Dec 08, 2015 05:43 PM
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I visited Byke in the second week of November. The Byke experience was unpleasant. Byke proved to be a wrong choice. Our inconvenience started from Day 1. Due to extremely poor service and facilities, pleasure trip turned into struggle for basic living.
I agree that my review is lengthy, but I am merely narrating my experiences which were very critical and were enough to spoil the pleasure trip.
- Normally the people who come to pick up at the airport come with the name board in
hand. In our case, though the guy came to pick us up, he was without the name board. Identifying the guy was a big problem.
The car that came to pick up was non a/c contradictory to the promise.
When we reached the Byke resort, we had to wait for almost 45 to 50 minutes after the initial paper work in order to get into the room. They should have cleaned the room prior to our arrival.
Initially the rooms were not exactly in the neighborhood which the requirement was. It was done after some follow up.
One of the rooms was a Deluxe Suite. The Deluxe suite had no bolt on the inner side of the toilet door and hence could not be locked from inside. The person inside was at the mercy of the other members.
The gulley trap of the bathroom was without the strainer(jaali). The drain hole was open.
There was a broken tile with chipped corner in the toilet.
There was no health faucet(hand shower for toilet)in one of the rooms.
The main light in the bedroom was missing.
Sofa was broken.
There was no tea kettle and cups inside the Deluxe suite like other rooms.
The room which I was occupying had different problems.
There was no exhaust fan in the toilet. There was bare opening instead. Any person standing in the window of the upper floor of the opposite building could easily see inside the toilet through the bare opening. It also provided free access to the mosquitoes.
The outlet of the basin was dripping which caused unnecessary wetting of bathroom and unclean floor.
The wall paper inside the bedroom was torn off on both the sides.
The living room had balcony but it was too dusty. The table was carrying loads of dust as well.
My brother in law had occupied the room on the first floor. Right from the beginning the toilet of the room had foul smell… the obnoxious smell that usually comes from the septic tank. There was no exhaust fan in the toilet which even worsened the problem.
The service was extremely poor. Even if you order a single bottle of water, those guys would take 30 minutes or more even with follow ups.
When requested for glasses for drink, we were told by the person at the desk that it would take 45 minutes for them to deliver the glasses. So finally we walked ourselves to the counter and brought the glasses.
When requested for the ice, they plainly declined and told us that there was no ice and it could not be supplied. Our drinks were without ice.
But they served cold tea in the mornings for Rs. 52/- per cup.
They did not provide tea as requested by one of our rooms despite of several follow ups. But they had sent bill for the tea which they never provided. We off course contested, but what kind of service is this?
One of the most irritating things that Byke displayed was their linguistic discrimination. When requested for the Marathi channels to be displayed, the person at the customer service plainly denied for no reason. At the same time I could see other language channels while surfing the channels. We had to escalate to the Operations Manager to get the problem resolved.
Dinner was not very delicious. Fulkas were provided only to the Jains and non Jains were requested to proceed with the other section where there were rubbery rotis. I personally faced this when I was heading to get the Fulkas and an elderly gentleman refused and diverted me to the next section compelling me to eat the rubbery rotis. This is probably the most unpleasant thing to happen when you are hungry. Why would you not call it a discrimination?
Sightseeing was another painful experience. It set an example of unplanned tour. The Byke had arranged the bus at 2:00 PM in the afternoon on 14th November 2015. They refused to start early in the morning despite of several requests. They covered Ford Agwada first and then drove us to the Kalangut beach. However due to traffic jam, the driver dropped us at 2 km distance from the Kalangut beach. We had to walk 2 Kms to watch the huge crowd gathering at Kalangut beach. On the way back at night, the bus broke down and we had to change the bus. With all these hurdles we reached the hotel at 10:45 PM.
Water in the swimming pool was loaded with Chlorine, which has caused darkening of skin and peeling of skin.
Despite of all the service problems, they were very prompt to follow up for the check out.
During my stay at the hotel, I deposited the keys several times. I came across the questions “Sir… are you checking out?” two to three times. I don’t know if this happened out of innocence of the person at the counter, but if repeated few times, you get a feeling that they are excited to see you check out. This sounds highly unprofessional and unpleasant.
The Byke may not have direct control over it… but this happened during my stay at the Byke, hence I am sharing this incidence. While my brother in law was heading to his deluxe suite, he almost stepped on a small snake which was resting on the footstep of the suite. The gray colored snake almost 11-12 inches in length and vanished swiftly and we had a narrow escape.
When encountered with critical problems, we escalated them to Mr. Ronald Massey, the Operations Manager. I am thankful to him as he could help us resolve some of the critical issues. He showed wonderful approach towards us as customers. I still appreciate him for this.
However, a note of caution: Please avoid Byke if you want to really enjoy your trip. They are taking more people than what they can manage.
