Raunak Gokhale

Review of Taj Malabar

I have stayed at this property for 3 nights. My re...

I have stayed at this property for 3 nights. My review is basis my experience during the stay. Also please note that my review takes into consideration the fact that the hotel is operating with limited staff during COVID times.

Location (4/5)

The property is located at Willingdon Island in Kochi. Located amongst the Cochin port it offers good views of backwater and the port terminal and prying ships.
The location is very clean and part of the British Era. The roads surrounding the property are clean and away from traffic. The property is also very close to the ferry terminal and you can easily use a ferry to go to other islands.

Property / Room & cleanliness(2/5)

The property is well maintained in terms of the foyer, reception and restaurants but the other areas unfortunately are not maintained so well. The rooms need renovation with apparent deterioration being so close to water. The marble in the bathrooms is full of moth and the leaking taps add to that. The cane beds need to be changed ASAP (though the mattress is very comfortable). I Think the Taj staff has forgotten the cleanliness protocols post the COVID break. Common areas like lawns (littered with garbage from the wedding party) smoking zones littered with used butts and plant thrash are few examples. I wonder they have even bothered to clean below the bed as it was full of hair and dirt. (some of us still has the childhood habit of looking below the bed).

The rooms are supposed to be cleaned unless I ask it otherwise. In my 3 night stay my room was only cleaned only when I reminded them to do so. On top of that post the cleaning , the staff forgot to place a hand towel and face towel. The toiletries were not refilled as well (ask staff to notice empty bottles in bathroom when they clean).

Please ensure there are two bathrobes and two bathroom slippers for a twin occupancy room. Other things like water glasses in room , tea cups , types of pillows in the room has to be uniform. These things are basics in hospitality industry.

Food and Service (1/5)

Food is nothing to write about. The breakfast spread was so disappointing that we decided to skip all other meals. The sambhar was tasteless, the bakery section was really bad. Only thing good here was the fruit juice.

I faced an issue while checking in. Even while I was checking in at 6 pm in the evening my room was not ready. I came to this hotel after a 6 hour log drive on a busy Thiruvananthapuram- Kochi highway and had to wait almost 30-40 mins for my room. Wonder what would have happened had I turned up early.

Your apologies and a free coffee (after a hopeless wait in the lobby for over 15 mins ) doesn t serve the purpose.

Others

I feel Taj has some real issues with people booking via booking.com. Either you take my card details at time of checkin or wait till I checkout. But calling me one night prior to my checkout at 9pm in the night and asking me to settle the bill (giving me a lame excuse that cashier won t be there at 7:30 am) is totally unacceptable. Additionally bigger disappointment was to discover that the access to the room was locked (I guess solely because they were waiting me to settle my bill and wanted me to turn up to reception) . In my years of experience of stay at hotels in India and abroad this has never happened to me.

COVID management (1/5)

The room status clearly indicated that the room given to me has been used by a guest prior to me. All other chains are following a strict 24 hour gap protocol and not taking in back to back guests in same room. I understand the hospitality industry is going through a bad phase but please don t overbook so much that guests literally convert your breakfast restaurants into a Mumbai Local railway station. Additionally your staff is also not able to manage so many guests. Worst part was to run at almost 100% occupany and still let out the property for a wedding function. That just increases the risk of the spread so much.

Overall rating (1/5)
Overall I would not recommend this property to anyone.