Reviews of Amba Yaalu - Thema Collection "The first women-led hotel in Sri Lanka" 4 stars

Amba Yallu offered a beautiful boutique stay, within a serene environment and with a very welcoming and personable team who were always accommodating and friendly. Many thanks to the team, especially Champika and the gym attendant. Great breakfast and lovely pool. The drivers quarters were also very accommodating. Thank you for the stay. We can’t wait to come back.

The service is a little slow, but the friendly staff make up for it!

Really cool interiors and a very friendly staff!

Felt a bit far away from things, but we had everything that we needed right on site.

Amazing hotel with more than 400 mango trees and a wonderful staff! Probably, being a fully female-led hotel makes the difference not only in envisioning a new way of doing business, but also in guaranteeing a high standard level of service!

Beautiful pool. Nice atmosphere and friendly staff

Everything took long: check-in, getting food and drinks etc. And a shame you don’t have clear view of the lake

Wonderful hotel on shore of Kandalama lake. Sizeable, comfortable rooms, all with views to the mango garden and the lake beyond. Beds were comfortable and the day bed inside and spacious balcony were well utilised for relaxation. Bathrooms are well equipped with powerful showers, and there is an external bath tub on the balcony. The staff were fabulous - friendly, helpful and welcoming. They seemed to enjoy working there and this came across in the service. Although it is women-led, and the majority of the staff are women, don't be surprised to find men working in the spa and also kitchen areas. The swimming pool is magnificent and the pictures don't do it justice. We spent many hours in the infinity pool gazing at the view to the garden and hills in the distance. There is also a pool table, but we didn't get to use it as it is very popular! There is one main restaurant for tasty buffet breakfasts and dinners (with a la carte option). There is also a bar area, which serves a la carte food from the restaurant. The walk round the garden with the naturalist to talk about mangoes was excellent and should not be missed.

The service in the bar area is hit-and-miss and sometimes took much longer than you would expect for the number of waiting customers. The air-conditioning in the rooms wasn't always effective - possibly due the positioning of the units near the door into the room. The food options are a bit limited if you stay more than a few nights and the hotel's location means it is a bit of an effort to find restaurants outside. Also, they do need to install fly deterrents in the enclosed breakfast buffet area.

The hotel far exceeded my expectations and I wish I had booked more than one room so we could have taken advantage of the place more! Staff were exceptional and the setting perfect.

The hotel is in a peaceful location.

We felt that some of the staff at the hotel were not very friendly or accommodating. It also seemed quite disorganised particularly at breakfast. It’s a buffet so staff are there to clear plates and bring drinks. We had to ask for coffee five times before it arrived, the first time they brought tea, we asked for water which never arrived. It actually felt over staffed in the hotel at times so we couldn’t understand why they were not able to get these small tasks right.

We loved this place. Stayed 5 nights to reject after travelling around for 3 weeks in Sri Lanka. The atmosphere is very pleasant at the resort. The feminine energy makes it very welcoming and comfortable. Staff is super friendly and accommodating. Food is nice too! And loved the mango garden!

The pool water was not very clean, therefore less inviting to swim in. Ordering food a la cart took very long time. A d dinner buffet didn’t open till 19.30 which was a bit inconvenient with our 2 year old. It’s far for Sigiriya

All the wonderful female staff Mango yoghurt at breakfast Views snd comfortable rooms Bath on the balcony Buffet dinner good value

Some staff have quite poor levels of English

The setting of this well designed modern yet intimate hotel making reference to local culture in its manicured operational mango grove against the backdrop of a lake and mountains. The team of staff are no less impressive from that of the administration, in the grounds, the kitchen, reception, dining room, bar and cleaning. The selection of local dishes changed daily, being prepared, presented and served with care…the food was a delight.

Having to leave….

The ethos behind this hotel is incredible and we are fully supportive of its aims. It is unique from a sustainability point of view as well as being run solely by women. We had an enjoyable time particularly enjoying my birthday ,the food, the scenery and time in the swimming pool. As a group we felt that at times the service provided in a number of areas could have been better , which would have made our holiday more memorable for the right reasons. We appreciated the gestures of goodwill by the staff on the back of our feedback and we noticed a marked difference in service at our last breakfast. We were pleased to see that our constructive feedback had been taken on board .

