Shan Guest and Nilaveli

The location around Shan Guest House is overgrown and poorly maintained, and we found a large snake in the bathroom. Cleanliness was a serious problem throughout: the rooms and bathrooms were dirty, and the pool was filthy. After swimming, my skin started itching. I wouldn’t consider it a safe or comfortable place to stay in its current state. We also got no help when the power went out at night. Nobody checked on us or the other guests. Room prices were confusing as well: two different people quoted two different charges for the same stay. I can’t recommend the guest house. They need to improve maintenance, cleanliness, and customer service before hosting guests again.

The staff were friendly, and the hotel is close to the beach. Those were the only good parts of our stay. The room and pool were in awful shape. The pool water had bugs in it the whole time, though guests were still swimming. In our room, the sheets were dirty, there was a cockroach running around that we had to kill ourselves, and bugs were on the curtains. There were spiders and cobwebs on the ceiling, too. The bathroom had a clump of hair and lots of bugs in the shower, urine drops in the toilet, and a broken toilet seat detached from its base. It felt unhygienic and unsafe, and clearly hadn’t been cleaned properly. I don’t understand the hotel’s high Booking.com rating. It didn’t match what we experienced. If you’re on a tight backpacker budget and won’t spend much time there, it might be just about acceptable. For a holiday stay, though, I wouldn’t recommend it at all.

The hotel has a good location and potential, but it’s badly managed. The pool area was poorly maintained, the photos were misleading, and our room had hundreds of ants, a dead cockroach, frogs, and other insects. Staff sprayed insecticide in the room while we were still inside after we complained, but the insects were back the next day. There was a lot of trash at the far end of the garden, too. We cancelled our third night. The manager first agreed, then charged us 32% more for the first two nights. The bill was so unclear that I only noticed afterward. I was especially disappointed because I’d booked two expensive boat trips with Siva, the manager’s boatman, and the manager received a commission. I would not recommend this hotel.

We spent three days here, and the nearby beach, about a ten-minute walk away, and the range of restaurants were the best parts. The rest was disappointing, and the price didn’t feel fair for what we got. There were ants throughout the room, along with frogs, grasshoppers, and other bugs. The place wasn’t clean, and flushing the toilet made the bathroom smell really bad. The air conditioning was hard to operate. The lighting was so harsh it felt like a hospital room. The pool was unpleasant and didn’t seem to meet basic hygiene standards. I wouldn’t recommend staying here.