Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage Day Tour from Kandy

A wonderful experience seeing the gentle giants up close. The ticket to feed the elephants was sold desperately inside the premises, a bowl of fruits cost LKR 500. The ticket to bathe the elephants was around 750 LKR per adult which was sold in the main ticket counter. Be sure to plan your visit during their baths where you can see the elephants cross the road into the market and then to the river.

We had a great time visiting the orphanage and then the millenium foundation to ride and interact with the elephants. Our guide Shian was very professional, courteous and knowledgeable. He took us to some other interesting places that we wanted to see which was not in the tour program.

Everything is perfect. Local operators and drivers provided great service. I highly recommend this tour.

Communication with the tour operator was poor—no WhatsApp reply until 7:20am on tour day (starts at 8am), despite our messages the day before. No proactive confirmation. Itinerary: Kandy pickup to Elephant Orphanage, added elephant ride/bath, simple lunch, tea factory. 212 USD for 2 people—overpriced. Guide was disengaged, mostly on phone. Orphanage (17 USD/person included): The tour guide (driver) left us in this small place for 2hrs, only thing we can do is to feed the 3 elephants briefly. Next spot is a tourist trap: we have to pay 20 USD/person + tips (total ~60 USD for 20min)—tourist trap. Lunch: is included but the chicken is cold/dry. Cheap shot. Our tea factory was the highlight—enjoyed it. Communication with the travel agency was extremely poor. There was no reply on WhatsApp the day before, and a reply wasn't received until 7:20 AM on the day of departure (starting at 8:00 AM). There was no proactive confirmation. Itinerary: Kandy pick-up and drop-off to the Elephant Orphanage, plus elephant riding/bathing, a simple meal, and a tea factory. 212 USD for two people, which is poor value for money. The tour guide was on the phone the whole time and not attentive. Orphanage (including 17 USD/person): The tour guide simply ran off. For the entire 2 hours, we only had three elephants to feed. The rest of the time was spent sitting foolishly in this small place watching many tourist groups come and go. Extremely boring. The second stop was a tourist trap. 20 USD/person for optional activities + tips (total 60 USD, 20 minutes) to ride elephants and bathe them. However, these are all tourist traps and involve tips. Lunch was included, but it was at a very small shop on the street. The chicken was cold, dry, and extremely unpalatable. The last stop, the tea factory, was the only highlight, and we actually liked it quite a bit.

Klook delivered this trip through Kandy Budget Taxi. We visited Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, a tea factory, a spice and herbs garden and the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens with Dileep. He was really friendly and helpful, answering all our questions, and drove well in a clean car. The places we visited were really interesting, especially the elephants and the gardens, and Dileep made visiting them really easy. There was a mix up with the booking by the local company at the start of the day. We tried to contact the local operator and couldn’t get hold of them initially, and couldn’t get hold of anyone from Klook either. We eventually got hold of the local agent who advised there was a mix up with the booking, and she had mistakenly thought it was the following day. She was able to arrange for a driver to come pick us up at short notice, but it meant we commenced the tour over an hour and a half later, meaning we were sitting around in the hotel lobby for this time. Klook customer service finally responded 4 days later, which was disappointing. I understand Klook have a high volume of emails but there should be a mechanism to provide more instantaneous customer support to those who need urgent assistance. They advertise 24/7 support but this was not my experience. We were left to sort this issue out for ourselves, which we would not have been able to do if it was not for the generosity and assistance of our hotel owner. Klook, our agent, provided no support. As compensation they offered 500 Klook credits which has a cash value of around £5 when booking another trip with them, which was more insulting that compensatory to be honest. Despite the bad start, Dileep really made up for this. At the end of the day he even took a slight detour for us as we wanted to visit a Buddha on top of the hill. We would definitely recommend him as a driver for a tour like this, but Klook’s customer service is questionable.