White Water Rafting at Kitulgala

Didn’t bother to turn up, don’t bother with these complete wasters, booked into my hotel especially and they never turned up

While a solo traveller myself, I was teamed up with a couple of other travellers whose company I enjoyed. I have previously done WWR on four different continents, and this one was right up there, except I wish it had been just a bit longer. Our leader found the right balance between providing exhilaration and safety.

This tour was amazing from start to finish. I sent an email to Kingfisher Tours and they immediately responded- answered questions and booked the tour at a very reasonable price. Our wonderful driver picked us up at our hotel at 7am and drove us around for 12 hours. We booked the tour just for the white water rafting, but the company suggested also stopping at a natural spice garden and to an elephant activity place. We were not charged any additional money for these stops (which probably added 5 hours to the day) and only had to pay for admission for the elephant activity- included a photo of our girls who got to ride and get sprayed by the elephants. The white water rafting was fun and we had an extremely friendly local guide with us for the scenic ride down the Kitulgala River- even got a short ride in their TukTuk to get to the river. During March, the rapids are not very high so this was a very easy beginners' course for our two daughters. The scenic views along the river were awesome! I can't thank our driver enough for his patience throughout the 12-hour day and for safely driving the streets of Sri Lanka (which I would not want to do). Highly recommend this tour or any other tour with Kingfisher Tours.

I am a solo traveller and booked this trip as it was advertised as white water rafting. My experience of this has turned out to be that what was advertised as white water rafting was, in fact, merely a taxi ride to the destination. This is not clear from the description given by Viator, and it is my confirmed view that this is misleading. As a result this activity is NOT AFFORDABLE for a solo traveller. The description of the activity on the Viator website was that everything was included except food and drink and ‘Entrance Fees for Rafting’. I have booked a few Viator/Tripadvisor trips and Entrance Fees are incidental expenses, typically no more than a few percent of the headline cost. This was not the case for this trip. I paid $60 (US) for the activity. What happened was this. I was picked up from my hotel and dropped off at a shack by the side of the road that had an inflatable raft. Upon my arrival I was told that the ‘Entrance Fee’ would be an additional $45 (US). I challenged this as, it was way beyond mine and anyone’s reasonable expectation of this additional charge. I tried to make my case to the three men at the shack, one of who phoned a ‘person in authority’ and then thrusted the phone into my hand. The ‘person in authority’, in a very officious and terse manner, advised me that the $60 dollars I had paid to Viator was ‘only for the transport to the rafting location’. He repeated that as a fact more than once. It was very clear to me that unless I paid significantly more than the $60 I had already paid to Viator, I was not going to go rafting. I then faced having had a 4 hour round trip wasted due, it was evident to me, to misinformation on the Viator description of the activity. In short, the ‘Entrance Fee’ was effectively the provision of the raft for the activity. Viator don’t include the raft!!! I was left with no option to pay the additional amount, which in the end I reluctantly agreed at $35. I have no issue with the quality of the instruction, and I enjoyed the white water rafting sections, which took up around 2/3rds of the time on the water; It doesn’t state on the Viatour description however that the final 1/3rd would be spent swimming in ‘flat water’. I had expected white water rafting for the whole activity. I did not swim. I had booked the trip with the assistance of webchat, for which I have the transcript. At no time in the webchat did it mention that the Entrance Fee would be so substantially large (in fact no mention is made in the transcript), and prohibitive for a solo traveller - and the person on the webchat knew that I was a solo traveller. The whole activity, with the expected gratuities, cost me more than $100 - for less than an hour of white water rafting. I feel very let down by Viator and their description on the website. It misrepresented what the headline cost actually buys the traveller. Clearly Viator have not got the contract terms right with the provider, and although if the cost is split slit between a group of, say 6 people, it is a small inconvenience to each person, for a solo traveller the substantial additional cost puts a big dent in the holiday budget. I repeat that I feel let down by Viator. What makes this worse is seeing the same Viator activity, white water rafting, at the same location, advertised at half the price on the same Viator website. This does reinforce the provider’s point that all Viator are truly offering is a transfer. I had wanted to make this complaint to Viator directly, as they are the organisation who I transacted with and who are therefore obligated to me as a customer. However, it is not possible to make complaints through their website. Significantly enough, typing complaint into the help section search does not bring up any results. If any human from Viator does read this, I would like my $35 back please. I hope they have the dignity to publish this in full…..

Such an amazing and different experience. It started from Colombo to kitulgala, and then back to Colombo.

Rafting is good and interesting. kind driver， waiting me for 2 hours. Stop on the way and buy me a coconut.

Thanks to Fenos and Kingfisher we had an enjoyable day trip to go rafting as well as lunch and tea back in Colombo. Car and driver were both well presented and safe. I would use again.

We were large group (13) and divided into 2 groups. Each raft takes 6 - 8 persons and go through the White River and water falls. It was so funny experience, and took wonderful photos and vibes. Then, jumped into the river and swam, then went through Canyoning, and rocks sliding, and jumping.