Wadduwa Travel Forum

Does anyone know if the Blue Water Hotel has been badly damaged? I have seen on the Kuoni website that it is closed until further notice! Im supposedly getting married here at the beginning of Feb, we also have members of the wedding party staying at Villa Ocean View. We have the problem at the moment that we have all booked through different tour operators, ours (tradewinds) are willing to refund / transfer us to somewhere else, but my mother in laws ( first choice ) are not budging and have said they have to go!!
Any info appreciated! Thnx

This is also my problem too, we were due to stay at club palm garden begining of Feb to get married, our tour operator Cosmos are willing to change us, but my mum and Dad booked with First Choice who are standing by what you have said. How can one operator said too unsafe to go but another is allowing it.

Let me know how you get on.

Melanie

Very bizzarre that - the sri lankan toursit board website states that the Blue Water hotel is operational...I am due to get married there at the beginning of April. Having spoken to Hayes and Jarvis (also part of the First Choice Group), they are unwilling to give us any information and if we change the booking will have to pay admin charges etc.... as like you I'm sure, it was a dream to get married there....but now we're trying to look at other options, although not happy about paying any charges.....

Please let me know if you hear anything otherwise.... friends of ours (from Sri Lanka) have advised us not to go!!

Must admit though...they seem very determined to maintain the high levels of tourism:

http://www.contactsrilanka.org/index.html

Try the jetwings site that will help you to get the real ground situation

www.jetwing.net

Rupesh

Thanks very much for your help!!

this is what has been stated on the jetwing website -

The ground floor of The Blue Water was slightly affected. The restaurant and the bar will not be in operation for the next one month. All other service areas are functioning and the hotel will take in guests from the 30th of December 2004. Once the pool has been cleaned.

*****
Fair enough its open but surely they cant send people when the restaurant is closed, we are all inclusive as im sure most people would be, also the beaches will still be affected!!!

Are you sure your booking has not been changed, e.g. board basis?? We had booked all inclusive last March...we were informed 3 months ago that as per December 2004, the hotel will only be offering half board basis.

Just a thought....totally understand what you're saying re the 16 rooms problem etc.....how long will it take etc?? - I've personally emailed the hotel too - I don't expect that they will tell me exactly how things are looking, but I'll await their reply. I can send it on if you're interested in what they've got to say??? I also asked re the extras available for the wedding too, as we'd wanted an elephant....

I feel so selfish thinking about my wedding etc, given the country's current position, but at the same time I know that a decision needs to be made fairly sharpish...

Foreign and commonwealth office advice to British nationals. FOREIGN OFFICE AMENDS TRAVEL ADVICE FOR THAILAND AND SRI LANKA (30/12/04)

The Foreign Office today revised its Travel Advice for Thailand and Sri Lanka. We advise against all but essential travel to affected resorts and towns along Thailand's west coast, in particular Phuket, Krabi and Khao Lak and advise against all but essential travel to affected areas on Sri Lanka's eastern, southern and south western coasts until local conditions improve.

In Thailand there has been considerable damage to the underlying health care in affected areas. Flooding, stagnant water, disruption of sewer lines, and poor quality sanitation conditions are conductive for development of disease.

In Sri Lanka there is extensive damage to buildings and other infrastructure in the areas concerned and the emergency services are fully stretched. A significant number of tourist resorts have been damaged.

Notes for Editors
Full details of the revised Travel Advice for Thailand, Sri Lanka and other countries affected in the region are available in the Travel area of this website at www.fco.gov.uk/travel.

Maybe this will help you with your tour company. Best of luck. Barry

no definately had no changes to what we booked with regards to board basis - still think we are all inclusive, we booked in Feb 2004 and the only updates we have had are flight times.

I too feel selfish thinking about my wedding but we have a reception and other things planned for when we get back. We are actually only in Sri Lanka for 6 days as we then go to the Maldives for our honeymoon, luckily the island we are staying at hasnt been badly affected and is up and running as usual.
Tradewinds have said they will gladly change the holiday and did not mention a cost in doing this, i was told though that if i did not have the wedding package we would still of had no option and would have to travel.
At the moment we are confused wether to change to another twin centre, perhaps get married in the seychelles and still go to the maldives, or wait to find out some more information about the state of sri lanka, some of our wedding party dont have the option to transfer at the moment anyway and obviously we want them at our wedding!

