Eden Resort & Spa Hotel

I have just returned from a great 7 night break at Eden Resort and Spa! I travelled to the hotel with a little aprehension due to some of the reviews on websites. I was pleasantly suprised on arrival at the hotel at the friendliness of the staff which continued throughout the week. Our room overlooked the pool and was a good size with everything you need in there. There was piped music around the hotel but can honestly say I forgot it was there. The pool is huge with a little island which you can sit on, it was kept clean daily and there was always someone to help you with the sunbeds and beach towels were provided free of charge. There is a fence around the boundary of the beach and grounds but it does not feel like a prison camp !! If anything it makes you feel safer as you know that people cant just walk in. We stayed on half board basis and there was plenty of choice at meal times and could always find something to eat, we ate in the Temptations restaurant twice as you receive a 20% discont when you are on half board it cost us around £24 for 2 of us for 2 courses, water and a small caraffe of wine which I thought was ok. This was my 2nd visit to Sri Lanka and would say the best thing to do would be a 3 or 4 night tour then on to a hotel to relax for a week or so. Overall I would say this is a good hotel with great facilities, good food and friendly staff and would not hesitate to recommend it !!

This place pretends it's a 5 star hotel - it isn't. Why? i) Service can only be described as slovenly. ii) They play piped music in the corridors outside bedrooms which is loud enough to disturb you when you want to sleep. Why? No other hotels I've been to anywhere in the world do this. I complained on a number of occasions, and management we're able to grasp why disturbing their guests in the middle of the night is a problem. iii) Food, in all of the restaurants, was just awful - low quality ingredients and low standard preparation. The deluxe rooms on the top floor are pretty nice though. If you're the sort of person for whom a great holiday is two weeks on the beach in Benidorm, you'll probably find this place just fine. If you are after something a bit special and you've stayed in any good hotel in the Far East, you'll find this place way short of expectations.

My husband and I went to Eden Resort to try and 'recover' after losing my father to cancer. We specifically chose Sri Lanka to try and contribute to the country after the effects of the tsunami. We asked (and paid) for a five star beach holiday where we could enjoy the spa treatments, lie on the beach and relax. On arrival to the hotel - the lobby and reception was uninviting and badly decorated. There appeared to be 4 members of staff all trying to check us in and some confusion as to whether we had reservations or not. There was no welcome drink on arrival (we had been travelling for 17 hours). We were shown to our room and were heartbroken to see the room in such poor condition! Apart from the lack of nice touches that one would usually get on arrival - from a 5 star hotel - i.e. fruit basket, flowers, etc. we were met with a poorly decorated room, unwashed glasses, tacky plastic furniture and horrid overgrown plants in the balcony and ... the final straw ...... dirty towels and stained sheets. I complained to the Duty Manager and insisted that he change our room. He made out he was doing us such a huge favour (it was December and the hotel was only a third full!! ) I even tried calling the agent Travel Pack back in the UK to register our disappointment- but it was impossible to get a hold of anyone. The service was poor, the staff lazy and rude. The second room situated on the ground floor was much better decorated and at least had clean sheets and towels. Apparently, you have to tip the cleaner BEFORE your holiday NOT AFTER to enable you to get good service!! The food on the whole was terrible! The staff did not get our order right once in all the 14 nights we were there. Service during this time was extremely poor! Breakfast time was an epic saga in itself - for some reason, the fruit really smelt bad!! There was one incident when a waiter had folded up a used napkin (complete with red lipstick) and put back on our table. After our inital shock and disappointment, we decided to make the best of a bad situation and not waste too much time getting too grumpy over the whole thing. We spent our days playing a lot of table tennis! Beware - the beach is not clean and the hotel is surrounded by a perimeter fence which 'house' the local touts who stand against the fence all day long!! It is impossible to relax by the pool as they call out and whistle to try and get your attention, every few minutes!!! This means that you can't lie on a sun lounger and face the sea! A leisurely walk on the beach is also impossible due to the beach boys touting for business. The spa was very average - although it did take me 4 days and about 15 shampoos to get the aromatherapy oil - which looked and smelt like pesto sauce - out of my hair! We found everyone out to be on the ''make'' and after a quick buck - lot's of sob stories - some genuine and some not. Plus points: the Thai lady who does the reflexology and foot massage beside the pool was brill!! And the New Year's eve gala dinner and fire work display was spectacular! At least the hotel made a huge effort. On departure, the hotel made a mess of our bill - despite us reminding them 4 times when and what time we were checking out. It took us over an hour to check out and look through our bill which was presented to us minus the receipts. After we insisted they show us the signed receipts to support the bill we discovered that some chits included in the bill were not siged by either of us)! By this time we were so frustrated that we decided to just pay it and get to the airport in time to make our flight!! I would not recommend Eden Resort and think twice about going to Sri Lanka!! We feel that following the tsunami, Eden Resort is not quite ready for the tourist trade and therefore should not charge 5 star prices for a 3 star hotel! The hotel should really let you know about the beach and the perimeter fence. We have travelled to the Maldives, Phuket, Penang, Dubai, Goa, Kenya and Mumbai and others and Sri Lanka was by far the most disappointing place!!!

