I had some bad comments and good ones in their website as the reviews, thought it could be one in thousand of chance. After all it is difficult to run a property like ’Villa Retreat’ which is worth the money we pay.
When I visited the website of Villa Retreat, I really liked they way presented themselves there. I wished they had presented themselves in their Hotel business too.
I saw the glitches during the booking process itself. Soon after I made the advance payment through their third party agent, I called them up for the confirmation. They said they need 24 hours to confirm the same. They took nearly 36 hours, 4-6 of my phone calls and couple of never-replied emails, to confirm that they have received the advance payment. I could clearly see the activeness from their people till made my mind to make the payment, which magically vanished soon after.
When we reached the hotel, we were given a room which was far off from what we were shown in the website -- after all you would never see torn carpets of the floor in those mesmerizing photos, you will not be able to see if the flush tank works normally. They promptly said ’Sorry for the inconvenience’.
I have stayed several hotels of different budget. I haven’t seen a 3-star (so called) hotel which provides its guests with the towels and bedspreads of white colours with prominent dirty stains on them. I will tell you an interesting incidence that happened during our stay there. I asked the house keeping lady to change the bedspread. She was quite obedient, she brought a new set of them. One of them had few stains on it. I asked her to change it, she went back and came with a pile of washed sheets. While I was standing without knowing whether to laugh or show my anger, she found it difficult to get a single bedspread without stain! And towels? Let me not comment on them. Thank god, we are used to use our own towels. They promptly said ’Sorry for the inconvinience’.
We had ordered some coffee and tea. That was just enough to judge how the food could have been. May be I was using my prejudice being judjemental here, but something says me I couldn’t have been wrong being so.
We stayed there for three days with several ’Sorry’ statements and lot of compromises. After all, we had gone there to spend some good time of our life. If we want peace in our vacation time, we should overlook some facts.
Third day afternoon, we were taking a nap, we heard unbearable hammering noise through the roof of the room we stayed in. I came to know that The Villa Retreat had started some construction of first floor and the plumbing work was going on. I did not find it acceptable in anyway. I complained it with the dumb staff, who had nothing else but the ’Sorry for the inconvinience’ aplenty. He said it is the plumbing repair work and we won’t get water that night if it was stopped! He wanted me to pay a 3-star hotel bill and travel all the way from Bangalore expecting a good time, and finally understand his problem and adjust to it, so that he continue his ’valuable service’ to us.
I had enough to take from that senseless piece of called Villa Retreat, but could really have not accepted that my vacation was "Screwed" just by walking out. I thought I could continue if he just stops that non-sense right away, so I said I would walk away if he didn’t stop that noise. He promptly said with no expression on his face - ’Your wish sir, we can not stop the work’.
Bottom line is that, since this was the off-season (3-4 days for Christmas) and we were the only occupent in whole of their property, our beloved ’Host’ wanted to take us for granted.
This made me walk out of that messy Hell called Villa Retreat. It’s a different story how I made the rest of my stay in Kodaikanal make up with this mistake of mine zeroing in on a place like this.
To clearly rate the Hotel with my own list of break-ups.
Room - interiors, furnishing, cleanliness, facility - poor.
Guest Service - worst.
Food (obviously with tea/coffee) poor.
Location - nearness to the places - good
Location - Scenic - Excellent.
Professionalism - pre/post-booking, reception
general communication - worst.
Value for money - poor.
My humble suggestion to all who plans to visit Kodai: If you have accommodation available only in ’Villa Retreat’ in the whole of Kodaikanal city, then consider staying at home.