Balaji Ragothaman

Review of The Grand Ashok Hotel

Started with a trouble. Poor bookinh/ check-in exp...

Started with a trouble. Poor bookinh/ check-in experience. However the hotel and stay were very nice.

I travelled with family and kids from Coimbatore to Tanjore by car. I booked this hotel through the own website 1 day prior to my travel to Tanjore. It showed availability of 2 Deluxe rooms for the dates and I booked. I did not know that they will need to confirm this as they have some sort of backofficr that takes care of onlne bookings and the hotel itself doesnt get payment until they confirm to backoffice.
They sent the cancellation notice due to unavaiability of rooms just 1 hr prior to check in by which time I was almost reaching Tanjore. When we reached and checked in the receptionist said its not confirmed so we cannot allot any as its fully booked. After arguements and some time luckily she got a call that 2 rooms booking by someone were cancelled. So they offered us the same. While all this happened we have seen other guests also facing similar problems.
I gave them a feedback that they should figure out their internal back officr communication problem and fix their website so it doesnt allow us to book if there is no availability.

Room & Cleaniness: Absolutely fantastic rooms, clean bed, bedsheets, towels, toiltet. This hotel is just 8 months old so you kind of can enjoy the new rooms. Hope they maintain well

Location: its just about 7 kms away from the brahadeeswara temple. If you are traveling fr
Cbe this is just before you enter the Tanjore city limits. So conviniently located away from crowds and congestion

Restaurant: they dont have a Kitchen of their own. The building has Junior Kuppanna and Adyar Ananda Bhavan attached. So they use their services for room service. Because this is located on the highway, the restaurants are pretty crowded right from morning. The AAB is pathetic and unclean and poor service. Yet it attracts crowd due to the location.

Besides the check in trouble we had a wonderful stay in this hotel. Next time we will double check and confirm our booming before We go.

NOTE: THEY HAVE NOT YET REFUNDED ME FOR THE INITIAL BOOKING MADE AND THEY CANCELLED DUE TO UNAVAILABILITY. i have followed up after 2 weeks and there has been no response yet. I guess I need to make some calls and do some arguements to get my money back.