Am due to go on honeymoon here for a week in October and at the time of booking the hotel reviews were good. But we are a bit down about the latest reviews of the hotel in Feb / March this year. Is it that people are picky because they are expecting the same 5 star quality as at home or is the hotel disappointing in its own right. According to people who have stayed there lately "The beach is a no go area, the spa is poor and the food expensive etc with a horrible location and no interesting excursions to go on". Did anyone stay here who had a great time?

We visited the Eden Resort and Spa in March for our wedding. Everything was superbly organised by the hotel and the staff were very well practised and professional. We were very laid back about the wedding, and were happy to go with the flow and so thoroughly enjoyed every moment, although it wasn't the quiet wedding we had expected. The whole hotel turned out to watch, once the dancers and drummers started performing! We had the Kandyan dancers and drummers, the singing girls and a visit from the elephant, making it very special. We also came away with lovely photos and a dvd. We stayed on a Bed and Breakfast basis, which gave us the flexibility to eat in the main restaurant, the Chameleon Cafe Bar, the Temptations Restaurant and also the poolside cafes. We found the choice and quality of food extremely good and service was excellent. Prices on the whole were good and quite a bit less than at home. Temptations was a similar price to a nice meal out at home, but the quality and service was excellent and well worth a treat on a couple of occasions. You could eat very cheaply if you were careful, but we preferred to splash out a bit and treat ourselves. Wine starts at around £12 a bottle, so isn't terribly cheap, but overall no more than we'd spend at home. We had a standard room which was large and very clean. It was certainly comfortable enough for us, although perhaps the furniture, bedding and towels weren't quite the 5 star quality we would find at home. We were upgraded to a suite on our wedding night and this was very spacious and palatial. However, our standard room was very comfortable and more than adequate. We had considered upgrading before we got there, but really didn't see the point once we saw our room. Our room boy was very attentive and his attention to detail was amazing. I do think he probably spent more time in the room than we did! We did get out and about from the hotel, but you do have to expect to be pestered to buy things and go on trips with the beach boys. However, this is only really a minor inconvenience. We visited the local market and went on a river trip with the beach boys and found you can expect to be taken to shops and jewellers you hadn't planned on visiting, and then persuaded to part with money you hadn't intended to spend. However, we found we didn't spend much more than we had planned, and as many people had been badly hit by the tsunami we hoped we were helping the local economy a little.

