De Saram House by Geoffrey Bawa

Wonderful
Traveller Type: young couple
  : The location was great, walking distance to a lot of the places we wanted to visit. The Host Priyanka Tissev was super nice and helpful. She sat with us for quite some time helping us plan our days there and guiding us where to visit. She gave us a wonderful tour of the house and we met her uber-famous cat, Yuri. The property was beautiful and quiet. I booked the room upstairs with the balcony that opens to a peaceful garden with beautiful trees.
  : There was no option for breakfast which was told to use before so that was fine, there was no hot water so just inform them in advance. Besides that it was wonderful.

Very Poor
Traveller Type: group
  : The house itself is exquisite, but for us Bawa’s legacy has been well and truly tarnished by the disgusting behaviour and insolent comments of the hotel manager - Priyanka.
  : The De Saram House ranks as one of the worst hotel experiences I have ever had, due exclusively to the awful hotel manager, Priyanka Tissev.Our family party of five had booked three rooms for one night ahead of a morning flight home and was sadly subjected to the most abhorrent customer service from the hotel manager Priyanka, who very sadly turned what is a truly special and beautiful Bawa home into an real nightmare and left our group with a scarred memory of what was otherwise a fantastic trip around the island.Having booked through Booking.com, we were unexpectedly informed at checkout that the hotel does not accept payment through the platform, as is typically done, nor via card payment, and would only accept cash payments.Needless to say if a hotel advertises rooms on Booking.com, it is unethical and inconvenient to then decline payment through the Booking.com website/app. The policy of cash-only payments is questionable at best, with a handwritten bill, and was not communicated by the hotel in advance. Even if this was made aware to us the evening of check-in we would have been able to take out cash to pay our bill.Due to daily international withdrawal limits, our party could not withdraw cash to pay at checkout. While we had provided full reassurance that our bill would be settled as soon as we returned home, even offering to deposit a gold bangle as a gesture of our commitment to cover the costs of the stay, Priyanka quickly escalated became nasty, offensive and condescending. A verbal altercation ensued, with downright insulting and sarcastic comments made by Priyanka.With a taxi waiting to take us to the airport, she then started to instruct the taxi driver in Sinhalese to leave the property, which would have rendered us helpless and almost certain to miss our international flight. Luckily the driver stayed out and we were able to leave the hotel having pacified Priyanka with repeated promises to pay the bill as soon as we could.

Wonderful
Traveller Type: young couple

Very Poor
Traveller Type: young couple
  : Anthony was a very nice host. The food was amazing, as well as the architecture of the place. Hospitality was great.
  : Nothing, just overall maybe the price was bit high.

Wonderful
Traveller Type: solo traveller

Pleasant
Traveller Type: solo traveller
  : the staff are wonderful and the location is a classy neighborhood, but... when you pay almost twice as much as the 5 star hotel next door, you expect to have a better experience in general. i got about 5 messages “telling me” to give a check in time. had to update each time my transfer was held up and got stressed. same thing for the time i would come back in from outside. couldn’t reach the staff by phone and worried i’d be left out - at 10.30 pm, mind you, not 2 am. etc. oh and breakfast: had to put in a special request for a 9 am breakfast. i felt i was being a nuisance the whole time. the breakfast is good though :)all in all this is what we would call in turkish “to screw up with your own money”.
  : i wanted to stay here for the architecture of g. bawa, but nothing much special about the house. my advice, stay at a “real” hotel where you are revered as a guest, and go visit no.11 by g. bawa. that place is magnificent.