First the pros:
- Excellent estate, long walks, singing birds, beautiful flowers
- Sampath and his assistants, they are making the impossible possible - They are the reason this place is not shut down. Their commitment is the only reason because the management doesn't seem to care. If it weren't for Sampath and his relentless need to help customers, it would have been an unbearable 2 days for us.
- The management was kind enough to postpone my booking when I approached them with an unavoidable circumstance that was stopping me from travelling
- The management was kind enough to not charge us 600 INR for 2 coffees and a sandwich we ordered after the unhappiness I showed about the state of the sofas
The cons:
- The sofas were stained, the least the management can do is at least get the covers changed. Pale-coloured sofas with brown, disgusting stains
- There were cobwebs near door bolts
- The carpets and doormats looked dirty. Why keep old stuff to show off if you can't maintain them?
- A broken fan regulator set at high speed
- A leaking faucet in the bathroom, meaning we had to close the main supply off every time we used the washroom
- Un-ironed bathrobes
- A huge jacuzzi with luke warm water, back rests that fall off
- Old creamer satchets that were lumpy and we couldn't even make ourselves a cup of coffee
- No labels on the coffee and team jars, meaning we had to smell the jar every time to check if we opened the one with coffee bags or tea bags
- No spoons given to stir the coffee
- No intercom (why charge us so much money if for every little thing, I need to call you from my phone and if there is no network, we have to walk down to the main building for help or wait for the network to start working)
- No coffee except filter coffee available and being a South Indian I can distinguish between good and really bad coffee. I have had better coffee out of a vending machine
- We stayed 2 nights and hence had 2 breakfasts and 2 dinners. Except for dinner on our first night there, every meal was an ordeal. I was in Karnataka and I had to leave dosa uneaten, the idlis were hard as rocks and so were the vadas, tasteless chutneys. Why not employ a good chef?
- Over-priced room service with very few options. Also get a real menu please, not A4 printouts that are not even punched into a file.
- Supposedly great trails created by some world- renowned Italian mountaineer. That man may have done a good job but the management did nothing to keep the trails approachable. Except for the Yellow trail, none are accessible till someone from the establishment won't take you along. Overgrown bushes and hey, what about using more than a small can of paint to mark the trails? Try using some of the money you charge us to buy a fresh can and start repainting those trees with some directions.
Management - Utilize the skills that Sampath brings quietly to build customer experience. Right now all he does is mend it, thanks to lack of upkeep. Invest in a good chef, a well-bound menu, a few good sofas, a clean carpet, new doormats that are water absorbent, a plumber, some real lights on the pathways for people to walk at night to your open air restaurants.
Lastly, I will never go back to this much-hyped and utterly disappointing place. The only saving grace is nature and that was a gift to all of us. A Taj establishment would charge me 7000 INR and give me a FAR FAR better experience than what we had to go through by shelling out almost 17000 INR per night.
