EKHO Sigiriya — Attraction in Sri Lanka

EKHO Sigiriya is located facing the Sigiriya rock. The venue had been used as the Sigiriya Rest House building close to a century ago, which had been refurbished to suit as a present-day holiday venue.

From the moment we arrived, the EKHO Sigiriya team made us feel warmly welcomed. The ladies are greeted with a Lotus flower, while all are served with a welcome drink unique to this location and region. There was a unique virtual simulation of King Kashyapa period for 02 minutes for all, and for those interested, there was a lengthy version of the same at a cost. This was quite creative and unique, where a 360-degree simulation was made possible.

The rooms were comparatively spacious. Although some of the previous reviews mentioned a stench in the bathrooms, the said concern seems to have been addressed by the team and the bathroom had a cinnamon aroma during our visit, which was quite pleasant. Further, the bed was very comfortable.

The gardens are well-kept and had a peaceful environment. The pool is located under the shade of several trees, making it welcoming to get in even in middle of the day. Nevertheless, we observed that there was no adjacent shower to use, prior to getting in to the pool. Yet the pool was very well kept, while there were plenty of clean pool towels and chairs available.

We visited on a long weekend. The lunch had an Ala Carte menu, which was rather delicious. There was a dinner buffet, including a barbeque. The options at the barbeque were limited, but well prepared by the chefs. The breakfast was also a buffet, where the choices were limited, but reasonably tasty and value for money. Nevertheless, the variety can be improved. The background music at the lobby/restaurant area was calm and appropriate for the venue. There was a single person musical entertainment which started during the late evening and continued to the night. The musician seemed very talented, both in singing and instrument wise, and we observed that even the passersby applauded his performance.

EKHO Sigiriya is located in walking distance to Sigiriya rock, as well as to Mapagala rock, which has a very scenic view.

All the staff who attended to us were quite friendly. The whole team was very professional, friendly, attentive and were always ready to listen and accommodate our requests, to make our stay rather memorable. Especially, Nilakshi gave us a warm welcome to the venue, meanwhile Udesh was very attentive throughout our stay, while looking after overall operations.

EKHO Sigiriya, feels as being located next-door to Sigiriya, is definitely a recommendable place for...

Do not book - terrible management and customer service from EKHO.

TL;DR Management was unhelpful, absent and dismissive (though the rest of the staff were very nice) I sent the below email to EKHO customer service and 2 weeks later, they haven't had the decency to reply To say this is a luxury hotel is nothing short of a joke - whilst I'm sure it was nice at one point, there has been no investment for many years

On the first evening we had a big issue with lizards in our room. At about 7pm we saw one crawl across our bed and called two people to help remove them. After approximately 10 minutes of trying the lizards scurried under the bed and the employees said “call us back when you see them again”. My partner simply pulled out the torch on his phone and found them in less than 1 minute.

We asked to change rooms as we could see that there were open/broken panels in the ceilings in both the bedroom and bathroom that lizards could easily crawl into, but were informed there were no spare rooms available. When we returned from dinner at 10:30pm we were told that they had managed to find a room - by which point, you’ll appreciate that it was very late and we weren’t going to move.

There was also no manager to speak to at any point during this incident.

This incident made the room very dusty and dirty - which triggered my partner’s asthma. However, our room was not cleaned once during our stay. Our towels weren’t changed, we had no spare toilet paper, and the bin had no bin liner which meant by the time we checked out the bin was overflowing.

This is supposed to be a 4* resort and it was instead worse than any homestay we have stayed in during our time in Sri Lanka - for which I would’ve paid a fraction of the price.

To top this off, when we checked out the small compensation I was offered (only after speaking with 3 members of staff), was a free lunch worth less than 5% of our total $170+ room bill. The manager was totally unhelpful, barely apologised and acted as though he was doing me a favour by not charging for this lunch. Our reports of the shortcomings in the accommodation and service were met...

We stayed at this property for 2 nights (feb 1 and 2, 2020).

The property is nice with beautifully wooden furniture and two small lawns. Everything else was a huge disappointment.

Bathroom Wasn’t very clean. The towels were especially unclean.

Room Rooms are quite compact and the floor was unclean. They refused to have the room cleaned in the evening (around 4) saying the cleaning staff has left.

Food We has breakfast included in our booking. Day 1 - They had a buffet with western and Sri Lankan options. Decent variety but everything was cold. They were not the least bit accommodating. They had boiled and scrambled eggs on the buffet. We requested omelettes and they flat out refused. Day 2 - Their breakfast timing was 7 - 9 30 Am. We went to the dining area at 8 45. They said they have run out of Sri Lankan breakfast and can only provide western breakfast. We don’t eat meat and so all we could eat were eggs.

Service It was my husband’s birthday the day after we checked in. At the time of check in, I asked them if they could arrange a cake to be delivered to our room at midnight. Their first response was - no, since their kitchen closes at 9 30. To which I said they could have it prepared by evening and put it in our room or recommend some bakery where I could go pick up the cake. Mr. Amit at the reception then assured me they could have a cake prepared and put in our room around dinner time. At around 9 pm, I went to check about the cake and the gentleman at the reception says there is no cake and it cannot be prepared now as the kitchen is closing. He then fished out a small piece of sponge cake from the breakfast menu and I had to make do with it.

Overall, our experience was filled with disappointments and...