Blue Turtle Hotel in Tissamaharama

The hotel grounds are well kept gardens and a big pool area, but beware of the millions of mosquitoes. The whole place overall is a bit lifeless and run down. The beds around the pool are torn. The rooms are old, we had the creakiest, most uncomfortable bed, very old air conditioner, and the bathroom is big but very outdated and needs a really good clean. If you are on the ground floor, the upstairs room and stairs are very loud. The one staff member that we dealt with was pleasant. Did not eat here apart from the included good breakfast as it was always so quiet. They do provide a takeaway breakfast for the early safari which is good. There's a big parking area and the location is tucked away down a quiet road. But overall would not come here again. However Tissa itself is not a nice place either. Compared to Ella and Sigiriya, there is no effort to make this a nice area for tourists. The restaurants are scruffy and all the people seem to just want to make money off you. It is much more expensive to eat here than everywhere else we have travelled so far (Negombo, Kandy, Sigirya, Ella). We did not go to Yala as it gets bad reviews (even from locals) for being too busy and at risk of animal exploitation. Every jeep safari is a private tour which is not good for eco-tourism, so every morning we were told that about 200 jeeps queue through the park looking for a leopard which you have a 50% chance of seeing. We did a safari to Bundala NP instead through 'Yala Leopard Eye Safaris' and it was wonderful. Our guide was so knowledgeable and it was like we had the park to ourselves and we saw everything that you get to see in Yala, plus thousands of amazing bird species.