We decided for our Honeymoon in Goa in August, so we were looking at the best 5 star resorts in Goa. The main resorts that were for comparison were
Taj resorts:**The service of taj is the best and they are known for best hotels in India. But the rooms are quite smaller just 340 sqft.so this was eliminated.
park hyatt:The property looks amazing from the web site.Rates are very costly so it was eliminated.This would have been our next choice.
international grand: Too far and the equipment level in the room did not satisfy me.*
Leela Goa: This was the chosen, because the rooms were newly renovated and were 680sq ft with Lagoon view.continue.
Arrival: We arrived by train to Madagaon station. The train was 2 hrs late, but a driver with Leela board was standing in the station entrance.I was expecting some indica or ambassador since we were only two. But to my amazement there was a Nissan X trail car waiting for us. It made us smile and, there was mineral water kept in the car and it surely helped us.
Goa is full of greenary and so the journey was very green and the houses were coloured very bright.It was special after escaping from the pollution of chennai city.
Welcome @ Lobby:Ladies greeted us with flower garlands and coconut water. The lobby was huge and beautiful with water at its sides, it was sound of nature right from beginning of the resort.
Check in:The check in was very fast and room no was allotted. Normally they take us to the room by Golf carts (buggie’s).But our room was near the Lobby so we could walk in there.*
The Room:**This is the best part and the best highlight. The room was huge 680 sqft. it had a seperate sitting and dining area. It had two 40" plasmas, one in the room and one in the dining room/ sitting area.
The room was on a lagoon, from the sitting area there was a big glass top to bottom, from which we could see the lagoon, it gave us a feeling as if we were floating on a boat.This view from the room outside was very beautiful and eye soothing.
The lightings were at its best, all indirect lightings with so many types of settings, all were very good for photo shooting.King bed was huge.Apart from these there was a DVD player, fridge, cofee maker......The bathroom was semi tansparent (20:80), every thing spelled quality.Though the resort was breathtaking, we always wanted to be in the room it was too good.
The Resort:The resort is spread accross 75 acres.Full green, swimming pools and golf course. The beach is neat and clean. We went to the beach in the afternoon with no one in our site at all.We could get lost between the pink villas that had litle bridges and small rivers flowing beneath. We could also borrow a cycle and drive through the whole resort, or call a buggy, or walk, we did all of them.It took us 2 days to know the whole place.
It has a game area which turned in Disk at the night, there was a DJ playing with no one dancing when we went, we sat for a while and returned.The climate was good used to drizzle a bit in day time.We can take cds/dvds from the lobby for free to view movies.
The Package:We had taken the Bed and breakfast offer. it costs us 6800 Rs a day on an average including breakfast.The rates in sat and sunday was 1000 rs more.There were many resturants in the resorts, we had breakfast at The cafe.apart from that there was Italian resturant Riverside and indian resturant Jamavar.
We used to go for breakfast by 10 am and have it heavy so that you can skip the lunch or have it outside.food and everything is very costly in the resort, for example a small dosa was 350 + taxes.One day we had buffet dinner it costs us 1500 but it wasnt too great to talk about.
Service:The service was professional and excellent. we didnt request anything unusual to know better about this. It reflects by the way the property is maintained.
Taxi:Very costly if you want to use Leela vehcle. The taxi outside leela is also costly, to save 500 to 1000 you can walk till holiday inn resort which is just 200meteres to get a taxi.we hired a bike for 1/2 day and for the other day a car for full sight seeing.hiring bike and driving in an unknown place was romantic.But all the days we were in Leela we enjoyed a lot.
This is surely one of the best resorts of Goa and may be in india.