Udawalawa-Safari und Elefantenwaisenhaus-Tour vom Hafen Hambantota aus

We were very excited about this excursion with Viator. We have used Viator many times and have always loved the high quality of their excursions all over the world. This excursion was the first, that fell very far from the standard. We were told to meet them very early, for a higher chance of seeing more wild animals. We hurried excitedly to the meeting point and got shuffled in a very old van, with no seatbelts, no places to hold on and huge crack in the font window. The “guide” did not speak English at all. He drove like a maniac, taking over cars with head traffic coming on, zigzagging between dogs in the street, speeding, and breaking harshly, water-bottles flying around the vehicle - us trying frantically to find a place to hold on. When we arrived 1 hour later (the car ride was supposed to take 1,5 hours) we were told we had to wait 90 minutes for the park to open. So there we were waiting 90 min, for what reason exactly? We still don’t know. We wrote both the tour company and Viator, and haven’t heard back from either. The content of the tour itself, when it started 90 min later was good. The elephant orphanage and the safari was a good experience in itself, but no English speaking guide and such poor planning and organisation of the day ruined the experience for us. Plus we get a little annoyed that we had to pay $10 usd for the entrance at the orphanage to the guide and when we got there the fee was only $5 usd, and $40 usd to the guide for the national park, which when we got there only cost 25$ usd. It’s not really the money, it’s more the feeling of nothing being like described in the tour description- oh and yeah it said private tour which it was also not, but at least we were with other people who were equally unhappy with the structure of this excursion and lack of information. Totally recommend the tour - wouldn’t chose this company to go with.

Really interesting and exciting day. Almost face to face with an elephant which is not something you usually do, would recommend it.

We booked a safari tour from Hambantota port and our Udawalawe National Park safari was a great safari they gave us good service and took us to all the places in the National Park and we were very happy to see the baby elephants playing in the elephant orphanage. Let's recommend a hundred