Stay away from Hotel Rajesh, Mahabaleswar. Review on Hotel Rajesh, Mahableshwar

I had a bitter experience with my stay in Hotel Rajesh , Mahabaleswar. Please read. I planned my trip to Mahabaleswar on June 18th 2009 from Hyderabad. It was a sudden decision and did not get time to do research and book hotels before going there, which I generally do. I googled for top hotels in Mahabaleswar and noted some hotels like Dream Land , fountain etc.. Unfortunately all rooms were occupied in those hotels once I reached that place. So, I saw a board "Hotel Rajesh" and rushed my car into it.

Check-in :

The receptionist said that there is only one room available which is a non A/C Delux room. I have two kids, 5 years and 2 years old respectively. That guy said that the actual room rent is 2300 but I have to pay 800 extra per each night for children. I had stayed in many hotels including several five star hotels like Welcome, Taj groups etc at all over in India. Nowhere have I seen such rule. If everyone share the same bed then why should we pay extra? I started arguing with that guy but he said that it is the Hotel's rules so can not reduce the price.

He asked me how many nights. I said one night, but continue for another night if I like the hotel. He immediately responded like he can give the room only if I stay for two nights. Wierd!! Since it was already 9 p.m. and everyone tired, I did not have patience to look around for other hotels in Mahableswar. Also I thought that there is no point in staying for one night because the check-out time is 8 a.m. So I checked-in for two nights. The person working at the reception wasn't that polite. He was bit discourteous.

Room :

The room was very spacious with a huge balcony. . The toilet was very big It was in the second floor and no lift was available. The access to the room was very poor. We had to walk by stepping over some water pipes and uneven flooring. One can easily fall down if they do not observe the pipes laid on the floor.

The ambience of the room not up to the mark and it's not at par with the amount they have charged. It just had a very old 19 inches picture tube TV with poor channel quality, mediocre interiors. They provided additional beds for the kids which gave me some relief ( for which they charged 800 bucks extra ??!!!!???). The Balcony was very huge but we only had average view of some mountains and the nature. The nearby market, roads and the vehicles noise was more dominant than the nature.

Food :

So far so good!! After checking-in, we wanted to have dinner and called the room service. I was surprised to hear from the other side that there is no room service available and we have to go the restaurant which will be closed by 10 p.m. Weird!!! isn’t it? **Have you ever seen a hotel without a room service in your life? If not, you might want to experience it in Hotel Rajesh.

We decided to go to the restaurant after getting refreshed. We reached the restaurant at 10 p.m. and it’s almost closed. However they allowed us in, thank God!!. We wanted to have some light stuff but at that time only Tali was available. They charged Rs.180 for each plate. It was very expensive and also the items were not so tasty. The Rotis were hard to cut. Curries were salt-less and didn’t taste well. Vegetable fried rice too, was tasteless and so on. They also charged Rs.120 for small Tali for my eldest daughter. She hardly could have eaten anything from her plate.

The ice cream was so bad and I never had that type of flavor in my life. I'm not sure what it is but it tasted like some flavour of jack fruit or strawberry etc.. The cream was not coming out of the cup very easily and it was getting elasticized while taking out from the cup. It was like chewing gum.

In brief, food was expensive but worthless. We went out and had food in some other restaurants during our remaining stay in Mahabaleswar.

Room service:

Though there was no room service for food, there was for tea /coffee and some snacks. Thank God once again!! I ordered coffee couple of times. The service was quick and good. The coffee was reasonably OK.

Facilities:

I didn’t get time to explore their facilities. Except a small Kid’s park, I did not see their Gym and swimming pool. So can't comment anything.

Check-out and billing:

If you are a regular credit card user, then please make sure you go with enough cash to this Hotel. Oh god!! I never imagined a hotel without credit card machine in my life. I had to go to nearest ATM to pay by cash. The food expenses were not included in the final bill due to VAT problems. So, the Hotel management not only is cheating the customers but also the Govt of India. While checking out I have asked the receptionist if there is any review form available so that I can give my feedback. He rashly replied with a big “NO” and gave me a business card by saying “If you have any complaints, you can send an email”.

Finally, there were no “Thank you” or “Visit again” words came out the staff's mouths sitting there.

Overall :

Good: Big room with spacious toilet and huge balcony. Easy access to the market and other outside restaurants. Fast room service for drinks.

Bad: Not value for money. Not a hotel for pleasant stay due to improper staff’s behavior, below average food. No room service except drinks . Not a great view of nature. The blankets smelled. No credit card payment facility. No transparency in billing. If you are a person who cares value for money then please stay away from this hotel.