As you know, we were a large party of 9 and we had one Suite (Parvati) , and three separate rooms (210, 103 and 104). We are providing this feedback to help staff reach their full potential and consequently take this hotel from strength to strength. I will set out feedback in themes below: a) Communication - this is our key feedback . We appreciate that English is not the first language of your workforce. Even though all the staff were very friendly there needs to be a basic level of English . There were many miscommunications - eg at the reception desk it was difficult to get clear answers about the hotel’s sustainability policy ( no leaflet in the room ) ; it took many attempts to get the price list for for the spa (there was no leaflet in our room) and we received details a day later ; we requested a laundry pickup and told someone would come up shortly - we waited for over an hour and my husband decided to take it down to the staff. b) Housekeeping - as we explained last night, in terms of the price point this hotel leans more into the 4/5 star category and therefore as a customer there some standard expectations, specifically in terms of house keeping. There was a general lack of attention to detail which meant that the longer our stay went on we became increasingly frustrated with the service - On the first day two rooms had blocked shower trays. We called for service and it was remedied immediately . However it requires us to call to explain this. Water bottles for room 104 were not always filled post daily morning clean. One day we called reception 3 times for more water and eventually we had to go down to reception to get more water. Parvati suite was not cleaned on 3 August until late afternoon. This meant that my brother and wife were unable to use the room in the afternoon . It was shame as they had a fantastic panoramic view they could not enjoy on an afternoon we had deliberately planned to have a half day in the hotel.

The hotel is located in a perfect setting, the garden is beautiful as well as the lake and the surrounding mountains. The staff is very helpful and friendly. Food was also great! The atmosphere was very relaxing.

I would never recommend this hotel to anyone. Never again. The service was very bad. The rooms were very dirty. I had bugs in my bed, and it took for them two hours to change our sheets. And I kept calling them. It was late at night, and I had to go to sleep, and I waited for them to come and change the sheets. Five of them came, and then left, then arrived, then left, just so that they would change the bed sheets. Very bad experience. I would never recommend it to anyone. The thing is, no one came and apologized. No one from the management. Not even when we were checking out. We just checked out. We didn't even have breakfast. They didn't ask us why. They didn't say anything. And when we were leaving, we had asked an adapter from them. They just came running after the car just to ask for the adapter, although the adapter was left in the room. The price is way too much for the service or anything they were asking for. The pool, you couldn't even use the pool because the water was greeny. It was very bad. Very bad experience. No one was in the pool just because they had decided to clean the pool. I don't know why. Were they cleaning or they're not? I have no idea. Very, very bad experience. Not recommended.

Lovely staff. Accommodating and good hospitality Spacious room Balcony with bathtub Pool

The room was advertised with mango mocktails tasting and garden walk, but when I enquired the front desk, they were not aware of that.only mango experience was the welcome drink and breakfast fruit option, mangos are sold at 1000 Rs per mango which i managed to buy 650 Rs per kg in a nearby mango farm ( the same type of mango) We had to pay 500 Rs per pool as an additional rate, which was the first time I had to pay a hotel entertainment as additional. I did stay in tea and experience hotel in the same chain in Feb 2025, and I did not encounter such a fee. The restaurant was set on an open concept and the food is inside a closed room. The push and pull should be in the reverse manner as it's harder to pull when coming out from the food area with plates in hand.

Loved the decor and the ambience of the hotel. So serene.

Nothing really.

The hotel was awesome! First we were welcomed with refreshing wipes and nice juices. They also made some kind of nice ritual with candles. Then we went to our room,which was so big,clean and comfy. Also we had a bathtub on the balcony. There was super big mango garden,where you can take walks and you can visit the nearby lake. There were several activities like big beautiful chess and ping pong. The food was a great combination of traditional and international food. It had great presentation and was delicious. The best thing in this hotel was THE STAFF. Everyone was so nice, always there to help you and assist. They were always smiling. We loved the manager,the cleaning ladies,all the girls from reception and restaurant. So nice! We reallyliked a girl named Sachini, which was mainly on the ba, she was super nice. My personal favorite one though was the NATURALIST!!! Her name was Sithumi. We definitely recomend going on the safari tour with her. She was so so so nice,always helping out and she knew so much about all animals! She saw birds for maybe 2 seconds and already knew the kind! So impressive! She was caring for all of us so much! Definitely recomend this hotel and we would love to come back❤️

We loved everything

Everything was just perfect! The food was delicious, the team super attentive and caring.

Everything was perfect.

Exceeded expectations, great peaceful location, wonderful staff.