Today was our last with dear Kingsley!!! It will be weird tomorrow to not see our guide after 7 days with him.

For breakfast we were seated on the balcony again with lovely views of the river and the food was as delicious as ever!

After packing we met Kingsley at 10am for our journey to our final destination, the cinnamon bey hotel.

It was about a 3 hr drive but on the way we stopped at a tea factory for a guided tour, a free sample and of course the boutique shop afterwards!! We obliged and bought some Ceylon Strong tea..... well you kinda have to don’t you!!!

Kingsley explained, as a green bus overtook us on a blind bend, seemingly chasing a red bus, that they follow the same route.... the red is public and the green private and they compete with each other for fares..... I would be in the city from home in about a minute if the konectbus went at such speeds!!!

On arrival at the hotel at Beruwala (down many little back roads) we were not greeted by anyone as there was a mass group of Indians just arriving at the same time. We found our own way to reception where we told him our names. After the realisation that we were ‘deluxe’ guests (that we weren’t really that aware of on booking, we just wanted a nice room for 7 days for the extra money) we were whisked away to a private check in lounge away from the chaos!!! They were highly concerned we had not had the proper arrival!!!

We were told about our posh people’s lounge, high tea, cocktail reception, separate dining and separate breakfast restaurants..... we just wanted a room with a view!!!! Haha!

The room is indeed beautiful with a lovely view of the beach and pool (our own private pool I may add!!!!!!!!). It was time to unpack EVERYTHING which after a week on the move was incredible!!! No more diving into drybags to attempt to pull outa crumpled dress for evening dinner.... all out and all hung up!!

We returned for high tea to the lounge bar, followed by cocktails before returning after getting dressed for dinner for sunset cocktails..... our liver and our waistline my not recover from this holiday!!!

Dinner was had in the fire restaurant where we had stone baked pizzas. We had had enough of buffets in the last week and as it was the same hotel chain, definitely same same but different!! For pudding I had a s’more sundae which ended up looking like a unicorn sundae... pink and white ice cream with baked orange marshmallow and purple meringue!! E number heaven!!!

James enjoyed a little football on tv before we retired for the night with the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach to send us to sleep!