We were a group of about 6 friends who decided we want to spend a relaxed weekend at Masinagudi. We were in touch with them from about a week earlier and they knew what to expect. The manager of the resort gave us assurance that he will provide us the best possible stay and the least expectation we had from a paid accommodation was extremely basic. Water, food on time, electricity for a good part of the day (power cuts were expected and acceptable) and respect for the customer... none of which we got!!
We reached around 10 AM on Saturday. The room was not ready and we had to wait for about 30 mins for that. In the meantime we asked for tea and biscuits (which eventually reached us at 1230) There was no water in either of the rooms allotted to us and we had to wait for over an hour to even freshen up!!
Lunch was then served at 1. A bad meal of chapattis (which was enough to serve about half the group) salt-less sambhar (when Rasam was also promised) oily papads.
We had made a specific request to them that we needed one dish without onion and garlic and the same was promptly forgotten, We had to go stand outside the kitchen as the Dal was being prepared with a plate in hand to get the same. We had to pay 250 rupees for the same, when the rate mentioned on the website was 200.
We had spoken to them about what we wanted for dinner and snacks over bonfire. We had a couple of vegetarians in the group and wanted a couple of vegetarian snacks! We had to pick up cauliflower for them on our way back from a visit to a nearby reservoir and then they made us some manchurian (which was just gobi pakoda deep fried in some highly colored flour) And then charged up 200 rupees for it!!
It was late evening when we returned back and it was raining heavily. And then we were asked to move rooms in that rain as there was an electricity problem in the room.. And then the room which had electricity had an non functional fan in it!! Dinner which was supposed to be vegetable pulao was a sad excuse for the dish and the promised soup never reached us!
The plan next morning was to drive up to Ooty for the sun rise.. only to be greeted by a bathroom with no water.. countless calls to the resort manager Brian for close to an hour went unanswered. A bunch of us had to use a nearby stream to complete morning activities! And then we were finally able to reach him he gave us random excuses about how the motor couldn’t be put on early in the morning due to various reasons.. it was like he was doing us a favor for giving us running water in the taps!..
Our sun rise plans already tossed aside, we did drive up to Ooty and return around lunch time... we had to use the bathrooms to freshen up and leave to enter a bunch of clogged bathrooms!!
The final dhamaka for us was when we received the bill!! Exorbitant amounts on everything and no sign of Brian, the manager! When we called him to talk about it, his phone was continuously not reachable for a really long time! When we finally spoke to him, he was extremely rude, had o courtesy that is a must in the hospitality business and no patience to even listen to what we had to say! On the other hand, he started screaming at us and accusing us of wasting water and how had never promised 5* facilities to us!
All in all, It was a nightmarish experience and I would never recommend this place to anyone I know or don’t even know!!