We stayed in Holiday Inn in Colombo for 1 night st the beginning of our First Choice Discover Sri Lanka tour. The hotel rooms were clean and comfortable - slightly more shabby than Holiday Inn's in the UK but still comfortable. We ate our evening meal in one of the restaurants downstairs (I forget which one is was, as there were 2 I think) - I am vegetarian and there were limited choices on the menu, however when the waiter found out I was veggie, he arranged for the chef to make a mild vegetable dhal curry for me, which was really tasty. The breakfast buffet we found to be good quality, and overall service was very good We didn't rate this hotel as highly as some of the others we stayed in (for example Sigiriya hotel and Kani Lanka in Kalutara) mainly as the Holiday Inn was a bit cookie cutter - i.e. as Holiday Inn hotel rooms are pretty much the same wherever you are in the world, we didn't feel like we were in Sri Lanka. However for a night's stopover it was perfectly OK - I just wouldn't want to stay there for a whole week.

Me and my wife stayed here for the 1st night of our honeymoon in Sri Lanka. This hotel has a great location, right next to The Galle Face Hotel and Galle Face Green, minutes from Slave Island and Pettah District. We found this hotel to be clean, with spacious rooms and were greeted as honeymooners with a fruit basket. The breakfast was varied and of more than adequate quality, with a live cooking station. Overall, this hotel is basic in comparison to many others in Sri Lanka, however offers value for money and is worth staying in for the location alone.

I stayed here for about a week during a conference. The noise on the first night, from a wedding reception was crazy. I had a broken lightbulb that I tried to get fixed for a week, with no luck. The room was OK, plain, but sufficient Good food and breakfast. Internet connection is complicated and intermittent. The service was mixed. Some very friendly staff - in the restaurant. The accountant guy was grumpy. It was all in all a bit awkward. I forgot some clothes there, phoned and asked them to give them to a colleague of mine the next day... but it never happened. If you can afford a better hotel, treat yourself. It was a mediocre experience. I'm not sure what the standard of hotels and service are in Colombo, but I found the experience not so great. The pool is OK - not great, but functional. Same goes with the gym. Certainly nothing compared to the Holiday Inn in Bangkok.

Overall the hotel was ok... Generally it was a nice stay (stayed there 2 separate nights either end of a tour), for Sri Lanka it is a very good standard, the staff are very helpful & courteous, nice bar with a pool table, nice food in the restaurants, rooms generally nice, spotless bathrooms. It also has an outdoor swimming pool which looked nice. Internet & phone facilites available (albeit expensive). Its also in a good location, 5 mins walk to a station, some bars nearby, the seafront is 2 mins away, easy to get taxis & tuk tuks from outside the hotel. But, a couple of minor gripes: On our 2nd stay, the room stank, a horrible musty smell that you'd maybe experience in a basement room - we were on the 5th floor! We think it came from the a/c, room 501 near the lift i believe. Also on our 2nd stay, we ordered food in the restaurant (we were the only group using ot too) and the food tiook 90 minutes to arrive. However, the other restaurant had quick service on our first stay. Having said that, both restaurants did serve nice food (once it arrived!)

Not an impressive first look when you enter the lobby, rather its a depressing one. I was upgraded to executive room but it was smelly, the locker/safe was not working properly. The toilet was not upto "Holiday Inn" or a 4 star standard at all. The carpet was not clean too. Besides all these problems, I was the first guest to go for breakfast as I had to start a field trip and guess what? The moment I opted to take a French toast, there was a cockroach sitting and stretching its legs !!! I just commented that the first serve are always clean !!!!!!!!!!! I had to stay for another night but immediately checked out because you can easily find a cleaner and nice hotel much less than $ 107 a night.