We just returned from Sri Lanka and I thought I might add my experiences to help others decide whether they should book this hotel. You be the judge... My husband and I booked 2 adjoining rooms 2 months before we arrived - as we have 2 children. The Eden Hotel was the last hotel on our itinerary and we wanted 3 days to relax and be pampered before heading back home. However, upon checking in, we were told they did not have 2 adjoining rooms available and we were given 2 double rooms. Granted they were next to each other, but I wasn't all together comfortable in having my 2 youngsters locked up in their own room at night. Rooms were very nice- but not of the level I would expect from a 5 star hotel. The mini bar prices (especially for Sri Lanka - and when compared to other hotels were we stayed, were more on parr with London). Towels were not given out daily - which was a disapointment as we would often go to the beach and had to shower often and they were covered with sand. Despite keeping our balcony door shut, we also managed to get some geckos in our room - climbing the walls at night. It wasn't anything that harmed us, but we wondered if they were coming in from the air conditioning vents. Meal times were stressful. The buffets were superb, but dining at the Chameleon Cafe was awful. Even when there weren't many customers, it took forever to be handed a menu or to have our orders taken. Our 7 yr old never received his meal one night. While waiting, the rest of us had been served and finished eating.The poor little guy eventually fell asleep while waiting fore the meal that never came. No excuse for that! All he had asked for was a plate of French fries ( an item on their menu), but they couldn't serve it up in the 1.5 hrs were were there. They then seemed surprised that we had to cancel it and leave. The pool was lovely - but there were no towels handed out (as was mentioned in the hotel guide left in the rooms). The beach, while near by - was at times just too much of a hassle to visit and at times, we felt the hotel was a prison of sorts because we couldn't go freely outside and were confided to staying "inside the perimeters". We were constantly inundated by beach touts at every turn. A simple "no" had no effect. We wanted to just walk along the beach as a family and relax, but it was impossible - with all the people approaching with selling incense, cigarettes, wooden toys, puppets, elephant rides, sarongs, performances from snake & monkey charmers, boat rides etc.... I can understand why people approached us, but it was just so out of hand that it ruined the stay. There was a fence separating the hotel grounds from the beach - on which a security guard would stand, but local people would line the fence and see the hotel guests as "prey". Everyday, we saw young men sitting alongside the fence. Uncharacteristically, they weren't approaching people to sell goods, but it all seemed a bit odd that they were there day and night. We didn't know if they were offering other services or what. Beware. The beach was nice - but not as spectacular as further south. Even a member of the hotel staff told us that it was rather dirty/cloudy at the Beruwela Beach. Even away from the beach, it wasn;t a particularily interesting area to explore. The Spa provided a bit of pampering - as I had a lovely massage. But when I made an appt for my husband, it all turned pear shape and they tried giving him another/different treatment he didn't want or had even booked. He stopped the treatment and told them why he was there - but then they wanted him to pay for it and didn't even offer to give him the treatment we had booked. It seemed to be a miscommunication - and as with many staff, I didn't feel as though they had much of a grasp on the English language - which was odd as it was mostly European guests that stayed there. Even when we asked the front desk for the directions to a place outside the hotel, they couldn't help. Maybe their motive was to keep us at the hotel??? The 3 shops were very basic - which was a pity as we had wanted some souvenirs to take back home. One was a small gift shop with clothing mostly, there was a bookshop with postcards, books and basic souvenirs & toiletries, and a separate gem shop. The hotel was nice - but certainly not 5 star luxury. It wasn't in the best of locations and it was very expensive for what they were offering. Personally, I wouldn't go back again. Sri Lanka is a lovely country - but we found better accomodation/service/meals at hotels with less star ratings and those will be the places we will keep going back to.

The standard rooms at the Eden were a great dissapointment. We were looking forward to our weeks stay there after reading several possitive reviews. The rooms with double beds only have a shower, if you want a bath you have to have a twin room. The bed linnen was well past its sell by date with holes and Eden hotel enblazened over it. We had to phone to get 2 sets of towels on several days. We checked out the de-lux rooms which were in a different class and the ones they feature in the brochure. But at $50 per night to upgrade did not feel it was value for money. Temptations Restaurant was good but they only give you a 20% discount if you are on half board and if you select the days special menu you do not get any discount. A fact they neglected to tell us till we got the bill. The Garden of Eden breakfasts were good and the themed Buffet dinners varied in quality The pool is good with pleasant pool bar. The beach is superb and yes you do get some hastle from beach boys but its good natured and they will organise great boat trips. If you go for a walk first thing there is hardly a soul about! The staff are helpful and friendly Normally a standard room at a 5 star hotel means a smaller room with a few less luxuries not an inferior room. I will certainly return to Sri Lanka but I would be reluctant to return to the Eden until they do some major refurbishments.

We were due to stay at the hotel for 5 nights after and exciting adventure tour of the cultural triangle. We were looking forward to a very relaxing 5 days as the tour required us to be up early and as our days had been so packed, we were usually too tired to use the pool and other amenities at the beautiful hotels in which we stayed. However, en route to the Eden hotel, we became dismayed by the surrounding area which didn't provide the promise of leisurely exploratory walks outside our hotel and we were right. Eden is poorly located and even our tour operator recommended we didn't venture far ouside the hotel. Inside, the hotel was nothing to shout about. The rooms were ok, clean and comfortable but not worth what we paid. The pool area was fine, but you were quite restricted because if you happened to position yourself on the wrong lounger, the touts on the beach were psst-ing to get your attention the whole time so no chance of a relax. Plus, the gate to the beach is guarded by a guard and once past him, you are bombarded with people selling their wares. I decided to try the ayurvedic spa for something to do and given the dollars they charged, thought even I could do a better massage and face pack. Finally, the restaurant was over priced and really put a downer on the whole experience. The food was lovely, but given we ate lovely food throughout our tour at a fraction of the cost, were a little upset at paying London prices for local fish etc. So after only 2 days, we booked ourselves out and on the next flight home. Spoiled what was otherwise, such a memorable and beautiful trip.

