Club Mahindra, Udaipur

After stopover in Jaipur we left for Udaipur where we were supposed to stay for 2 nights. We took a longer route via Chittorgarh and took longer the expected. Also, once we hit the border of Udaipur we took the bypass road as suggested by the GPS.

Unfortunately, the bypass is full of speed breakers and overloaded trucks go very slow over them so that they do not break their suspension. Hell yeah! It took us more than an hour to cover last 9-10KM stretch.

Finally we reached the mentioned property at 7:30PM. They have some planned activity everyday and the day we reached they had puppet show planned for the kids. So, immediately we unloaded the car and went for the puppet show which was enjoyed by our daughter.

This property is new addition to Club Mahindra property and some areas are still under renovation.
It looks majestic from outside and with all the lighting done up it looks amazing.

After our check in we were taken to our room. Oh! the horrible room, the most horrible room I have ever seen at Club Mahindra or anywhere for that matter. It looked like a cheap 800Rs a night hotel, except that the rooms were bigger. The room was not clean, it smelled of Guthka, cob webs around, torn and yellowish towels, stained toilet & toilet seat. Oh my god! I thought that our vacation trip is ruined. Well that is what they did. I wrote on tripadvisor and got a standard reply.

A few days ago I was browsing the latest reviews on tripadvisor and saw same complaints over and over again and same standard replies from the management. I think Club Mahindra should revoke their affiliation with them. It is not about apologizing. Because, of their attitude we lost on our vacation time. Can they compensate for that? Well no!

I wonder who are the people who are liking this resort! Have they never travelled? Or they do not care for their money. Club Mahindra per night cost works out to be 4500INR to 5500INR in which one can get a decent enough hotel of any reputed hotel chain.

Continuing my review, we asked for cleaning and the room even stank more as the cloth that the cleaner bought was dirtier. Yellow towels were replaced with slightly yellow towels! Yuck!

We thought there is nothing much we can do and will check out in the morning and will move into the nearest Taj property. Courageously, we went for our dinner which turned out to be okay. It was nothing special and was just average or below average. Next, day our rooms were changed and were slightly better. So we decided to stay back and move on to our next destination the next day.

Once or twice we thought of having a drink but couldn't as the Air Conditioning in that area was not working. It is the lobby / reception area where the bar is also located. Basically, for our entire stay the reception's air conditioning was off.

Next day we went to City Palace and saw couple of lakes and had few snacks and drinks outside at the Club Mahindra property, where we really enjoyed and felt like we were on vacation. City palace is amazing and worth visiting.

Finally, it was the day to check out we were so happy and overjoyed

In short,

Hotel - sucks

Kitchen - is average, room service quality of food pathetic and overpriced, they DO NOT accommodate change in orders or meal plans, etc. nicely and give you loads of attitude, same is with the waiting staff who do not understand your needs and can even as you to get up go on another table in middle of your meal for some stupid reason.

Swimming Pool - Dirty

Recreation Activities - Good. The only saving grace.

Overall, I would warn you from staying at this property and wasting your expensive holiday nights. It is just not worth the pain and effort. To this day I sulk not opting for Taj property in Udaipur.

I have never given such negative feedback to any hotel in my life hopefully Club Mahindra is listening!

Four Points by Sheraton, Jaipur

So we started our vacation by taking a stop over at Jaipur. We decided to break our journey to Udaipur because we were taking this second road trip with our one and half year old daughter. Normally we always have our daughter's grandparents with us and we were skeptical whether she would enjoy our company on such a long drive or not!

So on the decided day, we started late in afternoon. As I had some office work to wrap up and we did not want to rush. After all it is supposed to be a "vacation" :-)

On our way we stopped at Hotel Ramada, Neemrana for a fantastic fresh juice, pasta and burger!

Upon reaching Jaipur we took the bypass road and missed the exit which would have taken us directly to the hotel. So we had to take a detour which delayed us by half an hour.

The hotel is in middle of a busy locality. We were prepared for this, since we read a lot of reviews on the internet about the hotel being at the back of big bazaar. We were not so surprised.

Hotel has a separate entry and it is a part of a bigger commercial complex. Parking and check in was very smooth. The staff was very courteous and we were in our rooms in a jiffy. Our little one enjoyed the beds, the rooms were large enough and well maintained. We were too tired to go to the restaurant and planned to leave early for Udaipur next morning. Therefore, it was a quick dinner in the room - followed by a walk to swimming pool and recreation area. I would like to highlight that there is a special kids menu and is very handy to have.

Next, morning we had buffet breakfast. The spread was pretty standard and tasty - no complaints.

The big advantage of having big bazaar next door was that I was able to stock up on mineral water, formula milk for my daughter, few snacks and cold drinks. I somehow do not trust the roadside vendors on the highway and usually stock up these items. For me this was an amazing convenience to have and I was very happy that I was able to top up. This turned out to be even greater because the highway from Jaipur to Udaipur is pretty much deserted except for the toll plazas and the towns /  villages that come on the way.

There is absolutely no highway eateries which are decent enough. Especially, if you are spoilt with the food and choices you get on Delhi -> Chandigarh -> Shimla route.

That's it! It was a short stay at Four Points Sheraton, Jaipur. I would recommend this hotel if you are a business traveler,  frequent traveler to Jaipur or if you need a short one or two day stopover for your trip.

The staff is amazing, food is good, hotel is well maintained, the rooms are clean and super quite. There is absolutely no issues because of the main road.