Ambassador resort - avoid it. Review on Ambassador Resort, Manali

Hello friends,

It pains me to review negatively about something, but if its something that I believe will help my fellow members in ms, I think I need to do it. The topic in question is Ambassador resorts in Manali. Here is my review of the hotel.

Me and my wife were planning to visit Manali in the beginning of March and having a little extra money to spend, we planned to stay at the best hotel in Manali and started our hotel hunt. I have always believed that the standard comforts that all the good quality hotels provide vis a vis air conditioned rooms, great bathrooms, room service etc remain more or less on the same level. And certain hotels charge you more because they are a little more spacious.

I was keen to avoid hotels of that kind. I do not mind spending money on a good hotel, but ''good'' for me stands for location. I feel its better to pay more for a hotel which is in a novel setting than to pay the same amount for a ''building'' hotel. So keeping these parameters in mind, I started browsing through web sites for a nice hotel to find. Being in the United States, I did not get to talk to an Indian travel agent and hence have had to use the net to gather information.

So finally we looked at all the major travel websites for india and firmed up on our plans to choose the Ambassador because it was set in a novel setting, had great views and looked a posh place to stay for a few days. We proceeded to make a booking and arrived in Manali. However just as we entered the reception area, we noticed to our dismay that they had a welcome board for some student group. Before we checked in, I made it a point to ask him if he had student groups in the hotel. If they did, I meant to find another hotel, because we were on a honeymoon and were paying a premium for a quality vacation. However, the receptionist told me that they were checking out the next morning and so I proceeded to confirm my four day stay at the hotel. Little did I know that this was the beginning of our travails.

The check in process itself was smooth and we were quickly ushered into our room. We had booked a ''balcony room'' which cost us about 10.5k for 3 n and this was in the off season !! The room itself, made a pretty decent first impression. The view from the balcony was very nice and the bathrooms were pretty good.

Then we proceeded down to have our first meal at the hotel. It was a decent restaurant and even though they mention in the brochure that there will be a buffet for a meal in the package , during offseason, the orders are taken a la carte. However quite a few conditions apply. You can only choose one non veg item and so on and so forth. The bottom line is the menu is so trimmed down that you will not feel like eating anything after two to three meals.

We finished our meal and got back to our hotel room and proceeded to make plans for sight seeing the next day.This is the first time we have been there for any length of time in our hotel room and in about 45 minutes time, we know the names of every kid who is there in the wing of our hotel. And all this , sitting in our hotel room !! Thats how loud the kids were ! Suddenly the door bell rings, this was at 10.30 pm , mind you.

We try to see who it is and find that theres no one at the door. This is the beginning. Through out the night, till 12:30 we had students knocking on the doors, giving us blank calls and we could hear sounds of running footsteps right infront of the door. I immediately called up the reception to give them a piece of my mind, only to be told that ours was the only room on that floor that was not occupied by the students from the group. And consequently the students thought that it was a room occupied by some of their friends.

Boy, were we having some holiday! Next day at breakfast, I call the manager and the receptionist and tell them in plain words, that either the students go or I am out. They moved me to a different floor, and thankfully there was no one out there. We went out for sight seeing and by the time we returned, to our horror we discovered that there were two more student groups in place of the one that left. And no matter how much the staff tried, they could not stop the incidents occuring above from repeating time and again. We were literally harassed and all this after paying a premium and checking into the costliest hotel in town. I found out later that this is a common case with this particular hotel and that it takes in groups of students regularly.

I understand completely that the student groups are great business, but my point is , if the hotel is almost full, do they need to be deceitful to customers coming in for a few rooms. Did they have to lie about the fact that there were to be no more students, to spoil my holiday ? I paid a premium for my room and still got my holiday jilted. This was pure harassment and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Is this the treatment given to people who live in the costliest hotel in town?? These were questions that they had no answers for .

The hotel had other features too like jacuzzi, gym, a squash court etc. But we could not avail of any because it was always full with students. We had an opportunity to use a jacuzzi and it was again an unforgettable experience for all the wrong reasons. The setting of the jacuzzi is in the basement and its one of the inner most rooms. We used it for just 15 mins and at the end of it, we were both gasping for breath. It was set at a wrong speed and there was no air available to breathe. Because of my experience with respect to jacuzzis, I managed to control myself, but my wife had to puke twice to come back to normality. Anyone who is going to use a jacuzzi here, be warned ! You lock yourself inside a couple of doors and there is no way you can make it outside safely if you havent had experienced jacuzzis already. And do not use it for more than 10 mins. You will be gasping by then !!

The food at the hotel was average. The breakfast buffet gets the least rating because the food is tasteless and if you are a little late, the tastiest items are all gone. The dinner is better , but again you can only choose from a few limited items and only a few items are nice. If you want to order anything out of the package, the prices are ridiculously expensive. 'ONe

Based on my personal experience in Indian hotels, I would point to the following conclusions

1. If you have money to spend, only trust the oberois and tajs for five star comfort. The others are simply not worth the price, unless they are managed by some chains.

   
   




2. With respect to Ambassador, do not book a package and get stuck there. If you want to try it out, take it for a day and increase your booking day by day, You never know when that place will be swarmed by group bookings.

   
   

3, Have a taxi in hand, you will not get anything to eat unless you do, because it is far removed from the mall.

I normally refrain from writing a negative article because it is just negative energy, However for most people Manali is a honeymoon option. An experience that they will remember for a lifetime. And I could not let them go misguided to this resort and have bad experiences. And this is the reason why I had to pen this review.

take care

aravind