Need to know
Rooms
15, including eight suites.
Check–Out
11am, and check-in is from 2pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability and you’re welcome to use the hotel facilities if you arrive early or need to hang around after check-out.
More details
Rates at Kurulu Bay include an à la carte breakfast with options including smoothies, granola, pancakes, eggs how you like them and avocado toast.
Also
Garden Suites are suitable if you have limited mobility — set close to the pool, restaurant and lobby — but are not specifically adapted for wheelchair users.
At the hotel
Yoga shalas and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: air-conditioning, ceiling fan, minibar, Smeg kettle and a selection of local, loose-leaf teas, free glass-bottled water, bathrobes and slippers, and handmade local bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Treehouses are a secluded choice for peace-seeking couples with an elevated position that gives you pleasing panoramas of Koggala Lake. Garden Suites put you closer to the action, nearer the pool and restaurant. Of the four cottages, we love the modern, one-bedroom cottage for its standout bathroom and sprawling terrace. For families or a group of friends, a pool-crowned two-bedroom villa, tucked away on a hillside, is the stellar option.
Poolside
Despite its serene beauty, Koggala Lake is not a place to swim, but the hotel’s duo of dipping spots more than compensate. The main pool beside the restaurant puts you at the heart of the action, with a sunlounger-lined deck, lake views peeping through the trees and pool service to keep you fed and watered. The upper pool in the grounds is a quieter spot for solitary laps. Book the Two-Bedroom Villa to secure a plunge pool of your own.
Spa
Ayurvedic principles inform even manis and pedis at Kurulu Bay, where the modest size of the spa — with one treatment room, a relaxation terrace and outdoor spa pool — belies the impressive range of therapeutic options. Signature treatment, the Kurulu Calm massage boosts body and mind by targeting areas of tension; hot bundle therapy is here for your aches and pains; and a Marna Points healing session is said to benefit hormones, energy levels and more. Yoga, however, is the star of the show, with indoor and outdoor shalas that have some of the hotel’s finest views of the lake: there are drop-in classes weekly, or private sessions can be arranged, and the hotel provides mats and pillows. Spa hours are 11am until 8pm daily.
Packing tips
Respectful threads for temple visits, slides for padding around the gardens, and your floatiest plain separates or A-line dresses to honour the simplicity of your surroundings.
Also
Kurulu Bay has a calendar of restorative retreats across the year, bringing together a yoga programme with mindful downtime, spa therapies and healthy eating.
Children
Welcome although not particularly catered to: the Two-bed Villa sleeps up to four; one child can sleep on an extra bed in the Cottages or Garden Suites, and with 24 hours’ notice, babysitting can be arranged at extra cost.
Sustainability efforts
Kurulu Bay is immersed in its local community, whether it’s boat trips out to the islands of Koggala Lake or ferrying you by tuk tuk to visit a nearby temple. Its restaurant spotlights local ingredients with sea-to-table dining that changes with the seasons and prioritises an island supply chain. The hotel’s newer buildings were plotted around existing mature trees with architecture that’s sympathetic to its flora-rich setting. Water- and energy-saving measures are in place; recycling policies keep waste to landfill in check, and you won’t find any single-use plastics at the hotel. Green waste, including leaf fall, is composted and used in the hotel gardens.
