Villa Rosa

The hotel is amazing! Great location with beautiful view, nice and quiet at the same time close to the city center. The staff was very attentative and I had a great experience when the hotel manager arranged for a hike in the nearby hills with incredible scenery. He also took me to the local markets and helped me shop for local ingrediencies and ayurvedic medicine. The dinner at the hotel was really good, best curries I had in all my travels. I would highly recommend a stay in this unique hotel.

No issues

Villa Rosa is a beautiful property with stunning river views, tucked away from the chaos of downtown Kandy. The peaceful setting was exactly what I needed. The pool was the perfect temperature and a great spot to relax. Getting around was easy using Uber tuk-tuks. The staff were genuinely warm and helpful — always available, even though I visited during the low season. Breakfast and dinner at the property were excellent, with the Sri Lankan breakfast being a real highlight. It was a calm, comfortable base for my time in Kandy.

This isn’t a reflection on the quality of the property or the team — which were both excellent — but more a personal note for future travellers like me. I only realised shortly before arriving that the property is foreign-owned. I usually try to support locally owned accommodation to ensure tourism income stays within the community. That said, the villa is locally staffed, and the team were absolutely lovely and well looked after.

The sunset

Mouse droppings all over our bags and around the edge of the room and when we brought this up with the staff it was a known problem for that room and they seemed completely confused as to why we’d be unhappy about it. They couldn’t get in contact with their manager and only agreed to move us to another room at our insistence. The next morning was when we were due to check out at midday as per the details on booking.com but at 10.40 we were asked to be out of the new room by 11am and when I showed the staff that check out was midday they said they needed the room by 11am. Fortunately this time the manager was at the property so I instead when to speak to him and he agreed check out was indeed midday. I told the manager about the mouse droppings and he was entirely unsurprised and entirely unapologetic and just asked what we wanted. I said we would discuss this on check out but by the time we checked out he’d left and the discount offered was 10% off of one night and still no apology.

Absolutely gorgeous, peaceful location with incredible views, and brilliant for birdwatching. Large, comfortable rooms. Very helpful and lovely team who look after you very well. Friendly dogs. Beautiful pool. Perfect!

This isn’t a negative at all, but worth knowing that it’s a steep drive to and from town, but all very doable by tuktuk.

I travelled here with my elderly Mum. The staff were incredible and looked after us both so so well! The place is stunning and the pool such a beauty. We sat on our terrace and watched the wildlife for hours. Cannot fault this place.

The food was a little expensive which made travelling into town for food cheaper. But we might have done that anyhow.

Beautiful villa, gorgeous views, fantastic food and service

WiFi connection could have been better - and it was turned off in the evening which meant we couldn’t, for instance, stream a film or check emails

The location high up out of the hustle of the busy city, and the calming atmosphere was all part of the charm of this beautiful villa. The infinity pool was a draw for the children, although was cool & overcast our 2 days there mid April so I did not go in, and the monkeys they came to play around the waters edge added excitement to the trip. The food options were reasonably priced based on location and very tasty. The stall exceptionally warming. I really enjoyed the yoga studio below the pool open aired where I did my own practice. The villa also has a spa option with outside therapist which we did not try but looked beautiful. The owner German and he was extremely welcoming and helpful.

Only down side was the cost which was quite a bit more than we paid on other locations…it’s a steep drive up but fine if with local driver. You can’t really walk anywhere from here, but you wouldn’t want to. Min 2 nights stay, and as far as aware no family rooms.

Absolutely incredible. Everything was perfection!