Guest User
February 12, 2023
We stayed here for 3 nights with family. Travel time from bhubaneswar airport to the hotel is roughly 1 hr 20 min. The roads are good with less traffic. The hotel is on VIP road which is 18 km from Jagannath Temple. Check in was smooth. Checkin times are 8 am , but we reached well after 12.40 pm. There are 3 floors. There are no views from any of rooms, that ways it's quite a bit of disappointment. Anyways from VIP road the beaches are 1 km away, so it's difficult to get those views. This is not beach hotel but is closer to blue flag beach which is like a private beach. The entry fee to this beach is 20 rs for 3 hrs and 50 rs for multiple entries and all day validity. This beach has sitting area and quite a bit of walking space and a children area. The beach is super clean. There are no grocery shops nearby to the hotel, but small tea stalls etc. Room is compact and clean. It looks it's recently renovated. They provide 2 mineral bottle every day. Major thing missing is a locker esp given that if you visit Jaganath, one cannot carry wallet, mobile and other things inside the temple. We had requested for microwave, that was not available. Another issue is bathroom is always wet, as there is no ventilation for it to dry. But a ceiling fan is available. We faced 4 problems 1. The travel desk was the worst that i have seen. We booked cab for airport drop, the cab was delayed by 45 minutes and the travel desk had no control over the cab driver. Also, we had luggage and the cab that was sent was CNG cab, which means you cannot keep luggage at back. Solace was driver was good and car was clean. It spoiled our mood and the added anxiety of losing the flight. The issue is these guys are not customer centric. I would suggest to avoid the travel agency or keep one hour margin if booking with them. Their intent is to just earn money. 2. We were informed by the hotel staff (and not by reception) that they have a panda who does free darshan for hotel guest and we need not pay anything to them. We had good darshan with panda. But we were lied multiple times by Panda. He told us that we can pay for Pooja and the ***dir folks will do Pooja with our name. Whereas we knew that Pooja cannot be done in evening but he insisted that we pay at counter of ***dir and that he will arrange for providing the bhog and Pooja prasad to hotel in evening late. The Pooja prasad never came that day. In fact he didn't even call or inform. The next day we had to inform the reception twice and remind , then the Panda contacted us and the prasad was promised for afternoon. Again the same never came. The prasad, and it was not fresh came at night post 9 pm. The next day panda came twice to de***d dakshina which was supposed to be at our discretion. We found his behaviour very crafty and didn't like him de***ding money from us. 3. Housekeeping staff was slow and we had to call reception multiple times to remind. I think they have shortage of staff. We had to request f