We visited the hotel and stayed for 5 days at the end of our honeymoon tour of Kerala in November 2011. We had chosen the hotel for a bit of relaxation at the end of the honeymoon. Although the resort looked beautiful and had amazing views of the sea/beach with an infinity pool almost looking into the sea, we felt that the service was not up to the other high standards. When we arrived we were greeted with a coconut milk and shown to our room.
Unfortunately we would not have been able to afford a more expensive room but on arrival we were pleasantly surprised with RockGarden 2. However, we asked for a few things on arrival- including a mosquito net or a way of attaching a mosquito net. No-one helped us with this but on re-questioning we were moved to another room (RockGarden 3). In this room there was somewhere to attach a mosquito net. We had also asked for a phone charger and a torch as it was dark getting around the resort. These never arrived... We had also noted that the room smelt slightly damp with a damp patch on the wall but felt that since we had already moved we would hold off. We were happy enough but felt it was expensive compared to other places that we had stayed in Kerala and felt that it lacked personal touches. After a day in this room we found that my clothes had been leaked onto by an air conditioning unit (above the damp patch in retrospect). We alerted reception who organised a prompt investigation. This would have been fine but we had generally felt messed around by this and not enough attention for a top class expensive resort. We went out for the day and were returned to the damp room but my husband complained and we were moved to the Banyan Tree Cottage (an upgrade). This was a lovely room and it seemed that the staff were more keen for our approval- suddenly we had the honeymoon flower arrangements that we had got without all this trouble in all other hotels we had stayed at. Overall the room problems affected our experience but otherwise the rooms were very nice and the flower arrangements/room services were very good.
Elsewhere in the resort, the pool and beach were nice with towels set out for you wherever you wanted to be and a clifftop area for drinks (although there was rarely anyone at the 'pool bar' to provide anything). General service was very good. The beach was clean although not 'private' as advertised as another hotel claimed some of the beach area and chased us off this. The waves were quite rough but we managed to swim a couple of days in the sea. The pool was quite clean.
The restaurants were very good and although expensive, food was of a great range. Breakfast (although it seemed a bit prescriptive at first with numbers of items allowed) was very good- most days we just had a massive Indian breakfast (including an amazing masala dosa...) and skipped lunch... There could have been more Indian options on the evening/lunch menus although food was generally very good.
We had a day in Trivandrum which was worthwhile and an evening in Kovalam. It was easy to see why Surya Samudra was more expensive but it let us down on a few things and was expensive...
- Surya Samudra Beach Garden Hotel
- Surya Samudra Beach Garden Spa
