We were very excited to stay at The Colony for 5 days on our first trip to Sri Lanka. Considered a boutique hotel, it has 4 individually decorated rooms, a lovely veranda, fantastic pool, and wonderful beachside location. When I called to book a few days before our arrival, the owners agreed to give us a 15% discount. It all seemed great -- until the food issue came up.

We arrived at dinnertime after a 7 hour drive from the int'l airport north of Colombo. We were hungry and tired and the owner, Michael, instantly began talking about the lovely dinner they were preparing. He made it sound as if he was inviting us (my husband and I) to join him and his wife for dinner. We took our luggage into our room and saw a notice on the table with meal prices -- dinner was US$25 per person. It became clear that not only weren't we being invited to join them for dinner, but that we we're going to pay $50 for a dinner we didn't even get to order! I told Michael that it was a bit... more