Possibly the best hotel in Sri Lanka
Having lived in Sri Lanka for many years, I've stayed in most, if not all of the top hotels. This is the first time I've given any hotel top rating. We arrived on Tue 6th Oct intending to stay just two nights with an itinerary of other hotels lined up for the next 2 weeks. In the end, we extended our stay at the Lighthouses to 12 days and have just reluctantly checked out on Sunday 18th. When we arrived, we were a little apprehensive that COVID and lack of guests would translate to reduced amenities or poor service due to reduced staff. Someone left a book in the room which is a short and engaging biography of Herbert Cooray, the founder of Jetwing and after reading that, we discovered that the Jetwing ethos is never to lay off staff They didn't during the worst of the civil war, or as a result of past civil unrest, or after tourists fled in the wake of the Tsunami and later the terrible Easter bombings of 2019. Now again, COVID has reduced tourism in the country to literally zero. But Jetwing have kept all their staff employed. Every morning, both pools are cleaned, gardens are tended and everything is kept spick and span. just as it would have been in periods of full occupancy. I don't think we were treated any better than we would have been in a period of high occupancy, but the fact that everything ran like clockwork, apparently just for us, did make us feel rather like royalty.
This is just a superb hotel. The larger of the two pools by the seaside ranks as one of the top 3 in the many we have visited in our long lives as expatriates. Maybe it's rivalled by Kitchwa Tembo in Kenya, where you can look down on giraffes and lions on the plains below. The pool at another Sri Lankan hotel, the Kandalama is fairly special too. But this one is right up there.
It's not a cheap hotel and is of such a high standard that it couldn't be. But what is amazing is that the food and beverage are so affordable. A bottle of decent wine is just 2/3 of the cost of the cheapest wine available in (say) the Hill Club and hardly more than true clubs such as the Nuwara Eliya Golf Club, or the Colombo Motor Yacht Club, both of which we are members of. The standard of the food is just wonderful. At this point due to import restrictions, meats are limited to locally produced chicken, pork and seafood. We know from past experience that the buffet they lay on is superb, but as we were the only people there for the most of the time, we either ordered a la carte or had a chat with the Chef who was happy to produce things not on the standard or set menus. We tried him out with a request for Thai green curry and on the last night asked for Singapore chili crab. All was produced to a really high standard of excellence.
During our stay, we viewed all three types of room. The Main Wing, the newer Spa Wing and even one of the suites - which was just out of this world. The Main Wing rooms are right next to the sea and we were lulled to sleep every night by the booming of the surf, which we love. The Spa Wing has rooms that are set further back from the sea and overlook the main pool. They are more modern than the Main Wing rooms and possibly better appointed (we're not sure) so it falls to individual taste.
In Sri Lanka, staff training can be an issue (we know that very as we have had our own small Company here for nearly 25 years and our staff are wonderful, but it hasn't always been easy). In the Lighthouse, the staff are in my opinion better trained than in any other hotel in the country. Better even than in the more expensive hotel Saman Villas (also a wonderful hotel with different attributes but we definitely prefer the Lighthouse). The staff at the Lighthouse have clearly been trained to give the guests space and not constantly bombard them with request asking if they need anything or whether the "food is OK?" which in some hotels can get a bit trying after the 5th person has asked the same question. But they are observant and attentive from a distance. I dropped a spoon at one point and it was replaced in a millisecond.
Negatives? Difficult to find any without nitpicking. The gym was a bit too hot for my liking and some of the outside lights on the balcony either didn't work or were flickering. They would have fixed them if we'd asked, but it was so trivial, we didn't bother. I would also say that maybe they might invest in larger TVs. They were adequate but probably about 22in and that far from the bed (the rooms by the way really are BIG) it would be better to have 36in. Or maybe I'm just going blind in my old age...
Oh yes. We travel everywhere with our own IPTV system to watch moves and boxed sets. From experience, we have found that many Sri Lankan hotels - even 5 star ones in Colombo - often have the most basic of TV systems using a satellite system such as Dialog and as an electronics engineer, I'm often irritated by the poor quality of the picture in many hotels that could be easily fixed with a better distribution system. But the Lighthouse was very much better than most in that regard.
Finally, I'll end this essay with a note about the internet access. Because we work online, it would not have been possible for us to stay for long if it had been like a 5 star hotel we recently stayed in in Colombo (which shall be nameless). There the download speed was around 5MBps and upload less than 1MBps. At the lighthouse the wi-fi seemed to work everywhere and I measured 30MBps upload and a surprising 15MBps upload. They must have a fiber link. I daresay that we were the only guests for a lot of the time helped.
Diana and I thoroughly enjoyed our stay and we'll return as often as we possibly can. Sri Lanka is a wonderful country and has had to pick itself up so many times over the last 40 years or so. It's resilient and will get through the current COVID era which it's handling sensibly and bravely. When it does, there are places like the Lighthouse for people to discover.
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