Bolagala Agro Floating Resort in Negombo

I write this review as a warning to fellow travellers, we chose this hotel on the back of their amazing website which is wholly unrepresentative of the reality of a stay here. Upon checking in we immediately noticed the run down state of the place but as they had suffered in the recent floods initially chose to overlook this. We wanted 2 days of luxury to conclude our 20 day tour of this fantastic country and asked about the many experiences available on the website from indigenous healing treatments and therapy to craftsmanship like pottery, weaving, blacksmiths etc, none of which are available due to the floods, but still on the website! Ok simplistic things then, the nature walk, would we need suitable footwear etc? How many km long is it? Oh it’s just 300m… it is further to the toilet from the restaurant! Ok bull cart ride? Sorry no longer in operation due to the flood. Birdwatching then, where do we get the binoculars from? Sorry we don’t have them due to the flood! Ok we will go cycling? Yes sir you can do that it’s ok but we only have one bike, due to the flood! The owners of this hotel should stop embarrassing themselves and their young staff with this pathetic reliance on the floods as an excuse for providing nothing of which they advertise, I’m not unsympathetic to the flooding issue but the cost of a bicycle and binoculars is surely one they can afford or is that a final indication of throwing the towel in and closing down permanently?Anyway fine dining awaits as the website offers an extensive menu of tasty food, we were presented with one menu and asked if we could have one each to peruse, no sir we only have one for everyone to share, you guessed it, due to the floods! A basic little menu with a vastly reduced offering far from what the website promises, at this point a more senior person arrived to explain why all this was missing, all down to the floods, we were I should point out the hotels only guests that night. I informed her that I’m my country (England) that it is illegal to take payment for advertised goods and services and then not to provide them and asked if she thought it was fair to mislead guest in this way, we gave you a discount sir $180 instead of $300. This is true but it was never mentioned that this was because of a vastly reduced offering, more a case of doing us a favour, I informed her we would be checking out after breakfast cutting our stay short.At breakfast another senior member of the team attempted to get us to stay saying she could organise another bike (on the day we were due to leave) not this day and also now a bull cart ride, clearly been talking to ‘management’ who were frequently mentioned but never showed face, leaving the very young team to deal with the many many problems this establishment has. We left. Do yourself a favour and check was is on offer before you book here, you have been warned.

Not worth the money. There was no option to pay by card, we were told it's cos of the floods. We can't imagine how that could be affected by floods and also you can replace card machines within a day. They seem to be involved in some other unscrupulous activity by hiding their revenue. Flush doesn't work properly, rooms were very hot even with the AC, the phone doesn't connect to reception or anything. Says they provide butler service, we weren't given a way to contact the butler once in the room and the phone also didn't work. Staff needs training although they are very nice and obliging they lack training. There were no fans in the restaurant area and they blamed that too on the property being flooded. Well doesn't take more than a couple of hours to buy a new fan from arpico. They just seem to be running the property at minimal cost....not recommending at all and it is not worth the money they charge. Avoid