During my recent visit to the city of Mysore for sight-seeing, I had to pick up this hotel for stay as a last minute option. I did not do any prior reservation thinking there are plenty of hotels/lodgings available in the city and I would find one very easily. However, it came to us as a big jolt that all the places that we inquired claimed to be full.
It was wrong time of the year that we chose to travel probably, accompanied by a long Christmas holiday weekend.
After roaming for a while in hunt of an accommodation, a rick guy took me to this, Golden Rays hotel. From the look of it, I did not wanted to book the same but there were hardly any alternatives left. While I was waiting at the counter, still undecided, I could see other customers, paying what is being asked and booking rooms and I did not wanted to be left out hunting for other options - so went ahead and booked it.
Price: I am coming to the price part of it right at the start of the review because the tourist city had adopted policy of ’Make hay while the sun shines’. Everybody was into making money while the city was brimming with tourists for the weekend.The hotel was charging 3000/-(plus taxes of 450/-) for a twin-room - that was a whopping big amount as the rooms were not worth it - not at all!
Only good parts were - 24 hrs check-in/out. Additional bed was charged at Rs.400 but the hotel did not have a problem for additional 2 members and a kid to stay in the same room.
Location: Unlike it’s name, there were no golden sun-rays that could reach the hotel, it was in one of the crowded lanes, near Sangam Theatre(which was the easier to locate by ricks since it was a well known place).
There was a tidy parking, where other guest’s cars were parked bumper-to-bumper and every time someone wanted to take their car out, the one either in front/back had to take out theirs - it was pain!
Rooms/Ambiance: Rooms are very small. We had ours on second floor, steep steps to climb. There was little walking space in the room with a double bed and a cupboard at the side. There was a TV, with missing remote control unit. The latch of the bathroom was broken and the hotel guys had no time to fix as they were very busy attending to the unexpected surge in the customer check-ins.
Basically, I just saw two people around - one on the counter who was a one-man show playing multiple roles, that of receptionist, hotel manager, parking attendant and so on. The other guy was a helping-hand, picking up customer luggage, attending to other room service calls.
They had promised hot water for bathing from morning 7 to about 10 AM, however by 8, the water had turned cold and after some hassles, they provided us 2 buckets of hot water.
Restaurant/Bar: I don’t know if they had a restaurant, but there was a menu card in the room and I saw they serving tea/coffee/meals etc in the rooms. There are many restaurants near-by hotel, where one can just walk and have a good meal.
Overall, this was no luxury stay, it was more of you pay but you also’do-it-yourself’ type accommodation. I do not know if such was the service only because of the crowded season or it’s the same throughout. I even mentioned to the guy on the counter that if this is the kind of service they would offer, it would be bad for the reputation of the hotel, he said, he understands but that is how the owners want to run it and there is little he can help the situation.