33 years old (in body if not mind), and living in Edinburgh. A keen interest in cycling, cars, spor...
33 years old (in body if not mind), and living in Edinburgh. A keen interest in cycling, cars, sport, design, writing and movies. And marzipan. Can't get enough of that stuff...
Member since:03.11.2003
Reviews:64
Members who trust:6
So you've spent two weeks travelling about the north of India, experiencing the Indian trains, and feeling utterly drained after early mornings, late nights, and nights you didn't sleep at all. What you really need for the last two nights of your stay is a hotel where you can relax. An oasis of calm. Somewhere you can retreat to after seeing the sights and fended off autorikshaw drivers.
What would be really bad would be, say, a room with no window, noisy aircon, in a smoking section, and a front desk that is as warm and friendly as a dead frog.
Guess whether we got good or bad...
Despite our guide explaining to the front desk our particular circumstance (with the room booked an extra night as our flight was at 3.30am, meaning we could have the room for the whole day and check out about 11pm) it took a good 20 minutes or more to get checked in. There followed no explanation at all of where the room was for breakfast, nothing about the services on offer.
Foreboding closed in further when lead down the 'Smoking' corridor to our room, with 207 unlocked for us. It wasn't until the guy taking our cases had left that we realised there wasn't a window. Or rather there was one, which was frosted, because it opened out into the corridor. The bedroom was at this 'front' bit, with a dingy dressing room and bathroom at the back (against the external wall). Claustrophobia strikes!
A visit to the front desk to find out about a business centre so we could check-in for our homeward flight (the centre was being renovated, I ended up sat at a computer in the back office) lead to us asking if they had any other rooms of the same standard, but with a window. "Actually most of our rooms have no window," and that was that. No offer of an upgrade (which we would gladly have paid for) and no checking to see if any of the tiny amount of rooms that actually did have windows were available.
It was certainly an invitation to spend more time away. I can nitpick further, however, despite the short amount of time we spent in the room. I've already mentioned the noisy aircon, but more worrying were plugs falling out of the walls, and a very VERY tired decoration. The bathroom in particular, with grout turning black, was horrible. And no decoration looks more tired than tired BROWN decoration.
It was all made more distressing given this was described as 'First Class Period' by our travel agency, and everywhere else we'd stayed lived up to the first class standards that were mentioned. Unfortunately past glories (it housed the architects of New Delhi when it was being designed and built) do not make for a good hotel in 2008.
Actually, I almost forgot about breakfast, with the haphazard place settings (tables missing specific items of cutlery, or cups, or napkins - we fetched our own cutlery off another table after sitting for five minutes) and the uninspiring choice of food rounded off this as a stay to forget.
Oh, and finally, with this being located in Old Delhi it can be a little difficult at times to get a taxi driver or autorikshaw driver to take you there - Old Delhi is horrifically congested at times.
Given we were their in high season the cheapest rooms start at around £140 a night (with a 12.5% 'luxury' tax to be added). Waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much.
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Wow, what a nightmare! And to have the nerve to not only charge an exorbitant £140 but a 'luxury tax' (what???) on top of that! I'm sure they never get return customers!
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