Please send any emails you receive from the blue water, id be interested to hear what they say!

Thanks

Do I detect a few Emails to Watchdog concerning First Choice again

Sorry if that sounds rude now. Getting married is a very special thing and should be enjoyable and I wish you a happy wedding day wherever it may be.
But worrying about charges when facing one of the biggest tragedies in the history of mankind strikes me and is in my opinion not appropriate facing that tragedy and that loss of human lives.. Be glad that you werenīt there earlier and are still alive...

Many apologies if that was taken the wrong way - believe me my thoughts are with those who have lost friends and family members at such a time, as well as those coming to terms with what has happened etc... no offence was meant in the slightest - I just feel certain holiday agents are out to recouperate monies from people where possible and are imposing stupid charges for things beyond any of ours control. My sincerest apologies xx

Hello,
Most of the hotels on west coast hope to be in operation by end January. I am in touch with hotels here and some are offering cheaper rates dueing this period. But for those who have booked with the bigger operators wont be able to make use of this. Most operators have a cancellation policy dont they?

Also, all hotels in Sri Lanka are offering 100% refunds for cancellations during this time (affected areas only)

If anyone needs more information please do e-mail me: nilankap@sltnet.lk

Cheers,

Nilanka

do you have any updates on your wedding yet??

We too are suppose to be getting married at The Blue Water Hotel on 29th March 2005.Hayes and Jarvis are very unhelpful with any information on the hotel and i feel they just want our final payment.

@nippy26: Itīs alright :-). I wish you all a good solution for your problems. I stayed at the Blue Water before and if they only renovate it half as nice as it was it would still be beautiful. So good luck to you all!x

The problem is not the damage but the complications of disease and malaria thats going to set in. best to check again with the health situation by about end Jan

The kuoni website now states that the blue water will be up and fully functional for the 1st Feb. We are still in the process of moving our wedding/honeymoon because i just dont feel right celebrating there, and the good news is all my wedding party have got a full refund after small threats towards first choice!!

We are supposed to be getting married at the Blue Water too - March 14th.

We hadn't seen that the Seychelles were available as a twin-centre holiday with the Maldives in any of the brochures. Did you (hamilton1) manage to arrange going there, or have you decided to go elsewhere? Isn't it quite a long way away from the Maldives? How long is the flight?

We had our hearts set on both Sri Lanka (the elephant at the wedding would have been lovely) and on going to the Maldives, but didn't realise that you could twin-centre with anywhere else other than Sri Lanka.

We really aren't sure what to do, we've been looking on http://www.health.gov.lk/links/welfarecenters-kalutara.shtml and have seen that there are over 1300 people in Wadduwa in Refugee Camps, and over 25000 in the local region (Kalutara). I'm not sure it feels right to be celebrating our marriage there, when all these people are homeless.

(response to louise21) i think it all depends on your tour operator, we have booked through tradewinds and they are very flexible when they organise your wedding/holiday. They try to do there best to suit your needs for example they have offered us as alternate to sri lanka/maldives, the seychelles for 6nts (for our wedding), 1 night in another island in the maldives and then 10nts where we had originally booked in the maldives. We have now asked them to look into mauritius / or anywhere else to see if anything else is available. Id be willing to fly from anywhere to get to the maldives as i have my heart set on it!
They do not have set timings like other tour operators do where you can only have 7 nights here and 7 nights there!!

I dont know if your tour operator do it, but it is possible to get married in Goa, which too is a lovely place we have been 3 times, and you could perhaps still get an elephant!!

Just thought id post the email i have had from the blue water hotel, it might put a few minds at rest!!

Dear Sarah,

We thank you for your concern over the recent devastation of the coastal belt. Our losses were minimal compared to some hotels.

We have been very fortunate as were warned about the tidal waves and measures were taken to reduce the loss of damage and to avoid any loss of life of Guest or staff.

