Hotel Mount Valley & Yala Safari

We had the place to ourselves, and the staff were friendly and helpful. It’s clean and comfortable, and reasonably priced. There aren’t many places to eat in Tissa, but the Sri Lankan curries at the hotel were delicious. Breakfast was OK, and they gave us spicy onion toasted sandwiches that made a good safari snack. It’s handy for the supermarket and bus station.

The manager sorted out our Yala safari at a fair price and packed breakfast for our 4:30am start. Breakfast at the hotel was great too, and different each day. From the shared balcony, we had lovely rice field views, plus an amazing sight at sunset when thousands of bats flew past the back balcony. The place was very quiet, and I think we were the only guests. It's a nice new hotel, though the Wi-Fi was poor even with a full signal.

The room was just okay, and the service was poor. They'd be better off closing the hotel.

The air conditioning worked, which was the one positive. We were grateful to leave early for a safari and skip breakfast. The receptionist couldn't speak or understand English, and there was no window in the room. The water smelled bad and was about 50 degrees, so showering wasn't possible. The cooler smelled too, and our food came out smelling bad after we put it in there. The room was full of mosquitoes, so my wife couldn't sleep. There was only a small blanket, not big enough for two people, and the bed sounded like it might break when we sat on it. We didn't dare move while sleeping. This was the worst hotel we've stayed in during our two weeks traveling in Sri Lanka. They didn't know we'd booked, and even though the whole hotel was empty, they gave us the worst room imaginable.