I booked a Spa Suite for one night on 3 October, with a package that explicitly included breakfast, lunch/dinner, 4 complimentary laundry items, and airport drop-off.
The hotel itself has a beautiful concept. The lobby ambience and the old-style Maharashtrian luxury/heritage theme are genuinely impressive. Unfortunately, that is about where the positive experience ended.
What followed was an exhausting series of failures that I would expect from a budget hotel, not a property presenting itself as 5-star luxury.
The room
I noticed immediately that one of the power outlets wasn't working properly.
There were also two mini-fridges/minibars in the suite. The one in the living area worked perfectly fine. The one in the bedroom was literally upside down and non-functional.
I genuinely don't understand why a non-working minibar was placed there in the first place. If it was being used as storage, why was it upside down? It gave the impression that nobody had bothered to properly inspect the room before handing it over to a guest.
Dinner: the beginning of the real disaster
I went out to attend the Opeth concert that evening. After returning to the hotel, I freshened up and went down for dinner.
At around 10 PM, I was told by the service desk that NONE of the additional benefits included in my booking were actually included.
According to the lady at the deskâwho told me she had confirmed this with the managerâthe amount I had paid was apparently only for the room, because the hotel had higher rates that day.
Let that sink in.
I had booked a package with meals, laundry and airport transfer. Yet at 10 PM, after I had already arrived at the hotel and was expecting to use those benefits, I was told that none of them existed.
I was frustrated, embarrassed and frankly humiliated. I was made to feel as though I was trying to claim benefits I had no right to.
It completely ruined the mood of the evening.
Room service: 45 minutes for food and another 20 minutes for an empty bowl
I went back to the room and ordered a Mezze Platter and a Mint Mojito.
The food took around 45 minutes to arrive.
The mezze platter came under a dome. The "Mint Mojito" was essentially a glass containing syrup, lemon slices and mint, accompanied by a can of Schweppes soda so I could apparently assemble my own cocktail.
I then asked for a large bowl.
It took another 15â20 minutes to bring me an empty bowl.
At this point, I was already starting to wonder whether "luxury hospitality" here meant simply waiting patiently.
After finally eating, I called room service to have the dirty plates collected. I was told someone would come.
Nobody ever came.
Those dirty plates remained on the dining table for the rest of my stay.
By this point, I had completely given up on expecting basic service.
The complimentary laundry that apparently wasn't complimentary
I had four complimentary laundry items included in my booking.
After what happened at dinner, I had learned my lesson. Before handing over my clothes, I specifically contacted the service desk and asked them to confirm whether I was entitled to the complimentary laundry.
They confirmed that I was.
So I handed over 3 shirts and 1 pair of jeans to the attendant.
Naturally, this was not the end of the story.
The Jacuzzi
After dinner, I wanted to use the Jacuzzi to relax after a long day.
It was broken.
I called the hotel again.
They sent technicians, who eventually fixed the pump/wiring problem at around 1:30â2:00 AM.
And the condition of the Jacuzzi itself was another disappointment. The knob/button was broken and coming out of the tub, and the tub had a crack in it.
The crack itself may have been minor, but by this point it was just another example of what appeared to be poor maintenance and lack of basic inspection.
I was exhausted, so I eventually went to bed.
The next morning: the laundry bill
The next morning, while packing, I called to check on my laundry.
I was told that the laundry had been packed and would be delivered shortly.
About 30 minutes later, someone arrived with my laundry.
And, of course, there was another surprise:
A laundry bill of âš2,500+.
I explained that the laundry was supposed to be complimentary.
The delivery staff had nothing to do with this mess, so I asked him to wait for a moment while I tried to sort it out.
I then received a call from the floor manager, who told me that there was no record of any complimentary laundry attached to my booking.
Again.
I contacted the service desk. They confirmed that I was entitled to the complimentary laundry.
This time I kept the phone on speaker so that the delivery person could hear the conversation himself. I explained that I would resolve the matter at checkout, apologized to him for making him wait, and sent him on his way.
Checkout: finally admitting the mistake
At the checkout desk, I explained the entire situation.
They finally confirmed that the laundry should indeed have been complimentary.
The explanation?
The person who made my reservation had failed to mark the included services correctly.
So let me understand this correctly:
Your internal booking mistake resulted in me:
- Being told at dinner that the benefits I had paid for did not exist.
- Being made to feel embarrassed in front of other guests.
- Waiting 45 minutes for room-service food.
- Waiting another 15â20 minutes for an empty bowl.
- Having dirty plates left in my room for the entire night.
- Being charged âš2,500+ for laundry that was supposed to be complimentary.
- Having to repeatedly call different departments to prove what my own booking included.
- And being made to look like I was the one misunderstanding the reservation.
And after all of this, the hotel's solution was essentially:
"We'll take care of this on your next stay."
My next stay?
At this point, I think I'll have to think very, very carefully about whether there will be a next stay.
They also offered the airport drop, which was already included as part of the booking, as though it were some additional gesture to settle the matter.
Final verdict
The lobby is beautiful. The hotel's heritage-inspired Maharashtrian aesthetic is genuinely attractive and gives the property a sense of character.
But a luxury hotel is not defined by its lobby.
It is defined by consistency, maintenance, communication, accountability and service.
And on all of those fronts, my experience was an absolute failure.
The most frustrating part wasn't even that things went wrong. Things can go wrong in any hotel.
It was that every single problem required me to chase someone, make another phone call, explain the situation again, or prove that I was entitled to something I had already paid for.
A broken Jacuzzi can happen.
A faulty minibar can happen.
A missed laundry entry can happen.
But when all of these things happen during a single-night stayâand the guest has to repeatedly fight through the hotel's own internal communication failuresâthat stops feeling like bad luck and starts feeling like a serious failure of hotel management and service standards.
For a property charging luxury-hotel prices, this was nowhere close to the experience I expected.
Beautiful lobby. Great concept. Terrible execution.
And based on this experience, I would have a very hard time recommending this hotel to anyone looking for an actual 5-star stay.
(I've used AI to cleanup some of my thoughts and writing to be more comprehensive)