We are happy to inform you that we are in operation and you need not look for any other hotel but have your wedding at The Blue Water as scheduled on 12th February 2005.

We had two local weddings yesterday and there are many reservations that have not been cancelled.
Hence you can definitely have your wedding here.

Looking forward to seeing you at The Blue Water on the 6th February 2005.

Assuring you of our best services at all times.

Thanks & Regards

Dinali Peiris.
wedding Coordinator

So now you've had the reply from the Blue Water are you going to wait and see if you are allowed to travel there, or are you still going to change to an alternative?

We are booked with Tradewinds too and have discussed the Seychelles with them but their wedding packages don't seem to compare to Sri Lankan ones.

We are also concerned that it seems a lot more expensive when you are at a hotel in the Seychelles compared to Sri Lanka.

We want to support the Blue Water and they are obviously keen to have tourists back, but we are just concerned that we won't be allowed to travel and then it will be too late to change. We really aren't sure what to do at all....

Thanks Sarah for the update from the Blue Water Hotel - they didn't even reply to me!!

So what now?? We've been having all sorts of trouble trying to rearrange everything........don't know what to do now....

we are going to go to the travel agents today and try to find out what is going on, too many conflicting messages at the moment (although i have found out more on the internet than the travel agents know!!). I think definately by march you will be ok to go back but we are worried that the foreign office has stopped all travel to sri lanka until the 31st jan, they only have to extend this a few weeks and we would then have to re-arrange everything! ill keep you posted!

After 7 hours in the travel agents on saturday (due to trade winds being constantly enagaged and me refusing to move until something was sorted out!!) i have now moved our holiday to Mauritius/dubai/maldives. Its not all good news though as we will not find out until 2mrw if we can still get married as the wedding co-ordinators do not work at the weekend (how ridiculous!) and need to make sure there is availability at the resort.
If not, we have now decided to put the wedding off, as we rang other tour operators and they say they do not have the time to arrange a wedding now - so we dont have much choice and dont want to settle for second best!!
I am so annoyed with TradeWinds, i know it must be a busy time for them but other tour operators were available straight away on saturday, and we have been trying to ring for the past week!
We spoke to one girl at Tradewinds who informed us that the Blue Water hotel has been badly damaged (she said the foundations were holding it up!) and advised us against all travel to sri lanka, even north of columbo and then to another guy who said the hotel would be back open in feb and normal booking conditions apply!! Dont know who or what to believe - i dont think anyone has a clue.

I agree with you, Tradewinds are useless at the moment. It's almost impossible to get through to them.

We read in the paper at the weekend that it's likely that the Federation of Tour Operators will announce on Thursday that holidays to all coastal areas of Sri Lanka will be cancelled for February. We have decided to change to Seychelles/Maldives/Dubai with the condition that we will go back to Sri Lanka for an anniversary (that's if we can every get through to Tradewinds of course). We can't really wait and see for March as we are travelling over Easter and alternatives might get booked up.

I hope you manage to get your booking sorted out anyway.

At last we are all sorted out and still getting married!!!
Mauritius/dubai/maldives...

I hope everyone else gets sorted out to...and i hope to make the trip to Sri Lanka as soon as possible!

I dont know what the actual damage to theBlue water was, hower the following URL has pictures of the Tsunami hitting the hotel.

http://www.rts.org/bilder/artiklar/tsunami/3/index.php?dir=

The wave seems to have reached 'only' to the first floor and the wall at the back of the hotel appears to have stopped a lot of the water getting in the rear car park as there appears little damage in the photograph.

You may choose not to go to Sri Lanka for your wedding and that is understandable, however Tourism is the main source of income for many people in Sri Lanka and it is they , not the travel companies who want to get tourist back to thier country. Its suprising how quickly things can get back to ''normal'

It was a terrible disaster that struck this part of the world and these are wonderful people. I can assure you that the people of Wadduwa and the rest of Sri Lanka will make your stay one to remember.

We stayed at the Blue water last year and I'm sure you will find it everything you could ask for and the wedding ceremonies they arrange around the garden areas are wonderful. Say hello to Monica for us.