Cape Weligama

Style

Haute headland hamlet

Setting

Sri Lanka’s sunset coast

Luxury resort Cape Weligama, on Sri Lanka’s southern coast, follows in sister hotel Ceylon Tea Trails’ footsteps as one of the island’s most wanted. Laid out village-style over an Indian Ocean headland, each butler-attended contemporary villa – designed by architect Lek Bunnag – sits within a flower-scented watta (garden), steps from a cooling pool. Bays and beaches are a short meander away, and the crescent-shaped, cliff-edge infinity pool has swoonsome panoramas.

Facilities

Rooms

Thirty-nine, including 16 suites and 23 standalone villas.

Checkout

11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 2pm.

More Details

Rates include breakfast, room service, and all taxes and service charges.

Also

Cape Weligama is not wheelchair accessible, due to the contours of the garden and steps leading to common areas.

Fitness Center

Free Internet Access

Laundry

Pool

On-Site Restaurant

Room Service

Spa

At the Hotel

Gym, gardens, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: flatscreen TV and sound system, minibar, kettle with a selection of teas, free bottled water, air-conditioning and natural bath products.

Our Favourite Rooms

The two-storey 307sq m Cape Residence will suit privacy-seekers with a blow-out budget. Upping the ante for honeymoon romance, they have sweeping Indian Ocean views from both bedrooms, and this is the only category with a private infinity pool on the roof terrace. However, Master Suites are more intimate and cost-effective, flaunting the same ochre and ultramarine-hued style as larger villas.

Poolside

This resort promises the moon and delivers, with an unheated, adults-only, 60-metre, crescent-shaped pool, with an infinity edge that curves around the cape, where swimmers can enjoy 270-degree Indian Ocean views. The Cove Pool welcomes kids, and each watta (stone-wall-ringed garden) includes a shared pool for two to three villas.

Spa

Smell as sweet as the garden surrounds, with locally inspired in-villa treatments made with home-grown spices or unwind in one of the hotel’s four treatment rooms. Therapists will soothe and relax you with scented steam showers, organic spice scrubs (clove, nutmeg, sweet orange and sandalwood), Ceylon tea and cinnamon-laced essential-oil massages, and green-tea facials. Hidden under the Moon Pool, there’s a fully equipped air-conditioned gym, and cliff-edge yoga and pilates platforms offer sights for the sore-thighed.

Packing Tips

Binoculars for an in-depth look at that view, a notebook for pressing some of the local flowers, and a Marco Polo-esque sense of adventure.

Also

Architect Lek Bunnag designed the hotel’s villas, and he’s worked his mod-Asian magic at fellow Smith style dens the Oberoi and Maia Luxury Resort & Spa.

Children

Each extra child stays for US$58 a night on bed and breakfast.

Gallery

Food & Drink

Top Table

Watch the Indian Ocean merge into the clear-skied horizon from the Atlas restaurant. Or sit in seclusion on your villa’s veranda.

Dress Code

Slip a sarong on for The Society, but shimmy into swish neon silks and bejewelled flip-flops – or a pair of chinos for Mr Smith – at more-refined Tableau.

Hotel Restaurant

Two. Start the day by choosing freshly caught fish from the nearby fish market and have it cooked to your taste at the ocean-facing Atlas restaurant. In the evening, opt for some upmarket chef wizardry at intimate 12-seater restaurant Tableau, where local produce, handpicked meats and fresh seafood are prepared in front of you by some of Ceylon’s top culinary talents. Sundowner cocktails, and high tea with a truly excellent Ceylon brew, are dished up at the Surf Bar.

Hotel Bar

Two. The Society bar has light bites and locally influenced cocktail concoctions, wines and beers. There’s the Cove Beach Bar by the Cove Pool, too.

Last Orders

The Atlas is open from 7am to 10.30pm, and Tableau from 7pm to 10.30pm. The Society serves tea and drinks from 10:30am to 12am.

Room Service

From 7am to 10pm, the room service will ensure you’re well fed by bringing requested dishes and drinks to your door (depending on which ingredients are available).

Planes

From Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport, catch a Cinnamon Air seaplane to Mawella Lagoon Airport (a 25-minute journey); from there the resort is a 45-minute drive along the A2 coastal route. Call our Smith24 Team on 03300 376 891 to arrange flights and transfers.

Trains

Weligama train station is on the Southern Rail Line; the journey from Colombo Fort Rail Station takes roughly two-and-a-half hours.

Automobiles

If you want to explore the surrounding area, a hire car will come in handy; the drive from Colombo Bandaranaike takes about three hours, and is best suited to those with nerves of steel; watch out for wayward tuk-tuks, and be sure to pack all documentation.

Worth Getting Out of Bed For

Before visiting Weligama town, you’ll be itching to shimmy down the cliff-clinging steps to the near-private Cove Beach below (the East Beach is a five-minute walk from the villas), to frolic in the cool turquoise waters of the bay, before revitalising with a cocktail (or two) and a sharing plate. The trade winds make this optimum surfing territory (just be sure to avoid the main fishing areas in season), and Koggala Lake is ideal for kayaking or boating, a 15-minute drive from the hotel. On dry land, cycle through emerald green, tiered paddy fields, or take a day trip to Udawalawe or Yala National Parks to spot elephants bathing in reservoirs and sloth bears, boar and leopards stalking through dense greenery. Galle’s independent boutiques and Unesco-protected colonial fortifications are a 30-minute drive away, and to the east, Matara has atmospheric jungle-clad ruins, Buddhist temples and the sleek white Dondra Head Lighthouse. Fishing town Weligama, (‘sandy village’ in Sinhalese), has lively fish markets and petite craft boutiques alongside the odd mall. Zippy tuk-tuks and animated commerce keep it chaotic, but there are several serene spots where you can watch local fishermen perch on poles plunged into the coral reef. In season, turtles frolic in the shallows, and the hotel has whale and dolphin-watching tours, too.

Earn or Redeem Points with World of Hyatt

This Mr & Mrs Smith hotel participates in the World of Hyatt loyalty program. As a member, you can earn and redeem points and enjoy exclusive benefits for qualifying nights. .