Hotel Ranweli Holiday Village

The hotel is located near Waikkal and about 8km in the north of Negombo. Travel time to colombo airport is approximately between 30 and 45 minutes (it may depend on the actual traffic situation).
Ranweli is a beachside resort, the way from the bungalows to the beach is not longer than 20m. The hotel is located on a peninsula, so you'll find the beach on the one side and a river on the other side. The river was only 2m from my bungalow separated by a "riverside beach".
Besides two jewelleries you can find a souvenir shop and a shop for personal belongings in the hotel.
The visitor center of Ranweli offers several excursions. I attended a guided tour through the mangrove areas near the hotel, the "nature walk" and a bicycle tour.
Aruna, our guide for the nature walk is biologist and he explained flora and fauna very interesting and knowledgeable. I was very well impressed of that, because it was not at all superficial! (I did another excursion with one of the beach boys and this was more like visiting a zoo: "look at this waran", "here is a monkey", ... but no further explanation at all.). I recommend the nature walk very much!!
The bike tour was very impressive, too. During the tour, we visited a tile fabric and a traditional market - perfect to become acquainted with country and people. Our guide at the bike tour was Roja (I hope, I spelled his name correctly).

The service was overwhelming. The staff is extremely friendly and attentive and they organise everything one could need. The english skills are very good and quite a lot of people speak german, too. I will definitely keep them in good mind.
The room service was always spotlessly. Everything was cleaned up and the beds were decorated with fresh flowers. I've never seen that before...
The hotel offers laundry service - I used it twice and I've chosen "express" (1 day service - actually it took only half a day!).
During my holidays I wanted to have two suits tailored. Instead of giving me the adress of a tailor, the reception organised a tailor, Jagath, to come to my bungalow, take my measures and - one week later - deliver the suits. Service can't be better.
As far as I had no complaints, I can't tell anything on handling them.

The food was great. There were buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Scrambled eggs, omelettes were freshly perpared and they did show-cooking at dinner-time. In the evenings they served a lot of curry dishes pretty mild and also hot and spicy ones. But you could always find something for European taste. A lot of fresh fruits and puddings were served for desert. The coice of food was sufficiently. I give only five stars in the rating, because I had a greater choice in another holiday.
The dinig area was well cleaned and they kept birds and squirrels (you can find a lot of them in the resort) outside. The atmosphere was fine - especially on the event of BBQ dinner. This dinner was prepared outside the restaurant in the yarden between pool and restaurant. Each table was iluminated with a candle. Very nice!!

Of course, the resort has a pool - sometimes the sport and animation guys organised pool volleyball. They also asked me for playing darts, table tennis, billard and fishing. In the visitor center, I booked a bike toor (see above). You could also hire a boat for paddling on the river.
In the evening, Ranweli offered entertainment in the Lounge.
Because of the rough see, they flagged "red" - swimming and snorkeling was impossible.
The hotel offeres serveral ayurvedic treatments. I enjoyed that fairly well.
Internet access is available (I didn't use it) and also a TV room (there is no TV in the bungalows).

The hotel is some years old and so are the bungalows. During my stay some have been renovated (which didn't disturb the holidays at all!). The rooms offered a lot of space and also the bathroom was fairly big. The A/C worked very well, but it was to loud. I had a remote control to regulate the temperature and switch it on or off. On request, the room boy organised a mosquito net for me.
The bungalow was not equipped with a TV and a fridge. A safe is available at the reception.
Room service was perfect as mentioned above.

To be well prepared for my holiday, I read a lot about Ranweli, even here on holidaycheck. I also read about the comments on the beach boys. Arriving at Ranweli, I booked a boat tour with one of the beach boys and I booked some other tours with the hotel (bike tour, nature walk) and with my resident manager, Deva Fernando. The resident manager offered a "B-Tour" - a tour to get acquainted with country and people. Included in this tour was
* traditional bull riding
* driving with a Sri Lankan train
* boat tour near Negombo with lunch on the boat
* city and fishing market in Negombo
* tile fabric.
This all for 25 Euro. The beach boy boat tour was for 10 Euro. If I compare this, and have a further look at the duration and guide's quality, I can't understand any recommendation for going with the beach boys. Just my opinion...
Also Deva Fernando organised a shopping tour to Colombo.
For the trips to Kandy (tooth-temple, botanical garden, herbal garden, elephants) and Chilaw (fishing market, hindu temple) I hired taxi drivers (Stanley Fernando to Kandy, very good, speaks English and German very well and Hector to Chilaw, also good, speaks English and German). The visitor center suggested to do this, because the taxi drivers have fixed prices, insurances and know a lot of the things to see. It was a good choice, I would go with them at any one time.
I want to point out finally, that I named some persons on this article. This does *not* mean, that all the others didn't do their job well. But they seem to be good points of contact for new visitors and they attended me outstandingly well.