Blue Lanka Tours, Colombo

Our first visit to Sri Lanka and we spent two weeks with the wonderful Kalinga from Blue Lanka tours. First advice is let them do the driving - it's a crazy country to drive in and the pros stay calm and conduct you safely from one destination to another. The guide was also fantastic for local history and color commentary, Kalinga was super knowledgeable, very fluent in English and willing to patiently provide insights into any aspect of Sri Lanka life. Blue Lanka was one of 3 companies that we contacted and they were the most responsive - we were also really pleased that they proposed an itinerary that closely matched all the places that we wanted to visit. Blue Lanka spoke to us a few times during our travels to make sure that everything was going great, a nice touch! But Kalinga made our trip the most fun - he was always ready with a smile, happy to accommodate any of our changes or requests and a terrific guide for a beautiful country. Highly recommended!!

I booked 2 day tours with Blue Lanka, one to Galle and one to Sigiriya/Dambulla, based on my friend’s recommendation who did a 14-day tour with them. I had different guides for each day tour and Mr. Thushara was assigned to take me to Sigiriya/Dambulla on my last day of the trip. I wish I had Mr. Thushara as my guide for my entire visit to Colombo because I had the best Sri Lanka experience with him. He was very professional and surely he delivered what’s promised on Blue Lanka’s website – to create a personable and memorable experience of Sri Lanka in comfort. He conversed well in English and helped translating when I couldn’t understand the guides at the UNESCO sites. He is very personable and loves sharing information of Sri Lanka and Colombo with you, to name one, he shared how the vehicles are registered in Sri Lanka and apparently there is license plate coding for different vehicle category – bus, tuk tuk, private car, motorbike. Thank you Mr. Thushara for all the little things you did for making my day trip to Sigiriya/ Dambulla wonderful. I tried and booked a day tour to Kandy with a local operator and was resentful for not booking it with Blue Lanka. The local operator does not operate under a company but strictly acts as a coordinator who arranges a driver to drive me to these tourist stops along the way to and around Kandy. The guide was nothing more than a driver and his English was quite limited. Don’t understand me wrong, every guide I have come across are very nice people but speaking from an insurance and safety perspective, I would say it wasn’t worth the risk. What was more frustrating was that the local operator was not reachable by the number provided on the confirmation e-voucher until much later in the day (i.e. 1ish pm). Unlike Blue Lanka, the team would assign a local contact who is reachable via WhatsApp and to answer any questions I may have before and during my visit in Sri Lanka. Deminda Fernando was my local contact and he was very responsive to my requests and questions about my day tours to ensure I’m having the best experience with Blue Lanka. I highly recommend everyone to book their tours with Blue Lanka and I will definitely book with Blue Lanka again to see more of Sri Lanka!!