Me and my wife are from Austria and stayed two times in Metro International. The first time was before we left to Northindia. We asked if we could leave two of our luggage pieces at the hotel, a suitcase and a backpack, because we wanted to come back. The people and employees of the hotel promised us to take care of our luggage.
After six weeks we returned and I saw that our backbag has been opened and after checking the content we knew that our camcorder was stolen out of the backpack.
My wife and me have been very disappointed about the theft and about the fact that nobody wanted to take his responsibility and nobody wanted to know something about the promise to take care of our things.
It is a pity that something like that happened and of course makes the opinion of the safety of Indian hotels not better.

Hotel is close to the international airport in Mumbai. It's pickup and drop-off service to both international and domestic terminal was quite prompt. The room and bathroom were clean. This is not a luxurious hotel and would not recommend it for family vacations. My purpose was to use it for about 7 hours while transiting from international to domestic terminal and it served that purpose quite well.

The hotel is worth your money... Not excellent but surely good value....However, the only thing that puts you off is the location...Its in congested area of Mumbai.

Even though I am a US citizen now, I had grown up in India. So I knew that Mumbai (Bombay) airport and the businesses surrounding that is a seedy place with all sorts of scams. My experience in 2008 April re-confirmed the feeling. Advance warning to fellow travelers: Make sure you book your hotel/travel online or through trusted agents ahead of time. Don’t expect ANY of the local ‘help’ to be trustworthy; no matter how ‘official’ they look. Even better, avoid traveling through Mumbai if you can! Other airports like Bangalore and Chennai seem to have fewer of such scams.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a reasonable hotel (in the INR 2000-3000 per night range, or $60) in 1 hour of searching online before I landed in Mumbai. I also didn’t know a good travel agent that I could trust. A guy standing next to the computer terminal for hotel reservations at the Mumbai domestic terminal was behaving like a peddler for his favorite hotel than a helpful concierge. He seemed to outright rude when I told him that I was not interested in using his ‘recommendation’.

So, I ended up knocking the door of the ‘hotel reservation’ counter at Terminal 2A(?) at the Mumbai International airport. The two guys there seemed friendly and eager to help. They showed a pre-printed list of hotels and the rates, which looked a bit pricey (INR 3000-10000 and up). They said ‘Metro International’ is close by and they will give pickup/drop-off to the airport. The rate they showed in the page was INR 4000. I had no way of verifying that the rate was accurate.

The guy then pretended to make a call to ‘Sandeep(?)’ at the hotel to make sure that a room is available. After keeping the phone down, he said that the room is available for INR 4000 and that he could ‘try’ to get a discount *if* I was willing to give him part of the savings. I was a bit desperate because it didn’t want to blow my budget. It was 10:00PM local time and I was tired from all-day travel. So, I agreed to try for a discount. He then called ‘Sandeep(?)’ again and asked what rate he can give for a ‘company guest’. He then put the phone down and told me that I can get the room for INR 2500. I liked the savings. The two guys at the counter wanted INR 1000 from me for the ‘savings’ they got for me. I was able to get out by paying them INR 500. Their excuse was that they were poorly paid and needed such ‘tips’ to make a living etc etc. They also insisted that I shouldn’t mention this discount to anyone at the hotel.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, I was picked up by the hotel car. I reached the hotel and found the room to be of very poor quality. The bed looked cheaper than the cheapest one I have ever seen in a cheap motel. But I was glad that there were no mosquitoes, rats, bad smell or noise (typical in Mumbai hotels). I was able to sleep OK. I got out the next morning in the earliest drop off to the airport next day.

After I came back to the US, I searched for hotel room rates at the same hotel (Metro International) at the same location. I found that the rate was INR 2500! In other words, the two guys at the airport got me the same rate that I would have received if I had done my own search using TripAdvisor! They took INR 500 from me because they ‘saved’ INR 1500 for me. Nice little scam, eh? I have no way of knowing if the ‘Sandeep(?)’ that the kept calling was a hotel employee, some other scammer or an imaginary person.

Lessons learned:
1. Avoid traveling through Mumbai whenever possible
2. Avoid using any local ‘help’, do everything online or through other trusted agents. Expect to get scammed if you try to use local help

The online listing of hotels in Mumbai is very limited, which was part of my original problem. I hope some local entrepreneur would create an online service similar to Tripadvisor or hotels.com with information on lots of hotels in Mumbai.

Thanks for reading! Wish you better luck while traveling!!