Amanwella

Very nice very clean beautiful beach good food

After staying at Amangalla, which was absolutely fantastic, we came to Amanwella. We were a little apprehensive after having had such a great time at the first hotel. But Amanwella was great, too! The architecture by famous Australian, Kerry Hill, is stunning and smack dab in the middle of a dreamy tropical beach! The infinity pool cantilevers over the serene and gorgeous view, with beautiful sunsets a-plenty. We enjoyed spending time in the attractive library, read and saw books on local history, to Nixon. The whole place was immaculate. We really enjoyed our safari to Yala National Park. Rujitha and an our driver Chummly accompanied us and they were awesome! Thank you guys! We had a blast! We saw monkeys, elephants and even a leopard! We got very lucky. We enjoyed the food and the people who served us in the two restaurants and the people at the front desk and even the tuk tuk drivers. We happily did yoga everyday! We also went up to the rock temple. Definitely got our steps in for the month, but it was worth it. Our room was large, comfortable, and beautiful with a great view of the ocean. We can’t say enough about the place. It’s relaxing and beautiful and the people who work there are both well trained but also kind. If you go, don’t forget to eat the ice cream! Honestly the best we’ve ever had. We also took a great cooking class with the Executive Sous Chef, who was patient, friendly and knowledgeable. So fun and interesting. We enjoyed the musicians, too! We had fun meeting a few of the other guests, and ended up having very interesting conversations with people from the other side of the world. But it’s also a place you could go and if you wanted to , you could just spend time quietly by yourself. Highly recommend Amanwella. We will treasure our memories forever.

This was my 6th Aman experience and not the best one. The positive’s: I arrived in the evening so didn’t get a sense of how stunning the beach was. One of the best I have seen in Sri Lanka was a combination of golden sands, blue water and palm trees. Grounds are nice, villas are posh GM Carl, checks on you daily. There was a strong start to the Aman hospitality at check-in. They do not have TVs and their response was, we will happy to instal one. The food was really good in both the beach club and the main restaurant. The reality: Activities are hit or miss due to weather, I appreciate the effort to make sure everything is great, but you need to make the decision to go forward with an experience more than 2 hours before you go. City tour was off brand and the transfers were both bad. The negatives: Going to the hotel the driver was speeding in the rain, coming back another driver had no clue where he was going. We messaged our butler and he basically said he wasn’t working for another 3 hours (not what you want to hear). We stopped at the other Aman to grab a drink and use the facilities. We ran into another manager from Amanwella. He said he came to check on us which was really nice, but he didn’t talk to the driver or see us off to make sure the 2nd half of the drive went smoothly. Which it didn’t.

The thing that makes Aman unique is the staff some of whom become friends. The entire team at Amanwella went out of their way to help make our trip extraordinary. The highlight of our visit was a surprise and very private beach side dinner planned without us even knowing by Piyumi. She delivered one of the most memorable experiences that we have enjoyed in nearly 40 years of travel. Thank you Piyumi, Mahesh, Nirosh, and the entire Amanwella family for a wonderful experience. You are the best