We stayed in room 304 at the Eden Resort 16 February to 1 March 2006. The room was OK, but not really 5 star, with a need for some refurbishment, particulary in the bathroom. TV reception was poor. However, the room was nice and quiet, we were never disturbed by noise. Prospective visitors should be aware that despite the hotel being next to the beach, a standard room will not provide a sea view. You will need to upgrade, at considerable extra cost (of course !), to a third floor room or the Penthouse to get a view that is not obstructed by palm trees ( nice looking palm trees though !) I suppose that having booked a hotel on a beach we had imagined we would be able to use the beach for swimming and sun bathing. However, the Eden does not have services or facilities on the beach (nor does any other hotel, presumably this is not allowed in Sri Lanka). . . so no sun beds on the beach, which is seperated from the hotel by a high security fence and guard. Anyway, swimming can be dangerous on this stretch of beach because of a strong undertow, and a person came very close to drowning during our stay, so do please be careful. Although not the fault of the hotel, the beach traders are an absolute pain. On one 30 minute walk down the beach I was approached as many as 22 times with offers of boat trips, inland excursions, massage, jewellery, and tailoring services. Unfortunately being firm and polite just does not work with these people. To compensate for the loss of the beach, the hotel pool and gardens were really excellent, well kept and very clean. Buffet breakfast was excellent, with everything you could wish for, although the hotel is muslim owned, so dont' expect any bacon or pork sausages. Buffet Dinner in the Garden of Eden Restaurant was a little disappointing as the food definatly wasn't 5 star. If only they would redirect their skills towards providing really good quality dishes, rather than variety, quantity, and medeocrity ! The Paella was a joke ! Presumably to increase sales of bottles of wine (wine is very expensive in Sri Lanka) we were told on the first day of our stay that we could not order wine 'by the glass'. On day 10 we were told that we could order wine by the glass . . . ! The 3rd floor 'Temptations' restaurant was very expensive and those of us on HB terms were only offered a 20% discount for a la carte, which did not seem at all reasonable. The location of the Eden meant that we weren't able to walk anywhere, there are no bars or restaurants close by. To finish on a positive note . . . the staff at this hotel were excellent. Very friendly and very helpful, In summary, we enjoyed our holiday in Sri Lanka, and enjoyed staying at the Eden Resort and Spa Beruwela, but we did not find the hotel completely deserving of its 5 star status, probably 4 plus would be a fairer ranking. Still a nice hotel though. Would we return ? We saw hotels in better locations, (especially further south, nearer Gaulle) and there is better value for money to be found elsewhere in Sri Lanka.

My husband and I had a nice stay at the Eden, i'll start with the good points; 1) The pool was clean, warm, MASSIVE and all you could ask for. 2) The breakfast and evening meal buffets were of a good standard and varied. My husband is a Frenchman and it satisfied his discerning tastes!! 3)The cleanliness of the rooms was good. 4)The service generally was good. 5)We were given a free massage voucher on check in which was a nice surprise. 6) We asked for a room with a bath on check in and the receptionist was very accomadating. 7) The Thai lady who does the Thai foot reflexology is fantastic! (£18) 8) The beach is beautiful and boat trips are cheap. Now the bad points; 1) The entrance to the resort was disappointing. Small driveway and unimpressive exterior. 2) The lobby was sparsely furnished. 3) Our standard room was very basic and a little tatty. 3* at best. Our shower also leaked and a hole in the plastic bath had been patched up. Although our room did have a lovely extended balcony with wooden furniture and a view of the pool and evening entertainment (room 202). We were offered an upgrade, and accepted this, then were asked for $50 a night extra. So we changed our minds! 4) The hotel grounds were very small and the beach is cordoned off with a wire fence which hindered the view of the beach. An extraordinary event also occurred at the end (luckily!) of our stay, whereby a group of local familes (with around 30 children aged under 10 between them) excitedly descended on the hotel and took full advantage of the pool, which was initially nice to see. However the following day, half the (already small) grounds were cordoned off from hotel guests for the sole use of the local families. A man with a megaphone engineered noisy games which resulted in excited screams and shouts from the children. Ordinarily this wouldn't have bothered us in the slightest. But we had paid for a 5* luxury RELAXING break and as my husband said, you pay for exclusivity, service, peace and tranquility. Peace and quiet had thus ended. Many guests left the pool and garden area as the noise levels were so high it was impossible to relax. Funnily enough, when i changed money at the reception desk later that evening, i asked how come the children were there and the receptionist suddenly lost all ability to understand and speak English. We were then told by hotel staff that the families were paying guests, which we found hard to believe. The actual country was beautiful and picturesque and sightseeing is a must as is a visit to Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage. Please be aware that you have to haggle in the local shops for everything including groceries as prices vary day to day! We woudn't recommend the train as a mode of transport as they are extremely crowded and disgusting inside, not at all what europeans are used to!! Tuk tuks are fabulous fun if not a little hair raising! My husband found the local folk charming. We had booked this holiday on the recommendation of trip advisor reviews and we were disappointed, as our expectations were so high. This hotel deserves no more than 4*. Nice stay, but we would not.