Zen House

Sehr schönes Anwesen! Tolle ruhige Lage, klein und fein 👌 .

Einzige negativ war der Kaffee. Eine gute Kaffeemaschine wäre eine gute Investition

We loved our stay at Zen House - it's a small boutique place with just 4 rooms. The rooms are clean and nicely decorated, the garden and pool area are lovely spaces. We particularly enjoyed that the surroundings were quiet, but we were able to travel over to Ahangama for the best coffees, cafes and beach with a short tuktuk ride (5 mins). Also, a special thank you to the staff for being really attentive!

Breakfast was included, but any further food (lunch or dinner) needs to be ordered (a bit in advance) and the prices are on the higher end.

I loved that is was located a short ride away from the busy streets of ahangama, it was very secluded, tranquile, and it was very nice to walk around in the nabourhood. The place itself is beautiful, so are the staff working there. Food is great, had a massage that was excellent.

Unfortunately, Zen House was the least hospitable hotel throughout our entire Sri Lanka vacation. As soon as we entered our room, they knocked on our door and demanded payment. Before check-out, they interrupted breakfast to remind us of the check-out time, and while we were packing up, they knocked again, demanding payment for what we had eaten. If you don't want to handle these things as guests are leaving, collect the hotel fee before check-in and use instant payment in the restaurant. Interrupting breakfast to demand payment at a specific time, and knocking on doors demanding payment while people are in their rooms – is this appropriate for a hotel of this caliber? However, the hotel itself is beautiful, surrounded by greenery, and clean. The pool only comes up to our waists, making it an inconvenient swimming experience. It's far from the center, requiring Uber or Pickme, but even then we struggled, as there were times when the app needed a suitable vehicle. Restaurant options are limited, and waiting times for orders are long. The toilet flush in one of our rooms broke, and they spent about an hour repairing it; the flush in our other room was also weak. A management touch focused on Sri Lankan hospitality and customer satisfaction is needed. This was our 3rd trip to Sri Lanka, we’ll come as long as we live but we’ll never stay here again.

A management touch focused on Sri Lankan hospitality and customer satisfaction is needed.

This hotel is absolutely stunning and looks just like the photos online. It’s quiet and chilled, with only having 4 rooms which is lovely. We paid extra for the nicest room for our honeymoon and it was beautiful. The staff were extremely helpful and kind. Went to extra efforts for our honeymoon, ordered us tuk tuks constantly and were just generally very friendly. The location is great! It’s not in the centre of Ahangama but in the backstreets where it’s quite residential and chilled but there is a great selection of restaurants and cafes you can walk too. There’s a lovely cafe 1 min walk away from the hotel and the others are about ten minutes away. We absolutely loved The Kip and Sea.sons for brunch and dinner and it was nice to not have to venture into the busy centre sometimes. I would definitely recommend this hotel if you want something a bit higher end but small.

The hotel wasn’t cheap and I do think there are a few small improvements that could be made if I’m being picky. Firstly the WiFi doesn’t reach the bedrooms or pool area which was frustrating. Breakfast was ok but not amazing and also had to be ordered the night before so we actually went out a few times for breaky instead. Lunch was nice but the day we arrived half the menu wasn’t available and we couldn’t even order a coffee which was disappointing. Lunch and one drink then took an hour to be made which was a really long time to wait to say there was only two of us eating. We over ordered as the menu didn’t explain that some dishes came with chips so we ended up with more than we needed. The room and bathroom were huge but there wasn’t a full length mirror or a mini fridge which could easily fit. No mirror in the bedroom at all. We had access to a water filter machine but it wasn’t cold. This sounds a bit odd but the bath and pool towels were a very strange quality and the only way I describe them was like getting dry on a thin crispy tea towel. Not nice at all and very rough on the skin, especially if you have sunburn. They were lovely to look at and went with the aesthetic of the hotel but a nice fluffy towel would have been more comfortable. Lastly the bathroom was so hot! There wasn’t a fan or air con in there so by the time you got out the shower and got sorted you’d be sweating in need of another shower. Only the bathroom had a mirror, not the bedroom so you had to get ready in the bathroom which made it worse. The room only has shutters and no curtains so it was pitch black in the morning and no daylight coming through. Same in the bathroom so you either had to open the shutters and let flys in to get some air or keep them shut and be in the hot and dark. A voile over the main door would be good as people round the pool could see you laying in bed during the day if you wanted to be inside with the shutters open, it wasn’t very private.

My stay was calm and truly homely. The staff were extremely sweet and made us feel very comfortable throughout.

The place

Is was a good place , pleasant. It is not a 5 star , but more 4. Personnel is good, but the restaurant was not open and the breakfast is not worthy the 15 dollars. It is good, but not so good.