Sri Lanka Tailor Made with Jetwing Tours. Feb 2016

On my last, very quick visit to Sri Lanka in 2013 I went on a yoga retreat for a week and didn't get chance to see the rest of this enchanting island. I did however notice a company called Jetwing and on my return to the UK did some research and found out that this is the local company that many UK Travel Agents use, companies such as Kuoni.

So for my annual holiday I headed off to tour Sri Lanka and have 5 days on the Maldives.

I booked the fights and the Maldives stay myself and used Jetwing for a 'tailor made' tour .

Flying from Manchester on EK 18, it was an A380, the boarding process was smooth, but due to a technical issue we were  2 1/2 hours late out of Manchester. EK 18 was due into Dubai at 00.05 and the flight to Colombo was leaving at 0240 so the connection was pretty tight to begin with.  I was convinced that we would miss the connection, but knowing there was another flight to Sri Lanka at 0745, I relaxed and enjoyed the flight.

However upon arrival in Dubai, a man was waiting for all the 14 passengers who were connecting to Colombo. Once he had gathered us together,  he rushed us through terminal A, to terminal C and the plane was waiting for us. We made it but our bags didn't! We were informed that they would come on the next flight and be delivered to our hotel.

We were  met by our driver ' Lucky', as we were so late coming out of the airport he had guessed that we must have had a problem with the bags. We drove to Jetwing Beach Hotel in Negombo, this was about 10 minutes from the airport. The hotel and beach were wonderful, but we were in English winter clothing ! A lesson for the future, put a change of clothes in the cabin bags.

We did pop out to some local shops and get some swimming costumes so that we could enjoy the beach and pool. 

Jetwing Beach Hotel

Lucky was picking us up early the next day to start our tour of the island so I was really hoping the luggage would arrive before then.

In the meantime we had a meal at the bar on the beach and an early night to get over the jet lag.

When we got up in the morning, the bags were waiting at reception. A quick change into summer clothes and we were off on our private tour of Sri Lanka.