Kutumbaya

We stayed 3 nights in Kutumbaya with 7 pesons. Nice atmosphere, rooms and pool. Next to that the kitchen is great. We'd 2 times lunch and dinner, all fresh and taste and in out opinion better then some of the high ranked restaurants in Anuradjapura. Don' t miss the baked bananas as desert from the chef! Desmond the manager makes you feel welcome from the first moment. Does everything to make you stay pleasant and has good advices when it comes to local high lights to visit and how to organize for transportation.

Don’t be fooled by the amazing reviews.!!!! The biggest scam it was.! We completely trusted the “amazing” reviews.! This is quite questionable, or may be the management is changed.! The list of horror is endless. 1. On the advert it says “payment not required” but when you try to book, they ask for a deposit of 1/2 the full amount (which, regrettably and foolishly we did as we planned to stay 3 nights for a complete pilgrimage), Rs.88,000 was paid upfront. 2. We turn up there and they were now way prepared to receive a guest.! Seemed like we were the only guests (we were a group of 11). We were asked to sit in some plastic chairs in a Veranda till they prepared the rooms.! 🙄 I wanted to explore the place a bit and stepped inside what I thought was the lobby area, and that was Filthy.! (Which I was later told where the owner’s mum lives). 3. We were taken upstairs to show 3 of our bedrooms. The double beds were short.!! My brother who is 5”8’ lay on the bed to check and his feet were hanging.! Also one bedsheet had dirt that seemed like a footprint, but we got it changed as we definitely intended to stay at least one night as we weren’t sure if we would find another place. We always take our towels but just checked theirs, and yes, stains.!! 4. Upstairs in the balcony was a dirty couch and some exercise equipment that would do us harm than good if used.! DIRTY.! 5. My mum has arthritis and cannot climb steps and we went to see her downstairs bedroom (4th room). Guess what.! It stunk like a sewerage drain.! We requested for a ground floor substitute room and we were told that the hotel was fully booked.! 😏 That was the last straw, we decided to go hunt for another place to stay. 6. Only good thing to there was the complimentary soursop drink that we were offered.! The rest is an absolute nightmare. 6. This has nothing to do with the management, but be warned.! This place is beside a very busy road and is far from peaceful.! Our horror doesn’t end there.! 7. Thankfully, we found a decent place after looking and driving for several hours. And we called and cancelled. We were on pins till we found a place as Kutumbaya was no way liveable with that obnoxious stench of that room.! We had to abandon our plans of visiting the Ruwanveliseya that evening. When we called and cancelled our stay and requested for a refund stating all the facts.! But the owner had the audacity to retain Rs. 46,940 of the Rs.88,000 we paid saying the cancellation policy says “2 days notice”. That is absurd.! How can we smell the photos??? The photos looked deceivingly impressive.! So we lost a bulk of the Rs. 88,000 just like that.! So I strongly warn you against this place.! Erandee

Pros: Value for money. Good Returent with tasty food from the inhouse chef. Good room with TV/AC/Kettle ect. Cons: Photos of outside the rooms and premises published in the sites are not very accurate as the place isnt kept tidy and pool area is messy with towels put to dry on chairs ect. However they can improve a lot to present whats shown in photos. On the check in day we went there around 1:50 (check in time 2:00). We were asked to give 15 mini to prepare the rooms. But we recieved the rooms only after 3.00( Which can be a very rare occational thing as per them). Overall: Value for Money and good stay.