Mount Lavinia Hotel

Colonial style hotel with a top location. Stunning view of Colombo. A must visit for first time visitors to Sri Lanka 🇱🇰

Great view Friendly staff

Need renovation

Fantastic! Good variation.

The coffe.

I checked into Mount Lavinia Hotel on February 19, 2026, for a two-night stay, but unfortunately left shortly after arrival due to very poor conditions. From the moment I arrived, the hotel appeared poorly maintained. My room was dark, damp, and unclean— completely unacceptable and far below expectations. There were several noticeable issues, including a torn mattress, bathroom drainage problems, dirty curtains, visible moisture damage on the walls, and ineffective air conditioning. The hallways were also concerning, with uncleared food trays, unpleasant odors, and inadequate lighting, which added to the overall feeling of neglect. I reported these concerns to reception, and the duty manager kindly offered an alternative room described as their “best room,” but it was in a similar condition and equally disappointing. This was especially surprising given that it was in the newly remodeled wing of the hotel. Given the circumstances, I chose to check out without staying the night. Fortunately, I had not yet been charged or asked to provide a credit card at check-in, which further reflected a lack of proper procedures. Overall, this was a very disappointing experience, particularly for a hotel with such a well-known reputation and location. Significant improvements in cleanliness and maintenance are clearly needed. I do not recommend Mount Lavinia Hotel-avoid it at all costs.

If you want a luxurious room where everything works, don't go here. But if you want a hotel with a charming old colonial character reminiscent of another age, with wonderful views and sunsets over the Indian Ocean and a huge selection of tasty food at prices that won't break the bank, then this is the place to stay. The carpets are not the cleanest, and there are musty smells in places, but the charm of a bygone era shines through from the liveried doormen to the small dance band which sometimes accompanies dinner. If you arrive by train, the station of the same name is a two minute walk away. The pool was clean and a decent size, and the private beach was supplied with sunbeds and towels.

Staff were friendly and helpful especially the staff in the restaurant. I can’t same the same about the staff managing the pool bar. We ordered a couple of sparkling wines for our sunset and they didn’t arrive. Order was given to the manager. Manager was sitting around doing nothing and not managing staff!

Our room was needing maintenance. We were only given 2 bath towels and no bath mat or hand towel. We could not access one of the beach from our hotel as the gate was permanently locked. The beach itself was dirty. On one side the hotel was burning rubbish and it stunk while the other side has so much plastic and rubbish on the beach.

Lovely Colonial Hotel in a Scenic Location.

Since I booked from United Kingdom on Booking.com; I was shown a price in GBP. Especially since it was a prepaid rate I assumed that my Credit Card would be charged! When booking; there was Nothing to say about the price being calculated in USD!! Also that you pay the exchange rate of that day in Rupees LKR!! Especially since the exchange rate is so Volatile in Sri Lanka (changes by the Hour)!! So the GBP price I saw when I booked on Booking.com is Completely MEANINGLESS and MISLEADING!! Having paid for the room on Check-in, in “Rupees”; when I tried to pay my dinner bill on Check-out; the Receptionist charged me AGAIN for the Room (already paid) which I Didn’t Realise as I didn’t “study the bill”!! Later Refunded! The Staff Cannot be BOTHERED to Respond to a Request (made via Booking.com); but are Eager to send messages advertising how much all the Hotel’s Additional Facilities cost!! Utterly SELFISH Attitude!!

We stayed here in January 2026, hoping to escape miserable English weather, which we did. We have spent time in Sri Lanka before and visited most of the ‘must see’ locations. This time we were just looking for R&R. We booked with Charlotte of Mercury holidays who was very helpful, as was their local rep Dexter. Transfer was very efficient if terrifying through the Columbo traffic. Like everyone we were impressed by the entrance to the hotel, but again, seemingly like many other guests, very unimpressed by the check-in process. We were left a long time in reception with nothing happening until husband made indignant enquiries. Eventually we were shown our room; very conveniently located and a stunning view but hot, the aircon seemed to be doing nothing. We were offered another room, but the view was poor, and the aircon no better. We were told later that the aircon is controlled centrally so no amount of fiddling with the control in the room will make any difference. So we stuck with our original room and got used to the aircon, or lack of it. Room 111. Some of the light bulbs didn’t work, reporting this made no difference. One towel for the two of us. No response to request for morel, but pouncing on supplies from the housekeeping trolley worked. It is a big hotel; we asked if there was a plan of it. Reception looked at us as if we were mad. Though without a map, Husband eventually found the gym. We loved the pool and spent every morning there. Lots of tables but only 10 parasols. You need to be out there soon after 9 am to get one. Friendly Vanderlay is i.c. parasols and he does a great job. The pool terrace is adjacent to the dining room, so it is very easy to bring your lunch and eat by the pool with a drink from the pool bar. We loved the food, we were full board. Great provision for vegetarians of course. Bottles of acceptable wine were 10,000 rupees. Fine, but remember there will be an additional service charge of 1000 rupees plus about 800 tax. This is not made clear in advance. As noted by another review there seems to be plenty of restaurant staff but many of them wandering around aimlessly and not attending to guests. We found one exception, a young man called Rasik Santalfo (spelling?) who is a trainee on the hotel’s catering and hospitality course (yes, we were surprised that this course exists in this hotel) He was very watchful, attending to guests and with a very pleasant friendly manner. Please promote this young man! Finally if you need assistance, Dilhan is the person to ask. He is part of the front desk staff and actually sees it as his job to be helpful. Husband dropped his phone into water, of course it stopped working. Dilhan arranged a TukTuk to take husband to a local repair shop. Phone call from shop summoning Tuktuk to fetch husband to pick up phone all well within two hours . Phone fixed, new display, four tuktuk rides £30 uk money. In the UK it would have been ‘ok sir, come back next week, we will try to have a look at it’. So overall we enjoyed the holiday. Some infuriating aspects but compensations - helpful Dilhan especially made a great difference. Great food, beautiful views, general quirkiness and the charm of the ‘Six Five Special steaming down the line over the points, over the points etc.’ (showing age here). The trains run along the beach, hooting hopefully to warn people walking along the tracks, and we loved it!