I stayed in Jan 2021 for 1 night. Khem Villas is a reputed place in Ranthambore. I stayed in Villa room.
First the good things: The place is at a nice location, maintained very well. I took a brief walk in the property with naturalist Babu who is knowledgable and affable. They had allowed me to checkin early as I was reaching 10:30am. Since jaipur - delhi highway was blocked due to farmer protests, their manager went ahead to check with their cab agency for an alternate safe route. The villa room is spacious with lot of outdoor seating.
Now, the improvements/feedback:
I paid 28k including all meals for a night. In this tariff, on value for money parameter I will rate at 2-3 out of 10.
The outdoor seating in the villa is not really private as the other villa's guests can come in that area, rendering the outdoor seating less relevant. In one of the Villa, they have outdoor jacuuzi also which is also not private area since other villa's guest can come in. They can close that entrance very easily which I don't know why is not closed
The Villa with indoor bath tub - a small feedback though - pls provide the bubble bath in the toiletries
The property tries to maintain the eco friendly badge and they dont provide plastic water bottles etc which is of course good. The toiletries come in disposable plastic which...I stayed in Jan 2021 for 1 night. Khem Villas is a reputed place in Ranthambore. I stayed in Villa room.
First the good things: The place is at a nice location, maintained very well. I took a brief walk in the property with naturalist Babu who is knowledgable and affable. They had allowed me to checkin early as I was reaching 10:30am. Since jaipur - delhi highway was blocked due to farmer protests, their manager went ahead to check with their cab agency for an alternate safe route. The villa room is spacious with lot of outdoor seating.
Now, the improvements/feedback:
I paid 28k including all meals for a night. In this tariff, on value for money parameter I will rate at 2-3 out of 10.
The outdoor seating in the villa is not really private as the other villa's guests can come in that area, rendering the outdoor seating less relevant. In one of the Villa, they have outdoor jacuuzi also which is also not private area since other villa's guest can come in. They can close that entrance very easily which I don't know why is not closed
The Villa with indoor bath tub - a small feedback though - pls provide the bubble bath in the toiletries
The property tries to maintain the eco friendly badge and they dont provide plastic water bottles etc which is of course good. The toiletries come in disposable plastic which should also be done away with. They can provide in refillable bottles and if any guest specifically asks for disposable bottles for toiletries then only provide that.
They have extremely few wall sockets in the room making the charging extremely difficult. We had 2 phones, 1 mac, 1 camera, our son had drone. Kindly provide an extension board in the room. Not expensive at all.
There is no electric kettle in the room. Though they provide hot drinking water on request but how many times will I ask for it because they gave hot water in a regular bottle which will go cold in 10-15 min. Either they should by default provide hot water in the rooms in a thermal controlled bottle or provide an electric kettle.
For room heaters - they have hot and cold AC in the room. Hot and cold ACs are more effective at heating the room but in Ranthambore it is not bone chilling cold. One can easily manage with Oil heaters which are far more better as they don't change the humidity of the room. In winters, humidity is already low, hot and cold ACs reduce the humidity further.
Coming to the food where I have major concerns. Food quality in general left a LOT to be wanting. I would rate my lunch and dinner at 6/10 at the maximum.
We are Vegans and dont consume any refined oil etc. We had asked chef to keep anything they prepare separately without the frying etc. When we reached for the breakfast, they brought us the Sambhar which had vegetable separate and water separate. It was so horrible that I have no words for it. I called chef and requested him to taste a spoon. Chef didnt taste and he said: "sir other chef made it, its not good I know". Can you imagine the chef is saying this to me. Why are you even serving me if you made it bad. Then I requested him to make Paratha for us and I thought I will eat with peanut butter. To my surprise, they did not even have peanut butter. Peanut butter these days is available even in average hotels, let alone Khem Villa with a premium price tag.
Then I requested chef to make a green chutney for us with minimal/no chilli. The chutney came with water and greens not blended and when I tasted it had extremely high chilli that I could not even have second bite of it. I called chef again and this time F&B manager came and instead of accepting the fault (at least in case of sambhar they accepted they made it bad), he argued that may be the chilli was very sharp or something. They again got the chutney for us, this time without chilli but still the water and greens not blended. We were very hungry, so ate a Paratha and left the breakfast table.
This is the first time I had a bad experience after staying in a premium place. But its not to say that everything was bad.
I wish they make the necessary corrections. Of course I am not returning to Khem Villas again but I want them to improve on their standards. Their core (location, legacy, maintenance) is good but they have not focused on the details in many aspects which spoils the whole experience.More
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