Mirissa Bay Resorts

The rooms and cafeteria are set up to make the most of the breathtaking beach views, and the property sits right beside the shore. The food was decent, though it could be better, and the staff could be more courteous, so I took off a star for food and service. Still, you MUST visit when you're in Mirissa!

The location is lovely, with a covered seating area, and the rooms are spacious and air-conditioned. The staff seemed well meaning and tried hard, but got many of our orders wrong, so we ended up eating elsewhere. We stayed for three nights, and the place felt full of potential that wasn't being met because of weak management standards and poor systems. Getting food from the kitchen was slow and often error prone. At breakfast, the omelettes and bacon tasted of fish, as if the grill hadn't been cleaned. Water in our room regularly stopped because of a header pump problem. The pump looked in poor condition in the attached picture, and when we could find someone to tell, the fix was simply turning on its power. We also kept having to ask for replacement water bottles after room service forgot them. There seemed to be only one hotel hair dryer, since an attendant asked us to hand it back for another room. The rooms have old style locks and no safe. Reception was left unattended and unlocked, with keys sitting out on the counter, easy to reach for anyone coming in from the beach or road. That felt like a real security concern. Any one of these issues might not matter much on its own, but together they say a lot about how the place is run. I wouldn't call it a resort. We liked the beach and location enough that we may return to Mirissa, but we'd search hard for somewhere else to stay.

We liked eating here enough that we came back to Mirissa after traveling the coast and booked our last three nights at the hotel. The food is good, and the service is friendly and polite. There are plenty of beach beds for guests, and the beach itself is great. Wi-Fi was patchy, though still fine for streaming when the weather turned. My one gripe was the lack of a fridge in the room.

We stopped for what was meant to be a quick lunch around 1pm with our guide. Menus took 10 minutes to arrive, then it was another 15 before anyone took our order. Our drinks came 16 minutes after that. We waited 35 more minutes for prawn curry and grilled chicken, and only after I got up to ask where the food was did it arrive, about 10 minutes later. Nobody apologized or checked on us, and no one offered another drink. When we asked for the bill after waiting around 10 minutes after eating, our guide's banana juice was on it. He was told he'd already paid. I spoke to the manager and declined to pay the service charge, but paid the rest. I then apologized to the waitress for snapping about the wait and explained I was hungry. She complained that there were lots of guests and only two staff. There were five tables. If a restaurant can't manage five tables mid-afternoon, what's going on? My guide said this was his first experience with the new management and he wouldn't bring people here again. Just bad, especially in such a touristy part of town.