Vista Randiya Sea View Inn

The hotel's location was the only advantage. We stayed four nights in February 2026, and the rooms were in poor condition. The balcony door and handle were broken, the bathroom partition door didn't work, and the towel hanger was broken too. There wasn't a single shelf for toiletries, so we had to keep them on the floor. One day the hairdryer burst while my husband was using it and injured him. Luckily, our toddler was away from it. When we complained, they didn't have basic first aid supplies, and the medicines they had were expired. The à la carte food at the restaurant was decent, but breakfast had very few options.

Our experience with the service left such a bad taste that we couldn't properly rate the food. We waited a long time for it, and the table had every utensil except a spoon. The cashier was also taking orders and serving. She took my drink order but never brought it. I waited until I'd finished eating and went to pay before raising it. She removed the drink from the bill and recalculated it without a word or apology. There were dirty utensils left out, attracting lots of flies, which was unacceptable. Please train the staff to smile and acknowledge customers.

There was a 300MB download cap on the Wi-Fi, and the room problems weren't limited to one space. I changed rooms three times, but the bathrooms and bedrooms had black mold in them each time. Balcony doors wouldn't close all the way, so mosquitoes could get inside, and there were dead cockroaches in the communal areas. This was the most disgusting hotel of my two-week trip around Sri Lanka. In more than 20 years of travelling, it's one of the worst places I've experienced. I didn't run into these problems anywhere else in Sri Lanka, so I think lazy management is to blame. Definitely avoid it.

Sudesh was very pleasant, friendly, and helpful, so he gets the second star for service. He has good manners and could show the rest of the hotel staff how to run the place. The reception service was poor, though. When I tried to order several dinner dishes, the person on the phone hung up before I could finish. The restaurant is only open for two hours, and it took an hour for one dish to arrive. Room 508 has a broken door lock, so don't use it. Its TV was somehow smaller than the one in our other room, and you can hear people in neighboring rooms, so there's no privacy. I tried explaining the lock problem to the food delivery person, but he didn't understand English. I said the service was very bad and hoped he understood. Later, two teenagers who spoke English came to fiddle with the lock while I was eating dinner. I don't know the child labor laws in Sri Lanka, but it seemed like child labor to me. My review from a few hours earlier seems to have been deleted, leaving only the videos I uploaded. Check recent negative reviews before booking instead of looking only at the highest ratings. Other people apparently had similar communication problems a couple of months ago. The hotel replied that they'd try to improve, but it doesn't seem they've learned from those mistakes.