We stayed for 3 nights in February at the Ranmal Beach Hotel. The location is wonderful for Hikkaduwa beach and the hotel pool is very nice as pictured. However the booking service of this family run hotel is horrible. Now having read previous reviews on TripAdvisor, we realise a similar trick has happened before, so be aware! We booked via Hotel.com app with filter 'A/C only' and the top result returns the standard room at this hotel. Upon arrival, the manager said the room we booked is actually a 'budget room' with no air conditioner nor hot water. And he eagerly showed us the 'deluxe room' and offered us an upgrade. When we asked to be shown to the room that we booked, so that we could compare the difference, after a lot of arguing he brought us to another room which turns out to be an older 'deluxe room' and we were offered another deal to upgrade. We felt pressured from this very aggressive upselling, but insisted we would like to look at the original room we had booked before making any decision, only then, and after much more arguing did the manager claim that they had overbooked the budget rooms. We were not happy to pay the 40 USD per night upgrade extortion fee for the hotel's mistake and so were put in a 4 single bed room instead of the double that we had booked. The hotel even took away the aircon remote and disconnected the hot water - not impressed!
