Hi! From the pros and cons section you probably would have understood that I’m somewhat happy with this hotel, however here it goes.
I was planning for Ooty since four months from the day of travel(3rd Oct – A tourist season at Ooty). The room rates of most of the hotels were rocketing high by then and most of them did not have any vacant rooms. So I was left with only few of them among which, Glanton Manor was one. To note I was planning for a trip with my entire family and in laws(9 pacs) and was certainly interested in a hotel where I do not have to slog for a pleasant stay, on a vacation. After going through all the reviews and price comparison, I boiled down to Glanton Manor. Certainly the reviews posted on mouth shut were de-motivating me, but by virtue of having an appetite for risk, I stuck to Glanton Manor. Frankly there were not many options within the city limits and well within my budget of Rs 2000 per night. Well let’s get to the point.
Overall ambience: Certainly the reception is awesome and so is the overall ambience of the hotel(pictures loaded). Couple of halls, for large groups to organize their functions. Wooden work pretty much every where. Separate veg and non-veg restaurants. There is ample parking space at the backyard for tourists with taxi or personal vehicle. Do we need anything else on a vacation?
Guest services: There are room service boys on every floor with one attendant to respond to your requirement. Sufficient enough! On most occations they are pretty prompt. We ordered hot drinking water at night 11:30 and it was there in 5 mins. Fresh towels and toiletries placed every morning. The bed sheets and the pillow covers weren’t that clean though. Rooms cleaned on request. And above all the service boys do not stand and stare at you for a tip on every visit. I hope you got it, how irritating it is.
Rooms: We actually booked Deluxe rooms(@ 1250+ tax) however when we checked in, they asked us to stay in a Super deluxe room(@ 1800+ tax) for the night of 3rd’Oct, as they had given our rooms to other tourists. It was on our favour as we had to pay only for the deluxe rooms. Certainly the room was amazing, maple wood floors, wall mounted lcd panel, lovely beds and a cute two seater coffee table near the balcony, which faces the main road. Quite impressive! However the next day, before we went for the site seeing, we asked the manager to move our luggage to the deluxe rooms. Who wants to spend more for hotel, on a vacation, unless you are on a honeymoon? J The deluxe rooms weren’t bad either. The things missing were hot water running for 24 hrs, the balcony and a TV(remote does not work J) instead of a LCD panel. Deluxe rooms receive hot water in the morning from 7 to 9. To note that the hotel does not have air conditioning. The explanation given by the Manager was ‘the entire city is air-conditioned’, which certainly holds good, however on winter nights you would need some conditioning to heat up. To note, in Ooty almost all hotels charge Rs 1200 to Rs 2000 for non a/c rooms. I think that’s somewhat on the higher side.
==Food: ==This is the pathetic aspect in the entire hotel. We reached Ooty at 22:30 and for sure everything was closed. So while we checked-in, we quickly ordered the dinner from the restaurant downstairs. There are actually two separate ones for Veg and non veg. The look and feel of the place is good but the food was pathetic. We got similar prepared vegetables as two different dishes, offcourse one of them was slightly reddish in color J Not to forget the price charged was the most expensive dinner of our entire stay in Ooty. 4 bottles of water Rs 120…phew! You get fried chicken with some raw chilly used as garnishing named ‘Chilly Chicken’. We did not dare to have any other meal in that hotel during our four day stay.
NOTE: In general do not experiment with food while you are in Ooty. Chances are you will be disappointed. Couple of tested places for food are Hotel Blue hill, Hotel Nahara and Spice hut, all of them at charing cross. You also get lovely Veg thali’s and Shabarma at the Charing cross.
Overall: I don’t think the reviews posted on MouthShut_Official hold good for this hotel. This is an average-above average hotel, which deserves a better rating. Three stars from me. There is a lovely leather store on the ground floor. Check it out. Certainly you will not get leather goods that cheap in Bangalore(Shoppers stop or other malls). Also the collection is pretty good.