TRULY WONDERFUL

Coco Bay hotel is truly wonderful! A little piece of heaven two hours from Colombo, nestled between Unawatuna and Galle, it feels like your own private island. We went for half board and they are happy to substitute lunch for dinner with a daily changing set dinner menu, an a la carte lunch menu and waiter service at breakfast – bliss! They have full English, omelette, waffles, cereal, bread basket with home made pastries and homemade jams (omg so good!). They are very proud of their food and they like to feed you as much of it as possible – waistline beware, it is too good!! The staff cannot do enough for you – they are so friendly and welcoming and just wonderful with the children. Housekeeping was excellent – there is a daily turn down service, freshly baked afternoon treats and iced mocktails midmorning. The hotel is right on the beach, the waves can be rough, and it can be windy, but there is also a small covered pool with a shallow section. Our 7 & 4 year olds loved both options and the life guard even lent them his body board to use in the sea. A point to note here: we did visit in early July which is considered the ‘low’ season. That said, it rained only a couple of times in ten days and we all have lovely sun tans! It felt like we had the place to ourselves for a few days. There was tonnes of wildlife – the kids enjoyed looking for crabs, monitor lizards, black crocks, bats, squirrels, frogs, turtles and fish around the grounds. As I mentioned earlier the hotel is on the south west coast. We went to Udawalawa national park one day which took 2.5 hours by taxi – the hotel manager Reny arranged all of this for us and we had the same car and driver for our airport transfers. We left at 8 and we’re home by 5 – well worth it, even with little ones. We also visited the local sea turtle conservation project – again arranged with our driver, but this time we went by tuk tuk. This was a wonderful experience, we paid extra and released some babies into the ocean. Galle and Unawatuna are accessible by tuk tuk, approximately 20 minutes – Galle is more upmarket but both are very enjoyable with lots of restaurants and well worth a visit. You can see the ancient town of Galle from Coco Bay beach! There are several public beaches nearby too – Wijaya and Unawatuna both have clear waters and nice restaurants – both are less windy and feel extremely hot though! Overall this was one of our best holidays yet – Coco Bay and its staff are just sublime! Wonderful people, wonderful setting, wonderful food! Five stars!!

Baker joanna