I had the privilege of staying at one of the most expensive hotels of Hyderabad viz. The Taj Residency - room number 315 - for 15 days. This stay was the initial temporary accomodation provided by my company.
The hotel was fully booked at that time, and all rooms were occupied by people like me, who had just joined different software companies of Hyderabad, and had been put up in that hotel as 2 weeks temporary accomodation by their respective companies.
Everything was perfectly fine for the first 1-2 days. But, then I got the chance to see the real picture.
It is a plain fact that even such "high class" hotels have pathetic service when all rooms are booked.
Here goes my experience.
- One desk lamp and one side-lamp were not working at all right from Day 0 of my stay. I could clearly see that the bulbs were blown up. I complained about this at least 5 times during my stay, but till the time of my checking out, the bulbs were not replaced. (To lodge a complaint, all you have to do is to write it on a form present in the room, and hang that form by the door handle outside the room.)
So, it takes more than 15 days for Taj Residency to replace 2 bulbs !! :-)
*Performance in terms of bulb replacement (or maintenance to be more generalized) = 0%
- Every hotel has staff to clean your room everyday, and to remove all trash from the dustbins. But, through out my stay of 15 days, there were at least 6 days when my room was not cleaned at all. The trash - mainly chips wrappers lay there in the dustbin !!
Cleanliness score = 9/15 = 60%
- They were supposed to provide fresh fruits everyday in the room - what they call as "morning service". But, I didn’t recieve "morning service" for at least 7 days out of 15. Complaining to their room service was absolutely useless. You will always hear the same reply - "We are extremely sorry for that Sir. It will be donw within a few minutes". But, those few minutes would turn to 1 day or 2 !!
*Morning service score = 8/15 = 53.33%
- Laundry service - highly overpriced - e.g. charges for washing and pressing of a shirt = 145/-
But, if you look at the promtness - it is again a failure. They are supposed to deliver your laundry within 24 hours (if there are too many clothes, it takes 24 hours - but if there are reasonably few clothes, then the laundry collected in the morning is to be delivered by evening on the same day.)
In my case, I used the laundry 5 times. My laundry never exceeded 2 shirts+2 jeans. Still, there were 2 occasions when my laundry was delivered to me not in 24 hours, but in 48 hours !!!!!
Laundry score = 50%
- Food - It is ok, but heavily overpriced - probably the "high class" effect. But, the service was really good. I never had to wait more than 20-30 minutes for food. This is one area where they are really good. I would rate them 80% in terms of food. :-)
Finally the bottom-line is :-
Overall a good hotel, but services are not at all upto-the-mark when the hotel is fully booked. So, if you have enough money to throw away, and don’t mind so many lapses in services, then Taj Residency is not a bad choice.