Review: Gloria Grand Hotel Unawatuna – Honeymoon Room

Very rarely does Cody outright book a honeymoon room when we travel, although we have been upgraded for free a few times. This time however, he was looking the day before and found a great discount: $47 a night. So this hotel review is for the Gloria Grand Hotel Unawatuna honeymoon room

The Gloria Grand Hotel

The Gloria Grand Hotel in Unawatuna, Sri Lanka is a four story hotel on the main Beach road. In fact, it is only about 150 meters to the beach. There is an on-site restaurant as well as an indoor plunge pool.

While the hotel is located on a main road, you can’t hear too much noise when the balcony doors are closed, and at night we slept fine.

Gloria Grand Hotel Honeymoon Room

I should start off by saying this is a room and not a suite and it doesn’t really fit the definition of a suite as there’s no sitting area. It’s more of a comfortable deluxe room. The hotel lists it as ‘Super Deluxe’ but every honeymoon room we’ve ever been at in the past has been a suite.

Our room was located on the third floor and had a balcony overlooking the main Street and some trees. Yes, we saw many monkeys playing around in the branches.

The bed was an actual king bed with plenty (8) of pillows. However, after room service on the second day, they removed four of our pillow cases so we were left with four dirty stained pillows. To me, this was not just weird, but unacceptable when talking about service.

The bathroom was clean and had complimentary shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and soap. In fact it was a rare sight to see a Jacuzzi style bathtub in the room. It even had varying color LEDs. I would say the bathroom was one of the best we’ve had in Sri Lanka.

The Breakfast

Our reservation included breakfast but I do have to mention it was quite dismal. There was coffee, tea, and juice, but no water. They also advertised egg hoppers, yet when we asked about it the staff informed me they do not serve egg hoppers.

The rest of the food was mediocre at best, with some cold potatoes and beans, under cooked bacon, and a selection of curries. I will say however the bread rolls were quite good.

Gloria Grand Hotel Issues

I would say the staff were the biggest problem at the Gloria Grand Hotel. Other than the previously mentioned examples (removing pillowcases and falsely advertising certain breakfast items) there were two main examples I’d like to point out.

1. The hotel refused to break change for us so we could pay our TukTuk driver. I know a hotel is never required to do this, but any good hotel will. Instead they made the excuse that because it is Sunday their cashier is closed. To me this is the peak of incompetence because it was an outright lie. Just two hours before we had seen a guest check in and pay cash (not to mention the restaurant and internal tour office were open). If they had just said, sorry we just don’t have any small money at the moment I would have totally understood, but to outright lie just left a bad taste in my mouth.

2. We were feeling lazy as we only had one night left of our Sri Lanka trip and thought about just staying at this hotel for our last night. However when we asked how much it would be, the front desk called their office to find out how much we had paid online. Then proceeded to offer us $5 off. Cody of course said well have to think about it, and the attendant knocked off another $2. Now, I can understand not wanting to give away a room, but to try to haggle an already staying guest is just wrong. Especially when we already know how much hotels.com takes as commission.

When booking a hotel, pictures can tell you so much about the room, but it is really hard to find anything about the staff. In this case had we known the staff were so incompetent we probably would have stayed elsewhere.

Final Thoughts

While the room was decently sized, and the bed comfortable, that is the extent of the good parts of this hotel.

The location being 150 meters from the beach should normally be good, but there were so many accommodations right on the sand for a similar price.

I would rate the breakfast and staff both poor, and as for value, we saw what looked like better places for the money during our stay in Unawatuna.

Room Name: Gloria Grand Hotel Honeymoon Room

Location: 7/10
Staff: 3/10
Breakfast: 4/10
Room Comfort: 8/10
Cleanliness: 8/10

Key Details:

Price: $47/night

Air-Conditioned Rooms: Yes.

Breakfast Included: Yes

Pool On-Site: Yes

Maid Service: Yes

Recommended To Stay Here: No

Address: Yaddehimulla Rd, Unawatuna 80600

Disclaimer: Jet Set Together paid full price for our stay at the Gloria Grand Hotel Unawatuna and did not accept any payment for a review. The words expressed in this article are my honest opinion.

Review: Gloria Grand Hotel Unawatuna – Honeymoon Room