Your group trip could have easily fallen apart before it started.

Friend A insisted on ocean views... 

Friend B demanded a home cinema... 

Not to mention Friend C's insistence on a 74-foot water slide.

Then you all discovered Meda Gedara, a ridiculously lovely, seven-bedroom wonder now open in Sri Lanka. And with it, satisfaction.

Here you have a "Villa" in the capital-V sense of the word. One that must be booked in its entirety. For you and 17 friends. Or you and one extremely special friend. Your decision.

After all, you're in Sri Lanka and down for anything. So once you get past all the ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the antique temple doors, and the spacious local and colonial art-packed rooms that sit behind them, you'll make your way to the 74-foot water slide that drops you into a split-level pool. Then the option of a luxurious home cinema awaits the evenings. A slideshow is just sort of dangling here for you to see.

In between, there will be massages in the on-site yoga shala, short, life-affirming treks to the beach and cooking lessons from the villa's private chefs. Unless you just choose to stay on that waterslide all day.

There are benefits to letting the chefs do their own thing, after all. Like the handmade tagliatelle with butterfly prawns they're planning for dinner.

You don't like to stand between chefs and their crustaceans.