Main Terminal, Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport, Sri Lanka

Introduction

This is my review of a room in the Serendiva Transit Hotel at Sri Lanka’s Bandaranaike Airport, which is operated by Srilankan Airlines.

Srilankan Airlines are a little-known OneWorld airline, and Colombo is quite a useful gateway to indirect (and often cheaper) flights from London to Singapore, Hong Kong and parts of Australia. This means that sometimes layovers can be over night – and this is a very useful way to spend those layovers in comfort!

Visited

23^rd October 2022, over night

Opening Hours

The hotel is open 24 hours.

Costs

The hotel costs around $80USD per night to stay in for 6 hours. This means that if you intend to sleep for longer – you’re looking around $160 for a full nights sleep.

On the face of it, this may appear expensive – but there are major advantages in that you’re inside the airport, and there are no requirements to re-do immigration or security between flights.

How to Get There

Assuming you’re through security, or have just landed;

Go towards in-bound immigration, and you’ll need to stay as left as you can get, next to the glass.

You’ll see, just before a “Staff Only” sign, two elevators.

Go up a level, and follow the corridor past the Emirates lounge, and the entrance will be in front of you.

The Room

The Bedroom

The rooms itself is clean and tidy – though if you’re a Hilton, Sheraton or Marriott regular you’re find it rather basic!

Personally, I found the bed rather low – but it was comfortable.

The Bathroom

Again, the bathroom was clean and tidy. The shower was extremely hot.

A variety of amenities were supplied – such as tooth brush, shampoo, and even a shaving kit.

Comfort

For a sleep in an airport between flights, the room is fine. It’s comfortable, the bed was a little low – and there was somewhere to work.

With that said, I found two annoying things;

1. Until around midnight there seemed to be children running around the corridors screaming, with nobody stopping it.
2. Around 45 minutes before your room rental is up, you’ll get a call telling you to get up and leave. This seemed quite unnecessary!

Food and Drink

There were a couple of bottles of water in the room, but that was it. No minibar!

Almost ‘built in’ to the hotel is the Serendiva Lounge, which has food and drinks – however you’d need to pay unless flying Business Class. Although it may be possible to pay for entry.

Wifi

Strangely, compared to the Serendiva and Serendib Lounges, I found the hotel to have the best Wifi. It was really good and very quick! The Wifi was free too!

Conclusion

This is a comfortable way to spend a few hours (especially over night) in Colombo’s airport. It is by no means a luxury hotel – but it is very good indeed!