Last time when we went for vacation around 4 years ago to North East, we felt the pinch of high outflow towards room tarriffs and thus our reluctance hence compulsion of compromising the comfort levels that we were quite used to, till then. For next 2 years, life remained busy to the hilt and we could not plan our vacation outside Mumbai.
By that time, we had fairly good idea of holiday resort club memberships like RCI etc and were aware of the concept to a reasonable level. I was going through an advertisement in newspaper of that of Club Mahindra membership and it did so happen that while pursuing the ad for mere gathering information, we got ourselves enrolled as member, 25 years one studio appartment membership, 15% down payment and balance in 36 EMIs, for a week’s holidays in any of their resort(15 properties in India) and affliation to RCI’s 3700 resorts all across the globe.
What tilted our decision to enrol with Club Mahindra was that as a family, we love roaming and there is always an anxiety to visit new places. Besides we got one palmtop free and food vouchers worth Rs. 10000/- and two weeks complimentary holiday at any of the RCI resorts, to be availed within first 2 years of the membership.
As we were on EMI and Club Mahindra’s rule of accepting first booking not before atleast 50% of the membership cost is paid up, we could book our first Club Mahindra resort only a year later i.e. post March 2007.
I must say booking experience was a delightful experience. I just had to quote my membership no. and dates of vacation, the person attending the call gave me all the options available for my class of membership across India and I picked up their resort at Goa, VARCA BEACH.
It is aorund 13 kms from Madgaon, last stop of our Volvo bus from Mumbai to Goa. Check in time is 2pm for the day. The entrance to their resort at Varca is wide and lush green. As we disembarked from our taxi, two uniformed persons from Club Mahindra took care of our baggage and we were given a very warm welcome at the reception by the club hostess. You just have to show the booking receipt and your membership card, balance check-in formalities are completed within 5 minutes. Enjoying our welcome drink, we glared around quite anxiously and the first impression was, we were really into a damn good place, folks! A big glee on our faces, my wife gave a pat to herself because she has a beautiful habit of taking credit for all good decisions and leave bad ones for me!
The room, a 400 sq ft longish room, with all comforts of life, was awaiting our arrival. Comfortable bedding, nice furniture and a separate eating / dish preparing marble counter supported by a microwave oven. The outside view jostled us enough not to take rest after long bus journey of 12 hours but to explore the resort in the first place and all 4 of us were out. There were two large umbrellas in each room, given by Club Mahindra, to take care of the rainy season that we were in.
Varca beach resort of Club Mahindra has 206 rooms. Its maximum occupancy exceeds 700 guests. At that time, in mid of Aug., there were around 300 guests in the resort. They have two swimming pools, a yoga and message centre, gym with two joggers and manned by an experienced trainer, on-pool bars, indoor activity hall housing a pool table, table tennis, carrom, card table, bar. They also would arrange different cultural activities in their ACTIVITY HALL at 7 pm daily, ensuring very active participation of the guests. Best part, however, was HAPPY HOURS at their BAR, for Rs 350/- per person, you can have as much drinks as you can including snacks from the tandoor! Man, now it was entirely upto us to enjoy!
They have two restaurants in the basement, one having buffet offering and the other serving to the order. They had meal plans for buffet and we got enrolled ourselves for the buffet. That was perhaps the wisest decision of our life. It turned out to be such a fantstic experience! No less than 3 helpings in each meal, each one of us put on 2-3 kg in 5 days’ stay despite the fact that we were quite regular to gym and walk arounds!
Be it veg or non-veg, food was excellent in quality, served hot and had all the variety. You like Indian, continental, chineese, south indian, north indian, you will get all and in as many quantity as you can stuff in. Feedback was immediate and action on any adverse feedback was more than immediate and you would be made aware of remedial action at their end. All of a sudden, for first time in life, I felt myself that important a customer!
The resort is on the bank of sea-beach, entry restricted to guests only. No eatables encouraged and hence very neat and clean and calm beach. We ran, ran and ran along the sandy shores till we got exhausted and intermittent rains would compel us to search for shelter away from beach. It was a wonderful experience of visiting a beach. No intrusions, no glares of on-lookers and no hawkers, you can’t imagine such scenario visiting anyother beach in India.
This was our 3rd trip to Goa and we were not very excited about sight seeing in Goa, moreover it was also raining. Hence but for one day, when we had detour of South Goa, we were in Club Mahindra resort only. By 5th day, it was time for us to leave. We had planned for 4 nights only and our return journey by train was awaiting us. In the heart of heart, each one of us was ruing the idea of not booking the resort for 7 days. Anyway, we had some of our happiest moments to fall back for many years to come!
All nice things said above, the most appealing feature of Club Mahindra resort was their staffs’ courtsey and helping smile that each one of them, irrespective of the cadre, would carry and greet us with an eagerness to make our stay with them as comfortable as possible.
That day, we decided to enjoy atleast a week’s vacation every year at one of the Club Mahindra’s resort and our next target is Munar or Coorg.