampness of things and bed linen irritated unthinkably. By the middle of the second week, in response to numerous complaints from the guests, a truck with dehumidifiers arrived and they were additionally installed in all rooms (see also photo). It got a little better, but the problem was not solved. Budget Chinese moisture traps are not designed for such conditions. Someone will say that these are all the tropics, a feature of the climate, etc. , but, firstly, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, where I had a chance to rest many times, are also not beyond the Arctic Circle, but this problem is being solved, and secondly, having gone on a self-organized excursion, they chose and stayed in Kandy at the Earl's Regent Hotel, the same four, but made sure that the climate had nothing to do with it. The humidity around the hotel was much higher, it just drowned in the clouds on top of the mountain, and the tropical rains did not stop, but everything was dry and warm in the room. As it should be in a good hotel.
Pros:
1. Quite tolerable food can be attributed to the pluses. Moreover, I can say that while talking with hotel guests from different countries and cities for two weeks it was very difficult to find a person satisfied with their room (to be honest, there were none) and vice versa it was difficult to find a person complaining about breakfasts or dinners who, of course, had them . Or maybe it was the food on the background of the rooms seemed a little better. Do not know.
2. There are no more pluses for the hotel itself, but the huge green turtles that swim every day to the beach right in front of the hotel deserve attention, 300 meters to the right along the beach, behind the fishermen's boats there is a good place for snorkeling, not far to go by tuk tuk to the Portuguese-Dutch fortress and green lagoon. You don't need to buy any tours.
And a little from myself. Despite the fact that the country is frankly wretched, it is still necessary to visit it once. Be sure to visit Sigiriya and Kandy, Tea plantations and waterfalls. Do not buy ready-made excursions, everything that is included in them (food, accommodation) will be as economical as possible for the organizers, take cars with a driver with a daily fee and drive around the country along your route. Do not expect to visit many places in one day and see everything, local roads are very tiring and, in order not to spoil the impression, it is better to take two or three nights on such a trip to rest in hotels. Many hotels in the center of the country will feed your driver for free and place you in a special room. I will not recommend the CHAAYA TRANZ hotel I chose for a holiday on the coast. I advise you to take a closer look, for example, at Bentott hotels with long and wide beaches, and you can look at turtles and come by tuk tuk.